Robert Baker (martial artist)

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Robert Baker was born in 1939c. in the USA. He is well known for playing Petrov in the Bruce Lee film The Chinese Connection He was given the role of Petrov which was a part originally intended for Bruce's assistant instructor in Oakland, James Yimm Lee. Due to illness, James was unable to play the part and so it was decided Baker would play it being the senior student at the Oakland school and a close friend of Bruce. He did not enjoy the spotlight and was a quiet reserved man. He acted a few other martial arts films such as Meng long guo jiang Shuang long gu and Machinegunner. After that, he disappeared from the film industry but appeared as himself in documentries of Bruce Lee.

Prior to his studies under James and Bruce Lee, Baker studied under Al Dasascos in Kajukenbo before beginning his studies at the Oakland school in the mid-1960's. Baker became a regular at the school which was renown for its hard core training attitude. He became a close friend of Bruce and James and was considered the most senior student for several years.

Whilst Bruce was working in Hong Kong, Baker stayed with the Lee family for several weeks attending events and interviews with Bruce Lee. Bruce described him half-jokingly as his body-guard.

Baker was devastated by first James Lee's early death (due to cancer) and shortly afterwards, Bruce's death.

He never opened a commercial school and only trained a handful of people over the next 20 years believing what he had been taught wasn't suitable for commercial style classes. He adherence to JKD principles was paramount and he disliked watered down variations of the art which he saw arising during the 1980's. One of his closest friends from the Oakland school was Howard Williams who still teaches small classes of Jeet Kune Do in the Oakland area close to where it was developed.

His students included Bruce Lee historian George Tan and UK instructor Roy Cullen. He also worked with Howard Williams and James Lee's son, Greglon.

Robert Baker died in 1993 due to cancer.