Tom Baker (American actor)

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Tom Baker
Born	August 28, 1940(1940-08-28)
Died	September 2, 1982 (aged 42)
Occupation	Film actor

For other persons named Tom Baker, see Tom Baker (disambiguation).

Tom Baker (August 28, 1940 – September 2, 1982) was an American actor who starred in the Andy Warhol movie I, A Man (1967). He was a known drug addict and alcoholic, and a close friend of Jim Morrison of The Doors. According to a 2004 biography of Morrison, he had agreed to appear in I, A Man opposite Nico, but the management of The Doors talked him out of it, saying it would be bad for Morrison's image to play a male hustler. Morrison then referred drinking buddy Baker to Warhol. One of his co-stars in the film was Valerie Solanas who later shot Warhol in his office at The Factory.

Baker started his career as a stage actor in New York City and assisted Norman Mailer in the stage adaptation of Mailer's novel The Deer Park. Once he moved to Hollywood he acted in a series of "B movies" but also continued to do stage work, directing the 1973 premiere of The Grabbing of the Fairy, a masque by Michael McClure.

He produced and directed his own film, Bongo Wolf's Revenge [1] in 1970. The cast included Severn Darden and P J Proby. A number of people from Jim Morrison's circle of friends worked on the production including Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro and music was provided by Mike Bloomfield and The Doors.

The relationship he had with Morrison and Morrison's long term girlfriend Pamela Courson was described in a memoir, "Blue Centre Light" and an extract was published in the magazine High Times in June, 1981. The stormy friendship between the three largely informed the play The Lizard King, written by Jay Jeff Jones, which was produced in Los Angeles in 1991.

His death due to a drug overdose in 1982 caused confusion in the media. British actor Tom Baker was more well-known at the time, due to his portrayal of the Doctor on the BBC programme Doctor Who, and was also a heavy drinker. Some publications mistakenly reported that the British actor had died.

Baker is portrayed by actor Michael Madsen in the Oliver Stone film The Doors (1991).

The singer, author and guerilla politican Kinky Friedman not only dedicated his novel Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola to his one time friend, but the plot of the book also features Baker's wake.