Roy Ward Baker

Biography

Roy Ward Baker was an English film director born in London on 19 December 1916. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for best foreign English language film in 1959. His later career was varied, and included many horror films and television shows. Baker's early career, from 1934 to 1939, was spent working for Gainsborough Pictures, a British film production company based in Islington, North London, famous for its prestige productions. His first jobs were menial - making tea for crew members, for example - but by 1938 he had risen through the ranks to work as assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. He served in the army during World War II, until transferring to the Army Kinematograph Unit in 1943 in order to make better use of skills developed in his pre-war career producing documentaries and teaching materials for troops. One of his superiors at the time was novelist Eric Ambler. It was he who gave Baker his first big break directing The October Man, from an Ambler screenplay, in 1947. Ambler also adapted Walter Lord's A Night to Remember for Baker's 1958 screen version. During the early 1950s, Baker worked for three years in Ho…

Directed

1. A Night to Remember (1958) — Director
2. Quatermass and the Pit (1967) — Director
3. The Vampire Lovers (1970) — Director
4. Scars of Dracula (1970) — Director
5. Asylum (1972) — Director
6. Don't Bother to Knock (1952) — Director
7. The Vault of Horror (1973) — Director
8. The Avengers (1961) — Director
9. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) — Director
10. The Saint (1962) — Director
11. The Persuaders! (1971) — Director
12. The Monster Club (1981) — Director
13. Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) — Director
14. And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) — Director
15. The One That Got Away (1957) — Director
16. Inferno (1953) — Director
17. The Anniversary (1968) — Director
18. Moon Zero Two (1969) — Director
19. Minder (1979) — Director
20. The October Man (1947) — Director
21. The Champions (1968) — Director
22. Morning Departure (1950) — Director
23. The Singer Not the Song (1961) — Director
24. Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969) — Director
25. Department S (1969) — Director
26. The House in the Square (1951) — Director
27. The Masks of Death (1984) — Director
28. The Protectors (1972) — Director
29. Highly Dangerous (1950) — Director
30. Night Without Sleep (1952) — Director
31. Jason King (1971) — Director
32. The Fiction Makers (1968) — Director
33. Flame in the Streets (1961) — Director
34. Return of the Saint (1978) — Director
35. Read All About It (1945) — Director
36. Mission: Monte Carlo (1974) — Director
37. Tiger in the Smoke (1956) — Director
38. Danger UXB (1979) — Director
39. Passage Home (1955) — Director
40. The Baron (1966) — Director

Also appeared in

1. A History of Horror (2010) — Self
2. Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994) — Self
3. A Profile of Hitchcock: The Early Years (2000) — Self
4. Sodankylä Forever (2010) — Self
5. Von Werra (2002) — Self
6. The Saint Steps In... To Television (2008) — Himself
7. Hitchcock: Alfred the Great (1994) — Himself
8. Inside the Fear Factory (2003) — Himself
9. Fists of Fire (1975) — Self