Carroll Baker

Carroll Baker (born May 28, 1931) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She began her career at the Actors Studio in New York City and appearing in Broadway productions before being cast in her iconic role as a waifish Southern bride in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956).

Life seems to be a never-ending series of survivals, doesn't it?
- Quoted in Balloon, Rachel. Breathing Life Into Your Characters (2003), p. 135

Joe Levine behaved like he owned me. My husband thought it was all terrific as long as I kept bringing in the money. I started objecting to everything, but it was too late. The sex-symbol image had already started. I turned down parts and they blacklisted me. The press attacked me viciously at every opportunity. I came very close to suicide.
- On her tumultuous relationship with producer Joe Levine, profile in the Los Angeles Times by Patricia Brennan (1987)

As I understand it, George Peppard later became a nice guy, a gentleman, but when we worked together back then, he was pretentious, egotistical, a brat, and an asshole—and that’s just for starters! He pretended he was seven years younger than he was; he even claimed to be a bachelor and denied he was married—in front of me (I knew better), he denied their existence. The role of Jonas Cord in The Carpetbaggers really went to his big head. He acquired delusions of grandeur—thought he was God’s gift to women and the movies! His attitude towards me was very bizarre—he acted as though we’d never met! Or that I had a husband!
- On co-star George Peppard, interview with Mike Fitzgerald, Western Clippings

[She plays the role with] a piteously flimsy little twist of juvenile greed, inhibitions, physical yearnings, common crudities and conceits.
- Bosley Crowther on Baker's performance in Baby Doll (1956), The New York Times (December 19, 1956)

Encyclopedic article on Carroll Baker on Wikipedia

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