James Bond actor and MST3K icon Joe Don Baker dies at 89

However, Baker's career extended well beyond Bond. He first rose to prominence starring in "Walking Tall," a classic "hard man for hard times" movie from the 1970s. He played Buford Pusser in a biopic of the real-life violent, quasi-fascistic lunatic Southern lawman and gained some acclaim for it. "Walking Tall" was then remade, and sanded down, into a palatable vehicle early in Dwayne Johnson's acting career.

Baker also popped up in quality films like "Charley Varrick," "Fletch," and Martin Scorsese's remake of "Cape Fear." However, Baker will also always be remembered for two films that are indelible offerings from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," including the beloved "Mitchell."

Cult favorite TV show "MST3K" was built upon a human host and two robot puppet sidekicks riffing over "cheesy" movies. Most of these low-quality films feature unknown actors or forgotten faces, but occasionally a movie with some recognizable people would pop up. "Mitchell" has more famous folks than almost any "MST3K" movie, including Baker as the titular character.

"Mitchell" also appeared in the last episode of the original run starring show creator Joel Hodgson, making it a momentous episode in and of itself. The riffing, though, also proved quite successful, but went in hard on Mitchell, and thus to a degree Baker. Later, during the Mike Nelson era over on the then-Sci-Fi Channel, they would riff on the preposterous Malta-set film "Final Justice," also starring Baker. They went even harder in on Baker this time, because they had heard through the grapevine that Baker was angry about "Mitchell" getting the "MST3K" treatment and jokingly/legitimately threatened to throw hands if he ever met a member of the "MST3K" crew.

Some make the facile argument it is unfair to Baker that he is codified as a punchline by "MST3K" as if though people aren't intelligent enough to hold multiple assessments of the actor in their heads. He was a good actor, and he actually isn't bad in "Mitchell" ("Final Justice" is another story). Neither film is among the worst to appear on the show, but both are easy to joke on as neither is a good film by any means. Again, "Final Justice" is decidedly worse on this front. 

Of course, now that Baker has passed away after a long life at the age of 89, his time sweating his "MST3K" treatment has concluded. He will be remembered by different people in different ways, and some people will remember him in those different ways in and of themselves. That's the life of a character actor and a recognizable, but not indelible, cultural figure.