He was home on the Hollywood range only a few years but Bob
"Tumbleweed" Baker (ne Stanley Leland Weed) still made his mark by the
time he rode off into the sunset. Born on November 8, 1910, in Forest
City, IA, his family eventually moved to Colorado and then to Arizona
during his growing years. He enlisted in the Army when he was 18 and
earned the nickname "Tumbleweed" while also learning how to play the
guitar. He later served during WWII and the Korea War.
Baker made an initial name for himself on radio. A chance audition for
Universal Pictures, which was on the lookout to groom a new singing
cowboy star after the meteoric success of
Gene Autry, was his big break,
beating out such other sagebrush hopefuls as
Roy Rogers.
Baker's first film,
Courage of the West (1937),
was a success and the new singing cowboy stud-in-town ventured on with
such solid white-hatted vehicles as
The Singing Outlaw (1937),
The Last Stand (1938) and
The Phantom Stage (1939).
Astride his horse Apache, he made nine oaters in 1938 and was ranked
10th in the "Top Ten Moneymaking Western Star" poll of 1939. That same
year, however, Universal decided to form a movie trio partnering Baker
with
Johnny Mack Brown and
Fuzzy Knight. Brown was clearly the star of
the series, however, and Baker's career started to tumble. By 1942 he
had gotten lost in the dust and was appearing in unbilled parts. One of
his final roles was that of a bus driver in the
Bud Abbott and
Lou Costello comedy
Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). Claiming
his career had been fatally mishandled by Universal, Baker left
Hollywood and would return on a very rare occasion as a stuntman.
The former western star returned to his home in Arizona with wife
Evelyn (since 1935) and four children and worked for a spell as a
policeman. Quite the handyman, he also owned a saddle shop where he
made and sold saddles and assorted leather goods. During his last
years, Baker was in extremely poor health brought on by a series of
heart attacks. He suffered a fatal stroke at age 64 while battling
cancer.
Mystery Man(1944)as Cowhand
Oklahoma Raiders(1944)as Townsman
Wild Horse Stampede(1943)as Marshal Bob Tyler
Cheyenne Roundup(1943)as Vigilante Rider
Overland Mail(1942)as Bill Cody [Chs.1,14]
Bad Man from Red Butte(1940)
Riders of Pasco Basin(1940)
West of Carson City(1940)
Chip of the Flying U(1939)
Oklahoma Frontier(1939)
The Dinah Shore Show(1951)as Self
Ready to Ride(1950)as Bob Bradley
