Film Forum

Born and raised in Hollywood, Diane Baker started kinda slow — as Anne Frank’s older sister in George Stevens’ multi-Oscar-winning Diary. Since then, she’s been a Hitchcock brunette (Marnie), daughter of axe-murderer Joan Crawford (in William Castle’s Strait-Jacket), and mother to everyone from Matthew Broderick (The Cable Guy) to Sandra Bullock (The Net), as well as love interest to actors as disparate as Pat Boone (Journey to the Center of the Earth), Gregory Peck (Mirage), Karl Malden (on TV’s Streets of San Francisco), and David Janssen — in the final episode of The Fugitive, the most-watched single TV episode ever up to that time. And, as Senator Ruth Martin in Silence of the Lambs, she even got a compliment from Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. This afternoon, actress, producer and teacher Baker will discuss her 50-year-plus movie and television career with film historian Foster Hirsch.

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