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Blanche Baker
Baker in 2019
Born	Blanche Garfein (1956-12-20) December 20, 1956 (age 68) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1978–present
Spouses	Bruce Van Dusen ​ ​(m. 1983; div. 2002)​ Mark Magill ​(m. 2003)​
Children	4
Parent(s)	Carroll Baker (mother) Jack Garfein (father)

Blanche Baker (born December 20, 1956) is an American actress. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress for her work in the television miniseries Holocaust. Baker is known for her role as Ginny Baker in Sixteen Candles; she also starred in the title role of Lolita on Broadway. In 2012, she produced and starred in a film about Ruth Madoff titled Ruth Madoff Occupies Wall Street.

Early life and education

Born Blanche Garfein in New York City, she is the daughter of actress Carroll Baker and director Jack Garfein. Her father is a Jew from Carpathian Ruthenia (born in Mukachevo), who survived the Holocaust; and her mother was a Roman Catholic who converted to Judaism. She also has a younger brother, Herschel Garfein. She spent her early life in Italy, where her mother had established a film career after leaving Hollywood in the mid-1960s. Baker attended the American Overseas School of Rome and then Wellesley College from 1974 to 1976. She later studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

Career

Television

Blanche Baker made her television debut playing the character Anna Weiss in the miniseries Holocaust. (Her father Jack Garfein was a Holocaust survivor who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz.) She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in 1978 for her performance.

She has subsequently appeared in the TV movies Mary and Joseph: A Story of Faith (1979) as Mary, The Day the Bubble Burst (1982), The Awakening of Candra (1983) as Candra Torres, Embassy (1985), Nobody's Child (1986), and Taking Chance (2009). She also has appeared on many TV series.

Theatre

In 1980–81, she originated the lead role in Edward Albee's stage adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. During out-of-town tryouts and in New York, the play was picketed by feminists, including Women Against Pornography, who were outraged by the theme of pedophilia.

The troubled production opened on Broadway on March 19, 1981, after 31 previews and closed after only 12 performances. Frank Rich of The New York Times gave the play a bad review, terming it "the kind of embarrassment that audiences do not quickly forget or forgive." Baker was mentioned by Rich in only one line. "In the title role, here a minor figure, the 24-year-old Miss Baker does a clever job of impersonating the downy nymphet; she deserves a more substantial stage vehicle soon."

People Magazine called Albee's Lolita "Broadway's Bomb of the Year" in an April 16, 1981, story. Baker was the real subject of the article, and People writer Mark Donovan said "the critics were almost unanimous on one point: Blanche Baker was an ingenue whose time had come," citing reviews of critics that had called her "breathtaking" and "beguiling."

Baker originated the role of Shelby in the first production of Steel Magnolias Off-Broadway in 1987.

Film

Baker made her movie debut in the political drama The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979). Other film appearances include Sixteen Candles (1984), Cold Feet (1984), Taking Chance (2009) and The Girl Next Door (2007).

Personal life

Baker married movie director Bruce vanDusen on October 1, 1983. They had three children before divorcing in 2002.

Baker remarried in 2003, to Mark McGill. They have one son.

Filmography

Film

Television

As director

• 2017 - Streetwrite
• 2019 - Make America Safe

References

1. "Celebrity Birthdays". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. December 20, 2023. p. A2. ProQuest 2905257080. Musician Alan Parsons is 75. Actor Jenny Agutter ('Call the Midwife') is 71. Actor Michael Badalucco ('The Practice') is 69. Actor Blanche Baker ('Shakedown,' 'Holocaust') is 67. Singer Billy Bragg is 66. See also:
   • "Chatter: Broadway". The News Journal. December 20, 1998. p. A4. ProQuest 2613813566. Actress Jenny Agutter, 46. Actress Blanche Baker, 42. Rock singer
2. "Ruth Madoff Occupies Wall Street — van Nguyen". Archived from the original on December 29, 2016. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
3. "Alumni News" (PDF). AOSR Falcon Flyer (5). February 2012.
4. Lynch, Jason. "Her Bronze Mettle: Following Her Turn in Sixteen Candles, Blanche Baker Sculpted a Life Beyond Hollywood". People Magazine. March 4, 2002. Retrieved 6 May 2015. "Baker returned to the U.S. and enrolled at Wellesley College in 1974 but got the acting bug and dropped out two years later to study both art and acting in New York City."
5. HB Studio Alumni
6. "'Mary and Joseph' Filming". The Kentucky New Era. July 24, 1979. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
7. Devries, Hillary (March 3, 1981). "Protesters to picket 'Lolita'". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
8. "Lolita". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
9. Rich, Frank. "STAGE: ALBEE'S ADAPTATION OF 'LOLITA' OPENS". The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
10. Donovan, Mark. "Lolita, Broadway's Bomb of the Year, Detonates Edward Albee, Bemuses Donald Sutherland and Illuminates a Lovely Survivor, Blanche Baker". Time-Life. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
11. Gussow, Mel (March 27, 1987). "Stage: 'Steel Magnolias,' A Louisiana Story". The New York Times.
12. "Blanche Baker Becomes Bride". The New York Times. October 2, 1983. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on June 29, 2022. Retrieved June 29, 2022.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
13. ^ "'Sixteen Candles' Cast: Where Are They Now?". Us Weekly. October 11, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2022.
14. "NEW YORK SHORT FILM FESTIVAL BLOCK 10". cinemavillage.com. Retrieved November 9, 2019.

External links

• Blanche Baker at IMDb 
• Blanche Baker at AllMovie

• 1956 births
• Actresses from New York City
• American film actresses
• American people of Czech-Jewish descent
• American stage actresses
• American television actresses
• Jewish American actresses
• Living people
• Primetime Emmy Award winners
• Wellesley College alumni
• Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute alumni
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses
• 21st-century American Jews