Baker carved his niche in movie history by memorably transforming men into monsters, notably Michael Jackson in Landis' lavish "Thriller" (1983) video; David Naughton in Landis' landmark horror/comedy, "An American Werewolf in London;" and Jack Nicholson in "Wolf" (1994). Working in a realist mode, Baker shared an Emmy with fellow makeup giant Stan Winston for convincingly aging a youthful Cicely Tyson into a courageous centenarian in the classic TV-movie "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (CBS, 1974). He also earned the first Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup for his extraordinary work on Landis' "An American Werewolf in London" (1981).
Baker worked his way up from chief lab assistant for legendary makeup artist Dick Smith ("Little Big Man" 1969; "The Godfather" 1971; "The Exorcist" 1973) to be a puppet designer for Clokey Studios ("Gumby"). This background in puppetry proved critical for his subsequent career when he developed the "Anatomation" process, which according to CINEFANTASTIQUE "involves 'waldos,' or 'slave' servo-mechanisms. The human operator wears an exoskeleton linked to a puppet designed to recreate specific body movements. When the operator moves HIS arm, the puppet moves ITS arm correspondingly." Such an elaborate puppet was utilized for the final grisly appearance of Griffin Dunne's rotting, but helpful, ambulatory corpse in "An American Werewolf...". Baker also worked his magic on David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" (1982), the transformation sequences in John Carpenter's "Starman" (1984), and "Harry and the Hendersons" (1987). The latter, a gentle family comedy about Bigfoot, earned Baker his second Oscar.
Baker has also worked increasingly in TV as a producer, makeup and visual effects artist, and creature creator. Perhaps most famously, he created and designed the makeup that transformed actor Ron Perlman into the sensitive leonine heartthrob Vincent, the tragic co-star of the cult fantasy series "Beauty and the Beast" (Fox, 1987-90). Back on the big screen, Baker opted for a relatively subdued makeup job on Jack Nicholson in "Wolf" that harkened back to the Universal horror films of the 40s. As an expert, he realized that this particular star would prove to be a special effect in his own right. Baker later shared four additional Oscars for Best Makeup, for Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" (1994), the Eddie Murphy remake of "The Nutty Professor" (1996), the sci-fi comic book come to life "Men in Black" (1997) and the live-action version of the holiday favorite "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000).