Boyish character actor and occasional director who has had leading parts on stage, in films and TV. Perhaps best known for the role of Larry Appleton on the long-running comedy series "Perfect Strangers" (ABC, 1986-93), Linn-Baker's character found his neat and orderly life interrupted by the arrival of a distant foreign cousin, Balki, memorably played by Bronson Pinchot.Linn-Baker began his career on the stage, coming to New York after working three seasons with the Yale Repertory Theater. He made his NY stage debut as Bertram in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of "All's Well That Ends Well", went on to garner favorable notices for starring roles in a number of festival productions, and then made his Broadway debut in "Doonesbury", a short lived musical based on the popular comic strip.
Linn-Baker had his big screen break-through opposite Peter O'Toole in the very successful comedy "My Favorite Year" (1982), as a young 1950s variety show writer who has to chaperon that week's star, a known drunk and womanizer (O'Toole). It would be a decade before Linn-Baker worked on the big screen again, co-starring in Peter Bogdanovich's "Noises Off" (1992). Meanwhile, he worked in episodic TV, landed regular roles on a summer series "The Comedy Zone" (1984) and made a busted pilot "The Recovery Room" (1985) before being cast in "Perfect Strangers". During the years he starred on the series, Linn-Baker showed up periodically on awards shows, specials and starred in such TV-movies as "Wedding Day Blues" (1988) and "Bare Essentials" (1991).
In the late 1980s, Linn-Baker co-founded the New York Stage & Film Company which produced plays and short films. The company developed Jay Presson Allen's "Tru" a one man show about the life of writer Truman Capote that eventually moved to Broadway. Linn-Baker also directed regional and off-Broadway productions of plays by Christopher Durang and John Patrick Shanley, as well as TV episodes of "Going Places", "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper" and "Family Matters".
In the mid-90s, he returned to the NY stage co-starring with Nathan Lane in Neil Simon's "Laughter on the 23rd Floor" (1993-94), based on Simon's experiences as a writer for the TV series "Your Show of Shows". Three years later, he and Lane teamed again for the revival of the Larry Gelbart-Burt Shevelove-Stephen Sondheim musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". Linn-Baker played Hysterium, a slave who agrees to help a friend by posing as a virginal young woman.
Linn-Baker is married to theatrical set designer Adrianne Lobel.
Profession(s):
Actor, producer, director
Sometimes Credited As:
Mark Linn Baker
2006 Cast in Michael Cuesta's sophomore feature "Twelve and Holding"
1999 Headlined the one-man Off-Broadway show "Chesapeake"
1996 Co-starred with Lane in revival of the musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"
1992 Recurring character on children's educational series, "Ghostwriter"
1992 First film role after a decade of TV, "Noises Off"
1990 TV directing debut, "Family Matters"
1986 - 1993 Star of longrunning ABC comedy series, "Perfect Strangers"
1984 Debut as host on summer series, "The Comedy Zone"
1984 TV-movie debut, "The Ghost Writer"
1983 Starred on Broadway in "Doonesbury"
1983 Episodic TV debut in a detective pilot, "O'Malley"
1982 Feature debut in a starring role, "My Favorite Year"
1979 Feature film debut, "Manhattan"
Born in St Louis, Missouri and raised in Wethersfield, a Hartford, Connecticut suburb
Spent three years with the Yale Repertory Theater
Performed a solo mime show while attending Yale
Off-Broadway stage debut at New York Shakespeare Festival, "All's Well That Ends Well"
Co-founding director of New York Stage and Film Company
Co-founded True Pictures
Returned to Broadway as co-star in Neil Simon's "Laughter on the 23rd Floor", starring Nathan Lane
