lenny baker
Does anyone know what happened to Lenny Baker. He was so good in this movie and I don't remember seeing him in anything else. Please let me know.
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Thanks for the info. It is sad since it was obvious he was on the way to becoming a big star. I did end up googling his name and found out that unfortuately it was AIDS that killed him. It was early on in the epidemic and they probably couldn't figure out to help him.
shareI just watched this film for the first time--how wonderful (and an apartment in the West Village for $25 a month? Dear god, how things have changed). As a former New Yorker, seeing landmarks like Village Cigars was lovely and bittersweet--once New York gets in your blood, it never leaves. Lenny Baker was amazing--I immediately came on IMDB, as I couldn't remember him in anything else. How sad to see he died so young--so many amazingly talented people did during that period. I always wonder what the arts would be like today if AIDS hadn't taken its toll. Anyway, wonderful film, wonderful actor, wonderful cast (I yelped when Lois Smith first came on screen).
shareI agree totally with you. What a wonderful place the village must have been then. The sad thing is that although the movie was made in the 70's, even THAT village is gone and replaced with the kind of soulless place we have created for ourselves in 21st century America. It is sad that like many talented people of his generation Lenny Baker died so young. It is said he could have been as big a star as DeNiro or Pacino. Did you spot Bill Murray in a bit part? In some of the web sites he is listed first in the cast list.
shareHe's also in _The Paper Chase_. He has a short but memorable part as a tutor for Harvard law students. Remember when Hart and his friend who's struggling in Kingsfield's class go to that seedy student rooming house to visit him?
I agree with everyone else; he had lots of potential but he died too young.
Yes I remember that scene in the paper chase. Ithink he was also in a movie about doctors. What a shame that he got so sick and they couldn't really help his suffering. I wish AMC would show this movie again.
shareIf you enjoyed Lenny Baker in "Next Stop, Greenwich Village" you owe it to yourself to check out the original cast album of "I Love My Wife" (from 1977-on the DRG CD label) although the whole thing is very dated-ultra 70's-it's very funny and Baker is great-he won the two big theatre awards (Tony & Drama Desk) for it and rave reviews-the kind actors really wish for. A nice remembrance for a very talented actor who died way too young.
shareI asked about this at another site. Someone stated that what contributed to actor Lenny Baker's death, in 1982 at the age of 37, was more detailed.
Cancer is the correct diagnosis.
Baker was performing up to 8 shows per week on Broadway, in the 1976-77 musical "I Love My Wife." The performance won him the Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. But he also was untrained, vocally. Baker wound up straining his vocal chords. He developed nodes on those chords. And, whether Baker was effective in seeking timely treatment, his condition was that of cancer. And this is what ended his life.
I am thinking this is accurate. Check out the 1979 episode of "Taxi" called "Latka's Revolting." His vocal chords sound like they may be damaged. Plus, in the commentary on the DVD of the 1976 Paul Mazursky film "Next Stop, Greenwich Village," Baker's leading lady, Ellen Green, mentioned that throat cancer, as she was attempting to accurately recall, is what attributed to Baker's death.
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vmf-1 is correct-Baker did die of AIDS related cancer. It was early in the AIDS epidemic-possibly before AIDS even had that name-sometime in 1982 the name of the disease was changed from GRID to AIDS. Either way a real shame to lose a talent like that-one of so many talented people who died.
shareThere is no evidence that Lenny Baker died of anything other than throat cancer.
The comment by the friend of an writer of the newspaper piece doesn't quite meet the standards of reliable evidence.
Unless one was close to Lenny at that time or has first-hand knowledge regarding his medical history, it is irresponsible to contradict the stated diagnosis. Too many Internet search results only include the parenthetical comment of the sort "He later died of AIDS" without any elaboration or sourcing. Dubious information tends to take on a life of its own on the Net. Pity.
Lenny had a large, loving family and many friends - he wasn't alone during his illness, nor at the end.
Regardless of the cause, we lost an outstanding talent and a very fine person.
http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/library/death-afternoon.shtml
Someone posted this link above, and it is heartbreaking.
"Oh my," Tony sighed sadly, "that's going to poor Lenny Baker. Nobody sees him anymore. He's up there alone now. He's dying of cancer and the doctors can't seem to figure out why."
In just a few years they would -- right around the time that Baker died, in 1982. Baker's cancer had come to be known as "gay cancer," then briefly GRID (Gay-related Immune Deficiency) and then finally AIDS. We didn't have any name for it then. Besides we were all too shocked that a young, vibrant actor, who had made a smashing debut just four years earlier in Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Paul Mazursky's semi-autobiographical tribute to New York bohemia in the 1950's, wouldn't be following Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro into the world of major stardom.
I heard on the same commentary Miss Greene making the point of saying Lenny loved women. I don't care wether or not he was gay, but it's a fact that most groups of gays are trying to claim more for 'there own side' (e.g., Cary Grant).
Come on, everyone, see Happy-Go-Lucky
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I find your posting a bit offensive. First, saying someone "loved women" doesn't mean that a) they might not have been gay (I mean, I love women, but just not in an erotic way), b) he could easily have still had had sex with men even if he identified primarily as heterosexual, and c) the assumption that people saying he had AIDS is trying to "claim more for there [sic] side" is both nasty and homophobic. Trust me, "we" had enough of our people die from AIDS--we don't need to "claim" more. Whatever, he died far too young and his talent was immense. That's what matters most. That his cousin seems not to have heard he might have had AIDS is hardly definitive--actors often kept such diagnoses secret for fear of job loss--and families often gave other explanations because of stigma and shame. I wasn't his doctor, so I obviously don't know. But homophobia drips from your illiterate posting.
shareHonestly, does it really matter if he had AIDS or not? Or if he was gay or not? No. What matter is that a very talented man was taken from this earth far too soon.
Who wants to live forever? ~ Freddie Mercury
In one way, it doesn't matter. And in another way, it matters tremendously -- because there is still a ridiculous amount of stigma attached both to being gay and to having AIDS.
When homophobic people realize that lots of the people they like, admire, respect (even love!) are gay, then they -- or some of them -- start to leave behind their silly prejudice and understand that a person is a person is a person and that sexual orientation is just as innate as, and is no more scary than, eye color.
If we didn't live in such a homophobic world, funding to study and treat AIDS would have flowed freely; treatment would have been available sooner; and fewer people would have suffered.
So that's why it matters.
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."
it's a fact that most groups of gays are trying to claim more for 'there own side' (e.g., Cary Grant).
Antoine, you are sick, sad, and nuts.
It's a FACT, is it?
What is a "group of gays"?
Name any "group of gays" or any gay person who is pretending that some hetero is or was gay.
Do you, as a hetero, claim that talented+kind+attractive+humane+smart gay people (Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Lily Tomlin, Rock Hudson, etc etc etc etc etc) are or were secretly straight?
Your post would be laughable if your ignorance weren't such a blot on the landscape. Do humanity a favor -- stay home on every election day.
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people." share
I am shocked to hear the reports of AIDS about Lenny. He was my mother's cousin. When I was growing up, he was already famous, so I did not get to meet him at family events; although I knew his brothers and I think I met his parents. My sister got to attend the King Tut exhibit in New York City with him. (I was too young.) Anyway, the story I heard about his illness is that he went to the doctor complaining of throat pain, and the doctor pretty much told him that it came from doing 8 shows a week, and didn't investigate further. There is a very high cancer rate in my family, so although it was tragic, it was not altogether unexpected in my family. My mother was a hospital pharmacist, where she was involved in treating patients with AIDS. So I think if Lenny had AIDS, she would have known about it.
shareOne source of the info is from this web page:
http://ehrensteinland.com/htmls/library/death-afternoon.shtml
It's been mentioned elsewhere too.
Lenny must be in the zeitgeist all of a sudden. When I woke up this morning, I thought of him and decided to finally try to get to the bottom of his mysterious death. It all sort of makes sense now, but then again, it doesn't.
I saw him in "I Love My Wife" on Thanksgiving 1977 (must've been), and, 30 years later, I still think I've never been in the presence of so much talent (and I've been around enough artists in my life to know talent from mere chutzpah). Lenny Baker wasn't just gifted -- he was enormously and generously talented. The whole theater lit up with but a look from him. We think back to that time period and all the great talent that came from the stage: Travolta, Gere, Cazale, Hurt, Walken, Streep. Lenny Baker dwarfed them all. To watch him was to love him.
If he really died all alone (as the Ehrenstein piece suggests), my heart breaks. But what I find especially tragic is that there's next to nothing about him on the internet, except for his resume, a brief Tony Awards performance on Youtube and a few terse obituaries. Where are the tributes from his colleagues and co-stars? Where are the cold facts about his tragic death? This guy should be a legend, not a footnote.
That's what I read too, that he died of throat cancer.
shareBut he also was untrained, vocally. Baker wound up straining his vocal chords. He developed nodes on those chords. And, whether Baker was effective in seeking timely treatment, his condition was that of cancer. And this is what ended his life.
The strained vocal chords were a symptom of the cancer not the cause.
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