Background
She changed her name to Baker (from her mother"s family) in 1944 in Another Love Story at New York"s Fulton Theatre.
She changed her name to Baker (from her mother"s family) in 1944 in Another Love Story at New York"s Fulton Theatre.
Her novel, The Whipping Boy, made the Los Angeles Times bestseller list in 1978. She also published, under her own name, My Darling, Darling Doctors. Fay Schwager"s career began in New York with roles on Broadway in the early 1940s.
She was "discovered" by Alfred Hitchcock in 1946 and given the role of Ethel in Notorious.
The director felt that since he was paying her salary, she should be standing by at all times. She claimed she had had a larger role in the film but that much of her work ended up on the cutting room floor.
Baker remained in Hollywood for nearly two decades, acting in two dozen films with star billing in The House on Telegraph Hill (1950). She had one of the leading roles in the 1950 crime drama Double Deal, and later played one of publisher Ethel Barrymore"s two daughters trying to seize control of and sell editor Humphrey Bogart"s newspaper in the 1952 drama Deadline - United States.A. During her California years, she also appeared frequently on television
She is credited with guest parts on 30 different series beginning with Your Show Time in 1949 up to her final performance on Doctor Kildare in 1963.
Her roles included comedy sitcoms (Hazel, The Donna Reed Show), drama (Perry Mason), and westerns (Have Gun - Will Travel). In 1958, she made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, playing Marian Newburn in "The Case of the Demure Defendant" and Stephanie Sabin in "The Case of the Perjured Parrot".