Background
Born Blanche Garfein in New York City, she is the daughter of actress Carroll Baker and director Jack Garfein. Her father is a Czechoslovakian Jew, who survived the Holocaust. And her mother converted to Judaism.
(Her father Jack Garfein was a Holocaust survivor who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz.
Education
Baker attended Wellesley College from 1974 to 1976, and later studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio, the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and the American School in London.
Career
Television Broadway In 1980-1981, 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 Mission 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." However, despite the praise of critics, Baker has never appeared on Broadway again.