Background
Baird was born in Georgetown, British Guiana and educated in Canada and Britain.
Baird was born in Georgetown, British Guiana and educated in Canada and Britain.
He made his first film appearance in 1955 as a boxer called Jamaica in Carol Reed"s A Kid for Two Farthings. A year later, he appeared in the play Kismet at the Stoll Theatre in London, and had a role in Jean Genet"s The Blacks in 1961. Baird subsequently appeared mostly in film and television
His first lead role was as Atimbu, in the television series White Hunter, in 1958.
A series of stereotyped roles followed, in low-budget films featuring generic African or "jungle" themes. Baird"s most high-profile role, however, came in Michael Relph and Basil Dearden"s racial drama film.
Prominent roles for black actors in Britain remained scarce, although he appeared in supporting roles in the television series Danger Manitoba and unidentified flying object (1970. As Lieutenant Bradley, a role that he left half-way through the series" run).
Baird"s only true lead film role was in the 1968 Melvin Van Peebles drama The Story of a Three-Day Pass, in which he played an American soldier who falls in love with a white Parisian woman.
In the 1970s, Baird was diagnosed with glaucoma, a condition which ultimately left him blind. He died of cancer in London in 2005.