Harry Baird

Cast in a number of racially-motivated British films during the 1950s and 1960s, actor Harry Baird was born in Georgetown, Guyana (then called British Guiana) on May 12, 1931 and received his education both in Canada and England. Famed director Carol Reed gave Harry his film break in 1954 at age 23 when he cast the actor in the smallish role of a black boxer named Jamaica in A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), a tale that dealt with the tense ethnic struggles of London's East End. A year later Harry made a minor stage bow in the musical "Kismet" at the Stoll theatre in London. Although he continued sporadically before live audiences, including a role in Jean Genet's "The Blacks" in 1961, his stronger focus would be in the cinema and on TV where he often took to stunt work just to keep himself in front of the lens. His first lead on TV was as Rhodes Reason's bearer, Atimbu, in the low-budget White Hunter (1957) adventure series. Moviegoers first took notice of Harry, however, with his sti