Carroll Baker (born May 28, 1931) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Baker's range of roles from naive ingenues to brash and flamboyant women established her as both a serious dramatic actress and a blonde bombshell. While performing on Broadway in 1954, she was recruited by director Elia Kazan to play the lead in Tennessee Williams's Baby Doll (1956). Her role in the film as a sexually-repressed Southern bride lent Baker overnight notoriety and earned her BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress, as well as a Golden Globe award for Most Promising Newcomer that year.