Legendary puppeteer Bob Baker died last Friday of natural causes at the age of 90.

(photo courtesy of the Bob Baker Marionettes Theatre)

Baker, along with his partner Alton Wood, founded the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in 1963, which has gone on to become the oldest and longest running children’s theater company in Los Angeles and in the world. In June 2009, the theater was designated as a Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument.

In addition to his work at the theater, Baker and his company performed puppet shows around the world. Baker’s puppetry was featured in several films including Disney’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”, “Close Encounters of The Third Kind”, the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born” with Judy Garland and many television shows and commercials. Baker also served as governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and of the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences, both in the animation division.

A Los Angeles native (he lived in the same house in Los Angeles his entire life), Baker discovered marionettes at the age of five when his father took him to a puppet show at Barker Brothers Department store downtown. He met his first puppet teacher, Henrie Gordon, a year later when she demonstrated marionettes in the Bullock’s Wilshire toy department. He put his skills to work for his first professional performance at the age of 8 for producer/director Mervyn Leroy. He trained with several different local companies during his youth and won the Orpheum theater talent contest in 1939 and 1940.

A graduate of Hollywood High School, Baker enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II. He served in the camouflage unit in Southern California and worked on the camouflage of Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank. An early medical discharge due to a virus from chicken feathers propelled him into his early career in animation at the George Pal Studios. He began as an apprentice and became a top animator of “Puppetoons” a year later.

Baker then began manufacturing toy marionettes that sold both in Europe and the United States.

Baker turned to television in 1947 with KFI’s “Adventures of Bobo”. His studio on Santa Monica Boulevard began to attract the future stars of television animation. He also served as an animation advisor at many film studios including Walt Disney, which launched his film career. It was at a performance at the home of Ronald Reagan, where Baker convinced Reagan, then president of Screen Actors Guild, that puppeteers belonged in the performer’s union.

Baker is survived by friends and loved ones, his devoted employees over the years and his hand crafted marionettes. In lieu of flowers, donations to support the Bob Baker Marionette Theater may be made by visiting gofundme.com/ho3Vo0.

The Bob Baker Marionette Theater’s lease is up in the spring of 2015. The current building owner plans on redeveloping the property, but may allow month-to-month leasing until construction begins later in the year or in 2016. The early plans for the building have included a memorial space to Bob Baker, where future performances might be able to take place on a limited basis.