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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Simon Baker

Australian actor and director (born 1969)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Simon Lucas Baker is an Australian actor and director. He appeared on the Australian soap opera E Street (1992–1993). In 1997 he had a supporting role as Matt Reynolds in L.A. Confidential (1997). This role marked his American film debut and a pivotal turning point in his career, successfully establishing his presence in the international film industry.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Simon Baker” as australian actor and director (born 1969). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Simon, Baker and Australian.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1992, 1993, 1997—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Simon, Baker and Australian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Simon Baker”, the useful work is to connect “australian actor and director (born 1969)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1992, 1993 and 1997.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Simon Baker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Simon Baker primary sources, Simon Baker archive and Simon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Simon Baker”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Simon Baker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.