Stanley Baker "This Sporting Life" but had to drop out when "Guns of Navarone" went over schedule. She says Baker never regretted losing the part of Bond to Sean Connery but regretted not making "This Sporting Life". Baker wanted to move into production, and to this end formed his own company, Diamond Films with Endfield. They developed a script about the Battle of Rorke's Drift written by Endfield and John Prebble. While making "Sodom and Gomorrah" Baker struck up a relationship with that film's producer, Joseph E. Levine which enabled him to raise the $3 million budget for "Zulu" (1964), directed by
Michael McConnell and Jack Baker Michael McConnell and Jack Baker Michael McConnell and Jack Baker are pioneering advocates of marriage rights for gay couples. Jack Baker was a name used by Richard John Baker during his activist work in the 1970s to promote full equality for gay men and women. He and Michael McConnell applied in Hennepin County for a license to marry, then appealed the clerk's denial to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which dismissed the claim. "Under the law at the time (since repealed) governing the [U.S.] Supreme Court's jurisdiction over appeals from state-court decisions, "Baker v. Nelson" reached the justices as a mandatory