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
Stanley Baker released he played another villain role for Box and Thomas, "Campbell's Kingdom" (1957), opposite Dirk Bogarde, shot in Italy (substituting for Canada). He was meant to make "Tread Softly Stranger" with Diana Dors but George Baker was cast instead. "Hell Drivers" became a minor hit and at the end of the year, exhibitors voted Baker the seventh most popular British star at the British box office for 1957 (after Bogarde, Kenneth More, Peter Finch, John Gregson, Norman Wisdom and John Mills, and before Ian Carmichael, Jack Hawkins and Belinda Lee). "Hell Drivers" success saw Baker play a series of tough