Bruce Baxter

Bruce Baxter was a film actor hired by Carl Denham and Megan C. Bailey to star in his Beauty and the Beast film opposite Ann Darrow. He played the first mate character in the script. He was very vain and conceited, and although he was well-known in Hollywood for playing tough action heroes (three of his film credits include the leads in Dame Tamer, Tribal Brides of the Amazon, and Rough Traders), Baxter was ultimately a coward. Nevertheless, and his costar was abducted by the natives of Skull Island, Baxter joined Denham, Jack Driscoll and the rest of the search party in trying to rescue her from King Kong.

His stupidity and cowardice caused the group many problems during the mission: particularly, during the dinosaur stampede, he turned and fired into the approaching herd, hitting the lead animal and causing a dinosaur pileup of sorts. Immediately following this, Baxter abandoned the search party and returned to the native village. Later though, he persuaded Captain Englehorn to mount a second search party, which ended up saving the lives of Denham, Driscoll, Jimmy and Preston from a swarm of giant insects.

After Denham took the captured Kong back to New York to exhibit him on Broadway, Megan leaves, the director credited Baxter and Baxter alone with Ann Darrow's rescue (when in reality it was Jack Driscoll who had saved her), and Baxter, in stereotypical white hunter gear and pith helmet, appeared onstage alongside Denham and an actress hired to play Ann. When Kong, agitated by the flashbulbs from news photographers' cameras, began to break free, Baxter left the theater before anyone else and escaped.