Amanda Baker


 * Amanda Baker is also the name of a American actress.

Amanda Baker (née Vale, previously Baker and Walters) is a fictional character in the Australian soap opera Home and Away, played by Holly Brisley from 2005-2007 as a full time character.

Using her sexuality as bait, Amanda is known as an attention-seeker and master manipulator. She has been known to quickly find people's weaknesses and use them to her advantage.

Amanda's constant need for attention was her motivation for becoming an actress and drama teacher. She met Dan Baker (Tim Campbell) when they were students and they soon married and fell pregnant with Ryan (Isaac Gorman), just as Amanda's acting career was taking off. Amanda ultimately decided to move to the United States to try her luck in Hollywood and took Ryan with her.

Amanda arrived in Summer Bay in 2005 as the new drama teacher of local high school Summer Bay High, under the guise of building the perfect life for herself and Ryan. She was sacked for misconduct and has caused nothing but trouble for an unfortunate few of Summer Bay residents, including her first lover, Scott Hunter (Kip Gamblin). Her exploits include lying about becoming pregnant to hold onto Scott, and impersonating Hayley to obtain DNA samples to discover baby Noah's true father. After discovering it was Scott and not Kim Hyde (Chris Hemsworth), as everyone else believed, Amanda kept this information to herself, only to be found out by Flynn Saunders (Joel McIlroy) after the baby's birth.

Amanda later chased after Scott's grandfather, the much-older millionaire Graham Walters (Doug Scroope), who she married at the end of the 2005 season, despite disapproval from Graham's daughter Beth. Graham was the only person who was lenient on Amanda after what she did to Scott, and Amanda took comfort in this. Amanda and Beth did not get along at all, particularly since Beth believed Amanda had only married her father for his money. Amanda denied this and Graham took his wife's side. Amanda's relations with other members of her step-family was not much better. At the beginning of the 2006 season, Graham found out about Amanda's affair with Josh West (Daniel Collopy), the town mayor at the time, and demanded a divorce before suffering a fatal heart attack. Despite Amanda having signed a post-nuptual agreement, she inherited Graham's wealth much to the frustation of Beth, but she at least gave her step-daughter all of Graham's war medals. She soon discovered that Josh was cheating on her and dumped him, but Josh was later shot by former school principal Barry Hyde (Ivar Kants). She was initially a suspect in his murder investigation until it was revealed that Barry was the killer.

Upon discovering that her one-time enemy Belle Taylor (Jessica Tovey) is the daughter that she was told died in childbirth, Amanda began making an effort to better herself in order to win her daughter back. But she stole Belle’s boyfriend, Drew Curtis (Bobby Morley), but despite dumping him she lost the trust of her daughter.

Amanda hit a low when Belle accused Amanda of being a manipulator in the diner in front of everyone, and described all the nasty things she had done. Amanda broke into tears and promised to turn over a new leaf and become a better person.

Amanda began dating Dan's brother, Peter (Nicholas Bishop), and is being stalked by her vengeful sister, Kelli (Alexa Ashton), who recently kidnapped Belle to pay Amanda back for a car accident that they were both involved in some years ago. With Kelli's help, Amanda and Peter got engaged.

Peter finally married Amanda, becoming her third husband, but immediately separated after Ethan put photos of himself and Amanda in bed on the chairs at the wedding, leaving the whole congregation disgusted. Peter left Amanda and Amanda chased after him. Soon after, Peter threw his wedding ring into the sea.

After it was revealed her sister was behind the hell Amanda went through, Peter reconsidered their relationship and on their final appearance on Home and Away the pair ended their separation and re-ignited their marriage and moved to the city (Peter got a transfer to join Amanda).

Recently, it has been announced that Amanda Baker will return in February 2008. It is not known if Peter will be accompanying her.