Robert Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, died Thursday at age 89.
A statement released on behalf of his niece, Noreen Austin, said Blake died from heart disease, surrounded by family at home in Los Angeles.
Blake, star of the 1970s TV show Barreta, had once hoped for a comeback, but he never recovered after the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Studio City restaurant on May 4, 2001. The story of their strange marriage, the child it produced and its violent end was a Hollywood tragedy played out in court after he was charged with murder in 2002.
He was adamant that he had not killed his wife and a jury ultimately acquitted him in 2005. But a civil jury would later find him liable for her death and order him to pay Bakley’s family $30 million US, a judgment which sent him into bankruptcy. The daughter he and Bakley had together, Rose Lenore, was raised by other relatives and went for years without seeing Blake, until they spoke in 2019.
It was an ignominious finale for a life lived in the spotlight from childhood. As a youngster, he starred in the Our Gang comedies and acted in a movie classic, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. As an adult, he was praised for his portrayal of real-life murderer Perry Smith in the film adaptation of Truman Capote’s true crime best seller In Cold Blood.
His career peaked with the 1975-78 TV cop series, Baretta. He starred as a detective who carried a pet cockatoo on his shoulder and was fond of disguises. It was typical of his specialty, portraying tough guys with soft hearts, and its signature line: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” was often quoted.
Successful child actor
Blake won a 1975 Emmy for his portrayal of Tony Baretta, although behind the scenes the show was wracked by disputes involving the temperamental star. He gained a reputation as one of Hollywood’s finest actors, but one of the most difficult to work with. He later admitted to struggles with alcohol and drug addiction in his early life.
In 1993, Blake won another Emmy as the title character in, Judgment Day: the John List Story, portraying a soft-spoken, churchgoing man who murdered his wife and three children.
Blake’s career had slowed down by the time of the trial after scoring a plum role in David Lynch’s Lost Highway, released in 1997.
He was born Michael James Gubitosi on Sept. 18, 1933, in Nutley, N.J. His father, an Italian immigrant and his mother, an Italian American, wanted their three children to succeed in show business. At age 2, Blake was performing with a brother and sister in a family vaudeville act called, The Three Little Hillbillies.
When his parents moved the family to Los Angeles, his mother found work for the kids as movie extras and little Mickey Gubitosi was plucked from the crowd by producers who cast him as one of the Little Rascals in the Our Gang comedies. He appeared in the series for five years.
He went on to work with Hollywood legends, playing the young John Garfield in Humoresque in 1946 and the kid who sells Humphrey Bogart a crucial lottery ticket in the Oscar-winning The Treasure of the Sierra Madre two years later.
In 1961, Blake and actress Sondra Kerr married and had two children, Noah and Delinah. They divorced in 1983.
Fateful relationship
His fateful meeting with Bakley, who had been married nine times previously, came in 1999 at a jazz club where he went to escape loneliness.
“Here I was, 67 or 68 years old. My life was on hold. My career was stalled out,” he previously told The Associated Press in an interview. “I’d been alone for a long time.”
When Bakley gave birth to a baby girl, she named Christian Brando — son of Marlon — as the father. But DNA tests pointed to Blake.
Blake first saw the little girl, named Rosie, when she was two months old and she became the focus of his life. He married Bakley because of the child.
“Rosie is my blood. Rosie is calling to me,” he said. “I have no doubt that Rosie and I are going to walk off into the sunset together.”
Prosecutors would claim that he planned to kill Bakley to get sole custody of the baby and tried to hire hitmen for the job. But evidence was muddled and a jury rejected that theory.
On her last night alive, Blake and his 44-year-old wife dined at a neighbourhood restaurant, Vitello’s. He claimed she was shot when he left her in the car and returned to the restaurant to retrieve a handgun he had inadvertently left behind. Police were initially baffled and Blake was not arrested until a year after the crime occurred.
Once a wealthy man, he spent millions on his defence and wound up living on social security and a Screen Actor’s Guild pension.