Robert Blake, the acclaimed Emmy-winning actor whose career was derailed by allegations that he murdered his wife in 2001, has passed away.
Blake died of a heart condition in Los Angeles on Thursday, his cousin Noreen Austin said in a statement to the Associated Press. He turned 89.
The actor was acquitted of the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in a high-profile criminal case in 2005, but was found liable by a civil jury later that same year. While Blake found a way to recover from hard times throughout his career, he was never able to fully move forward after beating the murder charges.
His skyrocketing career began at the age of 5, appearing in comedies Our Gang in the late 1930s. He is known as an actor for playing murderer Perry Smith in the 1967 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” and in 1975 won an Emmy for his portrayal of the title character in the popular crime series “Baretta.”
He also starred in the films Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973), and the 1985 television series Hell Town. His final role was in the 1997 David Lynch film Lost Highway.
Despite his early popularity and criticism, Blake’s career was overshadowed by the events of May 4, 2001. He and Bakley, who had a strained relationship, had dinner that night at Vitello’s, a restaurant in Studio City where he regularly washed. After they finished and walked to the car, according to Blake’s statements to police, Blake returned to the restaurant and said he had left his personal pistol, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special Revolver, in a booth.
When he returned to the car, he said Bakley, 44, slumped in the passenger seat and was fatally shot in the head.
Police initially said Blake was not a suspect. The murder weapon, a 9mm Walther P38 pistol, was found in a garbage can nearby.
Almost a year later, he was arrested and charged with the shooting. He spent 11 months in jail before even being released on bail and spent millions on lawyers and private investigators.
It fell to his legal team to convince a jury that an actor so convincingly played two real-life killers — Perry Smith, who murdered members of a Kansas family described in Capote’s bestseller, and John List, who murdered his own wife. killed. , kids and mom during a shooting in New Jersey – couldn’t do that in real life.
Blake was especially sympathetic to Smith, who had been abused as a child. “During the movie,” Blake said of In Cold Blood in his 2011 memoir Tales of a Rascal, “I never had to reach for anything. Perry and I were intertwined like vines over the same grave.”
He was acquitted in March 2005, largely because the testimony of key prosecution witnesses was deemed unreliable by the jury. Blake cut off his electronic tracking bracelet and told reporters he was no good at the colorful jargon that once made him a prized guest on TV talk shows. “Right now,” he said, “I couldn’t buy anything for a hummingbird.”
His financial situation would deteriorate significantly. Bakley’s family sued him and Blake had to testify in the civil, as opposed to the criminal, trial. In eight days on the stand, he came down angry and bewildered.
Contrary to the criminal trial, a civil jury found that Blake “intentionally” caused Bakley’s death. Her family received $30 million in damages, which were later reduced to $15 million. Blake later filed for bankruptcy
Blake’s stubborn, straight-talking nature during his testimony has led to possibly the worst – and certainly the most damaging – backslide of his career.
“As a group,” said the jury presiding judge, “we think Mr. Blake was probably his own worst enemy on the witness stand.”
He was born Michael James Gubitosi on September 18, 1933 in Nutley, NJ. His father is listed on his birth certificate as James Gubitosi. But Blake later found out that his biological father was actually James’ brother, his “uncle” Tony, who was having an affair with his mother.
As a child he was shown little love at home, he was sometimes beaten and locked in a cupboard. But James was in show business.
He formed a family band, the Three Little Hillbillies – made up of Blake, a half-brother and a half-sister – who performed in parks and on sidewalks. At the age of 2, Blake sang the new song “Show Me the Way to Go Home” and pretended to be drunk. “People threw more money, and not pennies or nickels, but half dollars,” he wrote in Tales of a Rascal.
When he was 4 years old, the family moved to Los Angeles and found work as extras at MGM on Our Gang movies. One day, a child actor on the show was supposed to say the line “confidential, it stinks,” but he couldn’t pronounce “confidential.” Blake tugged on the director’s pant leg to get his attention, the line said, moving from extra to actor at the time.
Bobby Blake, as he became known, starred in about 40 short films. In the 1940s, he played Little Beaver in the hit western series Red Ryder and landed small parts in films with big names, including Spencer Tracy and John Garfield, both of whom he fondly remembered for helping him become an actor.
Perhaps Blake’s most memorable early role went uncredited – he played a stubborn boy who sells Humphrey Bogart a lottery ticket in the 1948 classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
But problems at home continued and he said he was regularly bullied at Hamilton High School. Blake began drinking heavily and eventually took drugs. “I’ve sold drugs, used them, sniffed them, done anything you can do with them,” he said on The Merv Griffin Show in 1973.
After a brief stint in the military in the mid-1950s, he returned to sporadic television shows. When he landed the role of Perry Smith in 1966, the Times headline read: “Unknown Actor Plays ‘Cold-Blooded’ Killer.” His performance, wrote Times film critic Charles Champlin, “made Smith terribly understandable and the act all the more horrifying for its seeming inevitability.”
Blake also received critical acclaim for the sequels Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973), but also earned an industry reputation for being disruptive – necessitating script and other changes. On the set of the cop drama Electra Glide, the assistant director “would have had a right to shoot me,” Blake said in a 1973 Times interview. “There was pain, conflict, and blood on the sand.”
During “Baretta,” the 1975-1978 ABC series, in which he played a master of disguise who lives with his cockatoo, he bickered not only about the script, but also about the casting, sets, and even props. At least he was worth it for a while. “You’d go to dailies and he’d be great,” series creator Stephen J. Cannell told The Times in 2001.
He got a new series, Hell Town, in 1985, which he helped create by playing a fiery priest in East Los Angeles and swearing reform. “This is the new image: Mr. Nice Robert Blake,” he told the Associated Press. But after 16 episodes, he left his own series and stayed away from acting until he triumphed again in the 1993 TV movie Judgment Day: The John List Story.
He played only two more roles after that, including in David Lynch’s 1997 neo-noir film Lost Highway.
If he ever felt completely comfortable as a performer, it might have been on TV talk shows, where he came across as funny, rebellious, and a little sassy in his observations of the entertainment industry and life in general. So much so that The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson regularly booked him
He last got a taste during an appearance on “Dr. Phil” to a friendly audience. He said bluntly that he didn’t kill his wife and even managed to laugh at his explanation – complete with character voices – of why he shouldn’t be charged.
Blake was clearly encouraged by the answer. “It’s been a while, but I’m back home,” he told the audience. “It’s all I have in life, it’s the only thing God has ever given me.
“It doesn’t get any better.”
Source: LA Times