March 10, 202306:37
His career is overshadowed by his wife’s murder allegations
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Actor Robert Blake (pseudonym of Michael James Gubitosi), best known for playing detective Tony Baretta in the 1970s television series of the same name, for which he won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe, has died at the age of 89. According to American media, the death is associated with heart disease. Blake’s career had been overshadowed by the death of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley, Killed in a Los Angeles parking lot in 2001: The actor was charged with murder for this crime but was acquitted.
His wife’s death and the trial Bounced into the news in 2001 over allegations of uxoricide against his second wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, Blake and the trial, with background on the couple’s past (the wife had married Blake because she became pregnant, but they were also dating at the time ). Christian Brando, son of Marlon Brando) have been enlivening the legal chronicles of Hollywood for years.
Bonny was killed with a few blows to the head in a Los Angeles parking lot while waiting for her husband, who had walked away, to return to the restaurant the two had just walked out of. After the fact, Blake spent the night in a hospital, where he was later released: he was interrogated for 5 hours about the incident (at first he was not a suspect and was only questioned as a witness. A few days later, the actor was hired a detective to to find the person responsible for his wife’s death.
Blake had married Bonnie Lee Bakley on November 19, 2000 when a DNA test confirmed he was the father of their daughter Rose. The affair shed light on a number of events in their short but intense relationship, most notably drawing attention to the victim’s special personality, who was said to have a genuine “obsession with celebrities” with whom he attempted to contact. contact and marry.
The acquittal verdict On April 18, 2002, Blake was arrested for murder. The arrest was made live on television while the actor was at his sister’s house. Along with him, one of his two bodyguards was arrested for involvement in the murder, alleging that Blake acted against his wife to end a marriage in which he was involved against her will.
The turning point in the LAPD’s investigation came when a former stuntman, Ronald “Duffy” Hambleton, agreed to testify against the actor (assisted by an associate, Gary McLarty), saying Blake tried to get him to name Bakley to murder. During the trial, Blake’s defense discovered that the stuntman’s words included a promise of acquittal for his previous crimes in exchange for testifying against the actor. As a result, the plaintiff was acquitted.
But a civil jury nonetheless found him responsible for her death and ordered him to pay Bakley’s family $30 million — a judgment that literally bankrupted him.
The actor never recovered from the ordeal that began with the death of his wife.
He is still remembered by many today, not as the evil, dark-haired protagonist of “Baretta,” but as a ghostly white-haired murder suspect. In an interview with the Associated Press in 2002 while he was incarcerated awaiting trial, he commented on the change in his status, saying, “It hurt because America is the only family I had.”
The daughter The daughter he and Bakley had together, Rose Lenore, was raised by other relatives and went years without seeing her father until they finally met in 2019.
Balake told People magazine that Rose Lenore called him “Robert,” not “Dad.” A merciless end to a life that has been in the spotlight since childhood.
The career Born to Italian-American parents, Blake starred as Mickey Gubitosi in the cast of Simpatiche canaglie as a child in the 1940s.
Following the experiences of “Likeable Villains,” Blake played the role of Little Beaver in 23 films of Red Ryder’s popular western series from 1944 to 1947. Following Tommy Cook in 1940 and before Don Reynolds in 1949, Blake is one of three child actors to play Red Ryder’s young Indian saddle mate.
Blake also appears in the films Big Bang (1944) with Laurel and Hardy; Head Over Heels (1946) as John Garfield as a child; and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), in a scene starring him as a Mexican boy alongside Humphrey Bogart.
As a young actor in the 1950s, Blake, who legally changed his name to Robert Blake in 1956, played roles in western films, which led to an intense acting career in film and television. In the 1970s he played his best-known role as detective Tony Baretta in the popular television series Baretta (1975-78), for which he received numerous awards, including an Emmy Award (1975) and a Golden Globe (1976). .
Blake’s last acting role was in the 1997 David Lynch film Lost Highway. Thus ending a career that “remains one of the longest in Hollywood history, with 60 years of activity elapsing between his childhood beginnings in the 1930s through the late 1990s.”
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