He had played a chilling criminal in the adaptation of ‘In Cold Blood’, the masterpiece of Truman Capote, before being prosecuted in real life and then acquitted for the murder of his wife: actor Robert Blake died Thursday at age 89, according to the American press.
The American comedian died of heart disease, according to the specialized site Deadline, which cited his niece.
Known as the vigilante of the American series ‘Baretta’ in the 1970s, this temperamental actor, able to fight with his colleagues, was preceded by his reputation in Hollywood.
His career was clouded by the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, a crime for which he was prosecuted before being cleared. Robert Blake was accused of shooting her in the head on May 4, 2001, six months after marrying her, while she was sitting in their car near a Hollywood restaurant.
Pregnant
At trial, the prosecution had assured that the actor “despised Bonny Lee Bakley” because “she had become pregnant against her will and […] she had refused an abortion as he had requested. According to the prosecution at the time, Robert Blake had tried to persuade two stuntmen who worked with him to kill his wife, before she was found dead.
The actor, who consented to the marriage after paternity tests proved he was the father of a baby girl, has always maintained his innocence.
At trial, he explained that his wife had been killed when he returned to the restaurant to pick up a gun he had accidentally left behind. According to him, he had discovered her on her return to the car, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to the head and shoulder.
Mr. Blake was cleared in criminal proceedings in early 2005. But that same year, a civil jury later found him responsible for Ms. Bakley’s death and ordered him to pay $30 million to his family.
Besides his role as a vigilante in ‘Baretta’ (1975), Robert Blake, who had started on the boards at the age of six, had acted in several films, including ‘In cold blood’ (1967), where he had a murderous role, ‘Money train’ (1995) and ‘Lost Highway’, by David Lynch, in 1997.
/ATS
