Robert Blake, a veteran of Hollywood, died at the age of 89. Noreen Austin, his niece, confirmed his death and attributed it to long-term heart difficulties.
Austin claims he spent his final years doing things he enjoyed, such as listening to jazz music and playing the guitar while watching old movies.
Blake had an excellent career in movies that began in the late 1930s and included an uncredited cameo in the 1939 picture “Bridal Suite.”
He has since had a prodigious output across many mediums and left a lasting impression on show business.
Robert Blake had a five-decade acting career that included 150 credits and four Emmy nominations, one of which he won for his depiction of Tony Baretta in the 1975 TV sitcom of the same name.
He was widely regarded as one of the most accomplished child actors of all time, and his final film performance was in the neo-noir thriller “Lost Highway” in 1997.
Many people remember him for his remarkable career, but others remember the terrible things that happened to him later on, like being charged with killing two people in 2002.
Despite being found not guilty at trial, it was a dark period that continues to cast a shadow over an otherwise brilliant and much-celebrated reputation.
Robert Blake’s life was irrevocably altered in May 2001 when his second wife, Bonnie Lee, was found dead. According to LAPD Online, Bonnie was hanging in the front seat of Blake’s vehicle.
Bonnie was 44 when she died, 23 years younger than her husband. They had only been married for a year, but she had previously been married ten times before marrying Blake.
When Blake was arrested 11 months later and charged with Bonnie’s murder, shockwaves rippled worldwide.
Upon the arrest of Robert Blake by a police spokeswoman, the actor denied any participation in the death of his wife, Bonnie.
He claimed that evening that he had left her alone in their car after supper, only to return to find her lifeless body.
Notwithstanding this account of events, Blake was imprisoned for a year before being released on a $1.5 million bond. During an interview with Barbara Walters in 2003, he speculated that Bonnie’s past could have been a factor in her death.
Robert Blake was accused of the murder of his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, in 2004. Although substantial evidence linked Blake to her death, he was acquitted of all charges in 2005.
This verdict, however, did not restore the actor’s reputation to its original level. Many people suspected that Bakley had previously been married and that one of her prior husbands had seen her on television and planned to exact revenge by killing her.
She seems to have spent many years breaking up relationships and even taking people’s lives. This has made many people worry about an unknown attacker.
