Twenty years ago, actor Robert Blake was the prime suspect in the murder case of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley. Blake has a long Hollywood resume. He started as a child actor during the 1930s in the Our Gang short film series, which modern audiences might know better as the original version of The Little Rascals. As an adult, he starred in the Emmy Award-winning show Beretta for 3 years, and he iconically gave a chilling performance as real-life murderer Perry Smith in the film adaptation of the Truman Capote classic In Cold Blood. Blake’s final film before retirement would be David Lynch’s 1997 noir Lost Highway. Before he retired from acting, Blake had been working consistently in Hollywood since 1939.
Bonnie Lee Bakley was gunned down while sitting in Blake's car, which was parked at a construction site adjacent to Blake’s favorite Los Angeles restaurant on May 4, 2001. Blake was the last person to be seen with Blakely before she was shot in the head multiple times. The two had a notoriously rocky marriage, and some felt that Bakley was just a Hollywood gold digger because Blake was her tenth husband. Blake had only been married once before, and Bakley was already in a relationship with Marlon Brando’s son Christian when she started dating Blake.
Now, over 20 years since Bakley’s death and with no other arrests made, one has to wonder what happened on the night of the murder, what happened after the trial, and what the actor has been up to since his acquittal.
8 Blake’s Case Took 4 Years To Come To A Conclusion
Blake was arrested in 2002, almost 1 year after the murder, and he would spend almost another year in jail awaiting trial before his release on $1.5 million bail. His trial would not conclude until 2005 when he was found not guilty on all charges, even though he had a loaded gun on him at the time of the murder.
7 Blake’s Bizarre Alibi
Blake's alibi was that he could not have shot Bonnie because he had gone back into the restaurant they had just left to retrieve his gun, which Blake kept on him for protection. It was also well known that Blake was a gun collector. Prosecutors would later confirm that Blake’s pistol was not the murder weapon, nor could they tie Blake forensically to the gun that was used to kill Bakley.
6 A Stuntman Testified That Blake Tried To Hire Him To Do A Hit
One of the reasons Blake was arrested was thanks to the testimony of Roland "Duffy" Hambleton, a former Hollywood stuntman. Hambleton testified that Blake tried to contract him to kill Bakley a few months before the murder. The story was supported by another stuntman, Gary McLarty, who also claimed Blake tried to hire him to kill his wife.
5 The Prosecution Slandered The Jury
After the acquittal, Los Angeles District Attorney Stephen Cooley commented to the press that Blake was a “miserable human being” and that the jurors were “incredibly stupid” for siding with the defense. The comments drew heavy criticism and some of the trial's jurors argued that Cooley was just “making excuses” for not doing his job. Some law professors also commented that Cooley’s comments were damaging to the public image of prosecutors and would negatively affect their relationships with jurors. Cooley never issued an apology and the Los Angeles district attorney's office never commented further on the matter.
4 Blake Was Found Liable In Civil Court
Although he was acquitted on criminal charges, a civil court sided with Bakley’s children that Blake was liable for their mother's death. Also, public opinion still heavily ruled that Blake was guilty. Since the trial, Blake has been in heavy debt. He was unable to pay his tumultuous legal fees, the $15 million he was found liable for in civil court, and over $1 million owed in back taxes. Blake filed for bankruptcy in 2006.
3 Blake Hasn’t Worked Since 1997
Blake retired from acting after Lost Highways, but he has since indicated that he is willing to return to Hollywood in order to help him get out of debt, despite the fact that Blake is now 88 years old. Blake has kept a low profile since his trial but has slowly begun to resurface, even giving an interview to 20/20 in 2019. Prior to this, his last interview was in 2012 with Piers Morgan, and videos of the interview went viral because Blake was incredibly irritable and defensive as Morgan asked him about the case.
2 He Has A Youtube Channel now
In September of 2019, Blake officially resurfaced to the modern world by starting a Youtube channel titled Robert Blake I Ain’t Dead Yet, So Stay Tuned. He also started a website called Robert Blake’s Pushcart, where people can read scripts from his movies and order memorabilia and copies of his book.
1 Tarantino Dedicated His Novel To Robert Blake
The saga of Robert Blake is a bizarre one. But if any of this wasn’t bizarre enough, film director Quintin Tarantino also dedicated the novelization of his 2019 film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood to Robert Blake. Twenty years since Bakley’s death, many are still divided over whether or not Blake is guilty. Whether guilty or not, the man has lived a tumultuous life and the story of his trial and its aftermath is an intense one. Hollywood is a fickle yet forgiving mistress, and whether or not Blake will find himself working is a question that remains unanswered along with so much else about this case.