(Los Angeles) He had played a chilling criminal in the adaptation ofIn Cold Bloodthe 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 from 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 he married her, while she was sitting in their car near a Hollywood restaurant.
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 asked her”.
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 had consented to the marriage after paternity tests proved that he was the father of a little girl, has always claimed 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.
His lawyer had explained to the jurors that the seven previous husbands of Mme Bakley, the hundreds of men she had defrauded, and Christian Brando, the son of Marlon Brando, whom she had dated, were the possible perpetrators of the crime.
Mr. Blake had been cleared in the criminal beginning of 2005. But that same year, a civil jury had then found him responsible for the death of Mr.me Bakley and ordered to pay $30 million to his family.
In addition to his role as a vigilante in Baretta (1975), Robert Blake, who had started on the boards at the age of six, had played in several films, including In Cold Blood (1967), where he had a murderous role, money train (1995) and Lost Highwayby David Lynch, in 1997.