Robert Blake, Unpredictable Actor and Hollywood Pariah, Has Died at 89

That People magazine profile, a cover story headlined, “Fame Cost Me My Family,” referenced Blake’s unhappy childhood, bouts with alcoholism, substance abuse and depression, and the divorce that year from his wife, Sondra Kerr, whom he married in 1964. In other interviews he spoke about child abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father.

Hell Town, which premiered in 1985, looked to be Blake’s comeback vehicle. It was a modest hit, but he quit the series after 16 episodes. He claimed in a 1992 Los Angeles Times interview that he “was living on sleeping pills and junk food” and was “only days—maybe hours—away from sticking a gun in my mouth….”

He dropped out of show business for almost a decade. Analysis, therapy and self-healing helped him turn around his life. In 1992 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance as a man who murdered his family in the TV true crime film Judgment Day: The John List Story. He had a featured role in Money Train opposite Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes in 1995.

In 1999, Blake met Bakley, who was involved at the time with Marlon Brando’s son, Christian. In 2000, she gave birth to a daughter. The paternity test determined Blake to be the father. The couple married that year, but rarely saw each other, he later said.

On the night of Bakley’s murder, the couple dined at Vitello’s, an Italian restaurant. Blake claimed that he walked Bakely back to their car, but then went back to the restaurant for his handgun he said he left there. When he returned to the car, she was dead.

Blake’s trial began in December of 2004. Bakley’s sordid past—petty scams, several arrests, celebrity stalking—was cited in Blake’s defense as evidence that others had motive to kill her. In 2005, he was found not guilty. But in November of that year, Bakley’s children prevailed in a wrongful death suit against Blake, who was ordered to pay $30 million. That judgment was reduced by half on appeal, but Blake was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2006.

In 2012, Blake gave a characteristically contentious interview on Piers Morgan Tonight. He was promoting his self-published memoir, Tales of a Rascal: What I Did for Love, but Morgan brought up Bakley’s murder and suggested Blake was not being entirely truthful about it, Blake pushed back hard, memorably telling Morgan, “I would have assumed that you and that guy in your ear would trust me. And if you don’t, we’d better start talking about the Little Rascals.”

In 2018, Bakley’s murder was the subject of an episode of the reality series, Marcia Clark Investigates the First 48. But he did not appear again onscreen, after a career marked by sharp highs and lows and fueled by Blake’s perception he was a Hollywood outsider. That, it seems, led to a lifetime of frustration.“Y’know,” he told People, “I’m always the little greaseball on the corner who ain’t supposed to have none o’ this. And Lord knows I paid enough frigging dues in my life to get someplace.”