Robert Blake and Bonny Lee Bakley had been married for just five months when she was fatally shot while sitting in his car in May 2001. Though he was arrested for her murder, he was ultimately acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
Public DomainRobert Blake as Tony Baretta in the 1970s detective series Baretta.
Robert Blake embodied the American Dream. The son of a first-generation Italian immigrant in a working-class neighborhood of New Jersey, he became a bona fide child star and even won an Emmy for his role in the 1970s detective series Baretta. However, his rosy story took a dark turn when Blake was accused of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in 2001.
Aside from Baretta, Blake was known at the time for his portrayal as convicted killer Perry Smith in the 1967 adaptation of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and the terrifying “Mystery Man” in David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), which made him all the more suspicious to millions of people who only knew Blake from the big screen.
While Blake was ultimately acquitted after a highly-publicized trial that captured the attention of the nation, his legacy was left tarnished.
So, did Robert Blake really kill his wife? This is the true story behind the crime that came to define his life.
The Early Life Of A Child Star
Robert Blake was born Michael James Gubitosi in Nutley, New Jersey, on Sept. 18, 1933. While he eventually found fame and fortune as an actor, Blake had a difficult childhood. His father, Giacomo Gubitosi, was reportedly abusive.
As Michael Newton wrote in his book, Celebrities and Crime, “In later years, Blake told reporters that his parents were ‘committably insane,’ describing his father as a ‘sadistic maniac’ and his home as ‘a very diseased, terrible household.’ According to Blake, he was frequently locked in a closet, forced to eat off the floor, often beaten, and sexually abused.”
Blake’s father and mother, Elizabeth Cafone, were part-time performers as a song-and-dance team. They began billing Blake and his two siblings as “The Three Little Hillbillies,” moved to California in 1938, and made their children work as movie extras in hopes they would be discovered.
Public DomainRobert Blake circa 1944, when he was starring in Our Gang.
Blake officially broke into the acting world at age six, when he became a regular in the Our Gang comedy shorts, which later transformed into The Little Rascals. He quickly became one of the most recognizable child stars in the country. Billed as Bobby Blake, he went on to earn roles in various films and the Western series Red Ryder.
His burgeoning career came to a halt in 1950, when Blake was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Upon his return, he found it difficult to secure work, and he started selling drugs and became addicted to cocaine and heroin. It wasn’t the end of his entertainment career, however. In a way, it was just the beginning.
Robert Blake And The Murder Of Bonny Lee Bakley
By 1956, Robert Blake had returned to the screen. Over the next decade, he appeared in over a dozen crime, war, and Western films, and even more television shows. But his big break didn’t come until 1967, when he was cast as Perry Smith in In Cold Blood. His performance as the real-life murderer garnered praise from critics, and his star only grew when he earned the role of Detective Tony Baretta in the 1970s series Baretta.
As he entered his 50s, Blake’s career slowed down, but he never completely vanished from the industry. At least, not until the death of Bonny Lee Bakley in 2001.
Harland Braun via ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy Stock PhotoBonny Lee Bakley, the wife of Robert Blake whose murder remains a mystery to this day.
Blake had met Bakley at a jazz club in 1999. The 43-year-old woman had a reputation for dating older, wealthier men. She’d been married nine times and had three children, and she was romantically involved with Christian Brando — the son of Marlon Brando — at the time.
Still, Blake began his own relationship with Bakley — and by the end of the year, she was pregnant. She first claimed that the child was Brando’s, but a DNA test after the baby’s birth revealed that Robert Blake was the father.
Blake had been divorced before and had two children of his own, but when he found out that he was a father once again, he decided to marry Bakley. They wed in November 2000, and for a few short months, they raised their daughter, Rose Lenore Sophia Blake, together.
But their union came to a grisly end on May 4, 2001. Blake and Bakley had gone to dinner together at Vitello’s, an Italian restaurant in Studio City. As they were walking back to the car after the meal, Blake reportedly realized he’d left his pistol inside and returned to retrieve it. Bakley, meanwhile, waited for him in the vehicle.
Police PhotoThe car where Bonny Lee Bakley was shot dead in 2001.
When Blake got back to the car a few minutes later, Bakley was dying. She’d been shot twice, once in the head and once in the shoulder. Blake ran to a nearby house for help and knocked on the door of Sean Stanek.
As Stanek recalled to ABC News in 2018, “I open the [car] door, I sit in next to her and I pull her up… but all she’s doing is gurgling and there’s just [a] massive amount of blood everywhere.”
Then, he saw Blake with a gun. “This was a murder,” said Stanek. “This is your quintessential Hollywood murder noir story. This is it. Doesn’t get bigger than that.”
However, a jury didn’t see things the same way.
The Murder Trial Of Robert Blake
As the police investigated Bonny Lee Bakley’s murder, they realized that Robert Blake’s pistol wasn’t the gun that had killed her. What’s more, Blake had no gunpowder residue on his hands. It seemed as if there was no way to tie him to the crime scene.
Public DomainRobert Blake (right) in the crime series Naked City in 1961.
Then, two retired stuntmen came forward. Ronald “Duffy” Hambleton and Gary McLarty claimed that Blake had previously approached them asking them to kill Bakley. As CNN reported in 2005, McLarty later testified, “[Blake] started talking about his wife and how she was taking advantage of him, spending his money.” The actor then allegedly suggested several ideas for hits.
Due to the accounts of Hambleton and McLarty, the police arrested Robert Blake for murder in April 2002, nearly a year after Bakley’s death. His trial began in December 2004, but the prosecution’s case quickly fell apart.
Jurors seemingly didn’t trust the word of Hambleton and McLarty. Blake’s defense team argued that McLarty had been abusing drugs and having paranoid delusions at the time of Bakley’s murder, and Hambleton had a criminal history of his own. With no physical evidence connecting Robert Blake to the crime, the jury was left with enough reasonable doubt to acquit the actor.
HLN TV/YouTubeRobert Blake awaiting the verdict of his murder trial in 2005.
Blake was found not guilty in March 2005. But a subsequent civil trial deemed him responsible for the death of Bonny Lee Bakley. He was ordered to pay $30 million in damages, an amount that was later reduced to $15 million.
But by that point, Blake was hemorrhaging money from legal fees, and he filed for bankruptcy in 2006. He tried to recoup some costs by seeking new roles, but he was never cast in another movie or television show. Robert Blake’s illustrious career had come to a screeching halt.
The Tarnished Legacy Of A Former Star
Although Blake wasn’t found guilty, Hollywood had moved on. His final role as the murderous “Mystery Man” in Lost Highway now seems eerily prescient.
ABC News/YouTubeRobert Blake in a 2003 jailhouse interview with Barbara Walters.
Blake spoke to ABC News in 2019 about his life after Bakley’s death. “I’m 85 years old, I’m beat up all to Hell and gone, but I’m still here,” he said. “I’m not giving up.”
The actor also vehemently denied his role in his wife’s murder. “I was worth $40 million,” he said. “I would hire somebody to shoot my wife in a car while I was out taking a pee or some bullsh—t like that?”
Robert Blake died of heart disease on March 9, 2023, at age 89. He was not honored during the “In Memoriam” segment at the Emmy Awards that year. He could have been remembered as a child star or his role in Baretta, but instead, his name has become synonymous with one of Hollywood’s greatest mysteries: the unsolved murder of Bonny Lee Bakley.
After learning about Robert Blake, read about the murderous real estate heir Blake Leibel. Then, learn about sculptor Carl Andre and his wife’s curious death.