Actor Robert Blake passed away today from heart disease at the age of 89.
Blake had been an actor since childhood during his days with The Little Rascals and appearing in movies with the likes of Laurel and Hardy and Jack Beeny. He made his breakout performance as an adult portraying murderer Perry Smith in the 1967 movie adaptation of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. In the mid-1970's, Blake starred in the hit TV series Baretta.
But to most people who came of age in this century, Blake is remembered for standing trial for murdering his second wife in 2005. Although acquitted of those charges, Blake was subsequently deemed liable for her death in civil court later that year forcing him to declare bankruptcy.
I mostly remember Blake for his TV interviews, particularly with Johnny Carson. Blake seemed to have a rapport with Carson and seemed relatively at ease around him. Yet you never knew where he was going to go from moment to moment. In most of his interviews, Blake talked about getting into fights or wanting to kill someone. One might not give such statements second thoughts. But watching him make these remarks in the 1970's and 1980's only to end up being put on trial for murder does give one pause.
I don't know if Robert Blake committed murder or not. But even if he didn't, I would probably be inclined to get no closer to him than through the distance of a TV screen. There's no doubt Blake endured significant physical, sexual and psychological trauma as a child and never found a way to cope with it when he wasn't acting. I can only hope he finds greater peace in the next world. R.I.P.
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