Life and Career of Robert Blake

April 18, 2002 -- As the Baretta theme song goes, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

Now, the actor who played Det. Tony Baretta faces murder charges in a case that's unfolded much like an episode of the gritty 1970s TV show.

The 68-year-old actor maintains his innocence, nearly a year after his wife Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, was killed a block from a Studio City restaurant where they had dined. They were married only five months before the May 4, 2001, shooting.

"I believe the real killer is out there," said Blake's lawyer Harlan Braun, who described Bakley as a con artist who solicited money from men through newspaper and magazine ads.

"I doubt very much they could eliminate everyone that ever delt with Bonny Bakley."

‘Nobody Kills Nobody. That’s The Rules’

As the street-smart, rulebook-breaking Baretta, Blake played an NYPD undercover detective. With Fred, his pet cockatoo, perched on his sholder and a street stoolie named Rooster, Baretta was a quirky tough guy with a heart of gold.

Dress Baretta as a middle-aged woman, wrap a fur stole around his burly shoulders, and he'd bust the bad guy, always preaching his right-and-wrong street philosophy on the way to the precinct.

"I told you, man, nobody kills nobody. That's the rules," Baretta declared in one episode. "I don't know no other way." With Spanky, Buckwheat and the Gang

Success came quickly to the New Jersey-born Mickey Gubitosi, who joined Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat in the popular MGM Our Gang series — also known as The Little Rascals.

He played the role of the melancholy "Mickey" throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. He eventually changed his name to "Bobby Blake," contemplating a career in show business.

The work was less than steady. Blake later admitted that he turned to crime in his teenage years. “I wore a pinstriped suit and carried a gun. I did time in jail. One night when we were robbing a liquor store, a cop almost blew me away,” he told a newspaper in 1994.