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.

After a stint in the military, Blake returned to the business with new vigor, landing notable roles in Pork Chop Hill (1959) and Town Without Pity (1961). His career shifted into high gear when he portrayed the real-life killer Perry Smith, bound for execution in In Cold Blood (1967).

When Baretta hit its heights in the mid-1970s, Blake won an Emmy and was a familiar face on The Tonight Show.

Still, Blake had been tagged as a perfectionist who was difficult to work with. Reports emerged that he struggled with drugs and alcohol. He was openly consumed with anger over his treatment as a child actor, admitting at one point that he was physically abused. Self-Imposed Exile

Blake began a self-imposed exile from show business after the TV series Hell Town (1985), attempting to straighten out his life.

To writer Harry Crews, who profiled Blake for Esquire magazine in the mid-1970s, it was inevitable that the actor would end up a fallen star.

"Whatever his devils were, they destroyed him. They destroyed him long before he got into whatever he's into now," Crews told the Associated Press.

"He couldn't get work," Crews said. "He just couldn't get it. And he was hustling and slumming and partying and begging and everything else for any kind of work within five years after he left Baretta up to now."

A Troubled Marriage

When Blake, divorced with three children, crossed paths Bakley at a Hollywood nightclub, his career had been stalled for years. According to reports, they quickly became lovers, and she was soon pregnant, although she said she was unsure if Christian Brando fathered the child, until a DNA test was performed.

Bakley had her own brushes with the law. She had to get permission from an Arkansas judge to be released from electronic monitoring. She had been under house arrest for possessing fake identifications.

Shortly after the marriage, Bakley left the girl, Rosie, in the actor's temporary custody. Later, she moved into a cottage behind Blake's home.

On the night of the murder, Blake said Bakley was shot in the head when he left her alone in his car to return to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he'd accidentally left behind. He was carrying the .38-caliber pistol,he said, to protect her from threats.

But in the yearlong investigation, police say that an overwhelming amount of physical evidence and circumstantial evidence points to Blake and his chauffeur, Earle Caldwell, who allegedly conspired to commit the murder.

"We believe the motive is that Blake had contempt for Bonny Bakley," said LAPD chief Bernard Parks. "He felt he was trapped in a marriage that he wanted no part of. Quite frankly, the entire situation was not one to his liking at all."

If convicted, Blake could face the death penalty.