Robert Blake dead at 89
foxnews.comRobert Blake died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 89. The "Baretta" star died from heart disease, according to a statement released by his niece, Noreen Austin. "He died at home with family around him peacefully, long-term heart issues," Austin told Fox News Digital. "He spent the last few years listening to jazz music and playing his guitar and watching classic movies." Once hailed as among the finest actors of his generation, Blake became better known as the defendant in a real-life murder story more bizarre than any in which he acted.
Blake went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Studio City restaurant on May 4, 2001.
In a 2002 interview with the Associated Press while he was jailed awaiting trial, he bemoaned the change in his status with his fans nationwide: "It hurt because America is the only family I had." He was adamant that he had not killed his wife, and a jury ultimately acquitted him.
But a civil jury would find him liable for her death and ordered him to pay Bakley's family $30 million, a judgment that sent him into bankruptcy.
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