Actor Robert Blake, best remembered for a murder case he faced in 2001, died Thursday at the age of 89 in Los Angeles.
The Baretta (1975-1978) actor died after a long heart disease, his niece confirmed the death, according to local American media.
In 2001, Blake was accused of shooting his second wife, Bonnie Lee Backley, while she was sitting in Blake’s car outside a restaurant, a crime he was acquitted of at his trial in 2005.
However, a few months later, Blake was found guilty of intentionally killing a woman in a civil trial and ordered to pay $30 million (€28 million) to the four Bakley children.
Born in New Jersey in 1933, Blake began his career as a child in films such as The Wedding Suite (1939) and MGM’s Our Gang series of short films.
He trained in acting in the 1950s and starred in films such as The Purple Gang (1959), This Property Is Condemned (1966) and Corky (1972).
He starred in a variety of television series, but it was “Baretta” that marked the career of an actor, playing the iconic and revolutionary detective Tony Barrett.
In film, one of his most notable performances was as the psychopathic killer Perry in In Cold Blood, based on Truman Capote’s novel of the same name.
Blake has appeared in over 160 films and television projects, the last of which was David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997).
His career was so affected by the murder allegations that the actor filed for bankruptcy and in 2012 published his memoirs in a book called Scoundrel Tales: What I Did for Love.