Robert Blake, best known for his lead role in the 70s crime series Baretta, passed away Thursday from heart disease, confirmed by his niece, Noreen Austin.
According to a statement from his representative given to ABC News, he “passed away peacefully surrounded by family by his side in Los Angeles.”
Some may know Blake from a few smaller roles in other movies and TV shows, like The Cisco Kid or the 1967 film In Cold Blood. But some might remember the 2001 murder trial of his second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in which he was initially arrested for the crime and later acquitted of all charges.
At the time of her death, Blake and Bakley’s only daughter, Rose Lenore Blake, was not even a year old. Following the lengthy trial that ended in 2005, she left her father and moved in with her half-sister, Delinah – Blake’s daughter from his first marriage – and that’s where she’d spend the rest of her childhood, being raised in an LA suburb called Sherman Oaks.
Being so young when her mother was killed, she has no recollection of her death, nor does she remember the trial very well. In 2019, she spoke with People about how although she doesn’t remember living through the highly publicized crime, she experienced the aftermath from the media just the same.
“It’s all so public,” Rose said. “I can literally Google any of our names, and it would come up. It was kind of a traumatic childhood at that point.”
She recalled a time where she was cheerleading for her high school and saw a person taking photos of her. Immediately, she guessed they were paparazzi, and she would turn out to be right.
“Some guy in the stands was taking pictures of me. I had a feeling that it was paparazzi, but I just kept going,” she remembered.
Weeks later, she discovered her pictures displayed in an article from a tabloid magazine.
“It was a positive article,” she admitted, “but it put distance between me and my classmates.”
Rose and her adopted guardian, Delinah, did what they could to live a “private life”, which included Rose participating in recreational activities like soccer, gymnastics, and dance. But the weight of her family’s past was all too present in her life, and she suffered for it.
“I have very severe anxiety and depression,” she shared, detailing that she grew up taking anti-anxiety medications. “I went to therapists throughout the years to discuss all my family issues.”
Struggling to open herself up with her family regarding their history, she found a more comforting resource in her friends to either discuss or escape from the complicated outcomes of her mother’s murder.
“It was easier to talk to friends than family. It was such a messy situation with my family, and everyone was part of it in some way,” she said. “My friends weren’t attached to it, so it was less complicated talking with them.”
Still, she rarely spoke of her parents and what their family went through to her friends. Her friend, Ally Aronson, was able to give some insight to People about how she was with friends.
“She never really wanted to talk about it,” Ally shared. “She didn’t even tell me about her real parents until maybe a year and a half into the friendship. She skirted around the topic. It was definitely a burden she carried around.”
When Rose turned 18, she decided to do some work to reconnect with her past. She started by visiting her mother’s grave for the very first time. After that, she contacted her father, whom she hadn’t spoken with in years.
“It was a lot to handle,” she said of speaking with Blake. “He started talking about [Bakley], and I said, ‘This is too much.’ And he was very respectful of that, which was good. I don’t want to know if he did it or not.”
She stayed very adamant about not wanting to dive deeper into the case of her mother’s murder, saying it was “useless to have an opinion about it.”
“Say he did it or he didn’t do it – what’s the point of knowing that, other than to just trouble myself?” she said. “I think it’s better to just see both sides for what they are and not try to overwhelm myself. It’s complicated.”
Blake maintained his innocence throughout his life, although he did undergo a wrongful death civil suit filed by Bakley’s kids from a separate marriage where he ended up owing them an undisclosed amount of money.
He is survived by his daughter Rose, and his two kids from his first marriage, Delinah and Noah.
Sources:
https://people.com/crime/how-robert-blakes-daughter-tried-to-come-to-terms-with-moms-murder/
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/baretta-actor-robert-blake-dies-89-niece/story?id=97756526
