Actor Robert Blake has passed away, at 89.



Best known for the tv series Baretta and the film adaptation of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, as well as his career, as a child actor in the Our Gang comedies.

Born Michael Gubitosi, in 1933, in New Jersey. His parents created a song and dance act and Michael and his two siblings were billed as the 3 Dancing Hillbillies. They moved out to Los Angeles and began working as film extras. Michael, as Mickey Gubitosi, was cast in the film Bridal Suite and then replaced Porky, in the Our Gang shorts, eventually appearing in 40 of them, before MGM shut down production on the series. He later became Little Beaver, the sidekick of Red Ryder, in a series of films, from republic. He appeared with Laurel & Hardy, in The Big Noise and played the Mexican boy who sells Humphrey Bogart the winning lottery ticket, in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. he began being billed as Mickey Blake or Bobby Blake, in 1942.

After a stint in the army, he emerged with no job prospects and fell into depression and drug abuse, before enrolling in Jeff Corey's acting class and straightening out his life. He slowly began appearing in tv guest roles, on such shows as Have Gun, Will travel; The Rebel, Bat Masterson and The Californians. he appeared with Gregory Peck in the film Pork Chop Hill.

In Cold Blood became a major career breakthrough and it was noted how closely he resembled the real life killer, Perry Smith. This led to further roles in films and then his own series, with Baretta.

After Baretta, Blake struggled with new roles and had a bit of a reputation for being difficult and ticking off studio executives by things he said in public. He made several appearances on the Tonight Show, where that subject was often aired, while he also tried to promote a film, Second-Hand Hearts, which had been plagued with a troubled shoot, with erratic behavior from the director.

He had a bit of a career revival, with David Lynch's Lost Highway; but, the murder of wife Bonnie Lee Bakely and his arrest for it, led to a very messy trial, where he was ultimately acquitted, due to a lack of concrete evidence tying him to the murder weapon and lack of any forensic evidence to him even shooting a gun. He lost a civil trial and declared bankruptcy against the monetary judgement. With the negative publicity, roles were hard to come by and his later years were spent in financial difficulty.


Putting aside his later years, Blake was a fine child actor and was capable of being a great actor, as an adult.

RIP Rolly Crump, famed Disneyland designer. He was 93.

I know Crimebuster is a big fan or Disney theme park comics and memorabilia. Not sure if he is familiar with Crump's specific work.

-M

I am somewhat familiar with his work, mostly from some excellent documentaries on Disney Plus about park design and imagineering.

RIP to author John Jakes. Best known for his sweeping historical fantasy sagas like North and South, I knew his work better form his early sci-fi and sword and sorcery stuff like Brak the Barbarian and Mention my Name in Atlantis.

-M

Jakes also co-wrote the King Arthur novel, Excalibur (not related to the film; but, published at the time of the film's release) with Gil Kane.

Had not known that. Excellent potential trivia question answer. Though I was Giants fan as a kid, I was partial to the Vikings (even more so when Tarkenton was the QB) and always felt bad for them when they came up empty in the Super Bowl. They never even came close in any of them.