Robert Blake starred in his first films as a child actor, continuing to make movies through adulthood until reaching what some would see as the peak of his career in the 1970's when he played the title role in the TV detective series Baretta. However, by the late 1990's his career was all but over, mainly due to his reputation of being difficult to work with. It was around that time that he met Bonny Lee Bakely.
Bakely was obsessed with celebrity and fame. A pornography queen who sold nude photographs of herself and was not above conning men out of as much money as she could as a sideline, she was delighted to meet a big star like Blake and had soon trapped him into marriage using the oldest trick in the book - she got pregnant. Even when her daughter was born, Bakely hedged her bets, allowing both Blake and Christian Brando (son of actor Marlon) to believe that they may be the child's father.
Blake was a reluctant husband and their sham marriage was a constant battleground in which both parties consistently tried to outmanoeuvre the other. Eventually, in May of 2001, the marriage was ended when Bonny was shot. Less than a year later, Blake was arrested for her murder.
Dennis McDougal and Mary Murphy have told the true story of Blake and Bakely in their book "Blood Cold". It's a difficult book to categorise. Published by Onyx True Crime, it's not really True Crime as such since the murder doesn't occur until 50 pages before the end of the book. The great majority of "Blood Cold" covers the lives and careers of the doomed couple, with particular emphasis on Blake, as they slowly move towards each other with tragic consequences.
The ageing Blake was very much a has-been actor and Bakely was an unpleasant money-grabbing parasite of a woman who used people to further her own ends. Somehow, McDougal and Murphy have taken a story that is at best lukewarm and injected it with sufficient enthusiasm to make it interesting. Billed on the front cover as "Fame, Sex and Murder in Hollywood", "Blood Cold" is a surprisingly good read -well written, meticulously researched and, particularly detailed in it's portrayal of Blake as an exceedingly good actor who never quite made the big time, mainly due to problems of his own making.
As a True Crime fanatic, I was slightly disappointed to find that "Blood Cold" didn't cover the murder in more depth - in fact it's fair to say that I felt somewhat duped. Nevertheless, I found the book an intriguing expose of the seamier side of Hollywood.
Publisher: Onyx True Crime
ISBN: 0 451 41073 4
Price: $6.99 (£4.49)
Date Reviewed: September 2002
My Rating: 3/5
