Robert Blake, the Emmy Award winning actor whose career in film and television spanned more than 50 years, died on Tuesday, September 19 at the age of 63. He died of a heart attack in Milpitas.
He was well known for his role in the long-running TV series Baretta, for which he won an Emmy Award in 1973. He starred as an undercover police detective who never played by the rules. Baretta always carried a parrot on his shoulder; after the series ended Robert Blake raised parrots for a living. In his childhood Blake-then known by his given name, Mickey Gubitosi--was best known for his role as the pessimistic Mickey in Our Gang. Our Gang, earlier titled The Little Rascals, was a series of short films portraying the adventures of a group of mischievous kids including Spanky, Alfalfa, Jackie, Buckwheat, Darla, and Mickey, among others.
Our Gang was Blake's first step toward stardom, but he hated working in the series. "It was a very unhappy time in my life. You lose all perspective when you're a kid in show business," he once said. Ed MacFarland, who played Spanky, had an entirely different experience. "I loved being in Our Gang because I was the star. All my life, I got things for free because I was Spanky. I can't imagine why anybody was unhappy if they were on the show." Ed MacFarland went on to become a successful car dealer in Texas. Jackie Cooper, "Jackie" in Our Gang, became a popular character actor in the 1940s and 1950s.
Those success stories were far from typical for the actors in The Little Rascals and Our Gang. Many lived tragic adult lives. Alfalfa died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 28. The beautiful Darla suffered from mental illness and became homeless. Like Chubby and Weezer, she disappeared from public view when she was in her twenties. Chubby and Weezer both had severe health problems: Chubby was dangerously overweight and Weezer, as his name suggests, had respiratory problems.
Robert Blake, like many of the Our Gang actors, grew up to be a heavy drinker. "I never saw him without a cigarette or a drink in his hands," said his close friend Patty Duff. "But at least he never did drugs. And he voted Republican in every election, bless his heart." Blake's personal life was turbulent; he was married five times and had seven children. Paul Peterson, a former child actor on the Donna Reed show, remarked, "I met Robert Blake many times and he always seemed to have a heavy heart. I think it's because his childhood was stolen from him. And he was one of the most successful [Our Gang actors] in his adult life." |
