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March 10 (UPI) -- Robert Blake, known for playing tough guys on TV and in film, died Thursday at age 89. Blake's daughter, Delinah Blake Hurwitz, confirmed his death in an email to CNN, saying the actor died peacefully at his Los Angeles home on Thursday. Noreen Austin, his niece, confirmed his death to Deadline.
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Blake was best known for acting on TV series Baretta, in which he played New York City undercover cop Tony Baretta. The ABC show aired for four seasons from, 1975 to 1978 and Blake won an Emmy in 1975 and a Golden Globe in 1976 for the role.
The actor also known for going on trial over accusations that he killed his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in 2001. In 2005, Blake was acquitted of those charges but found liable in a civil suit brought by her children.
In his six-decade TV and film career, Blake played a rich array of diverse characters including Perry in 1967's In Cold Blood, based on Truman Capote's book about a real-life murder in Kansas. Blake kept good company in his work, appearing in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart and with Clint Eastwood on the TV series Rawhide in the '60s. In 1995, he was in Money Train with Jennifer Lopez and Woody Harrelson. Blake's last film credit was in David Lynch's acclaimed film Lost Highway in 1997.
Overall, he appeared in more than 200 films.
Born Michael Gubitosi in Nutley, N.J. on Sept. 18, 1933, he performed with his siblings and parents as part of a song and dance act. The family moved to Los Angeles where Blake ultimately found the most success, changing his name in 1942. His first role was in the Our Gang movie shorts playing Mickey, one of the Little Rascals.
Blake said later that his father was "commitably insane" and abused him psychologically, physically, and sexually. His father died by suicide in 1955.
By then, Blake had established himself in Hollywood and continued to work steadily throughout the years. But in May 2001, his wife, Bakley, 44, was found shot in the head in a car outside a Los Angeles restaurant where the couple had gone to dinner.
Blake said that he'd returned to the restaurant to retrieve his own gun, and when he got back, she was dead. He was accused of arranging her murder-by-hire with a former stuntman he'd met on the Baretta set.
Blake was arrested in 2002, the same year Bakley's children filed a wrongful death civil suit against the actor. During the 2005 trial, it was revealed that Bakley had 10 former husbands and went by more than 12 aliases.
His attorneys argued that she'd 'trapped' him into marriage by getting pregnant with their child, who she first said was by Christian Brando, Marlon Brando's son. Blake did not testify in his own defense, but the stuntman who testified against him had a history of drug abuse and Blake was subsequently acquitted.
His wife's murder remains officially unsolved.
Blake's criminal defense attorney Gerry Schwartzbach, provided a statement to CNN, saying, in part, that Blake was a "complicated man."
"He and I spent parts of virtually every day together over the year I lived in LA working on his case. We had a strong bond. I am saddened by his passing, but glad that he is no longer suffering."
After he was ordered to pay Bakley's children $30M, Blake filed for bankruptcy. The amount was later reduced to $15M.
In 2011, Blake released his memoir, Tales of a Rascal: What I Did for Love. In his later years, he played music and lived quietly in Los Angeles. He's survived by his children, Noah Blake, Rose Bakley and Hurwitz.
