Robert Blake at his preliminary hearing at the the Van Nuys Courthouse |
HOLLYWOOD - The first wife of Robert Blake has claimed the actor tried to have her and hernew boyfriend killed following their separation in the 1970s.
In a court deposition given in a Los Angeles attorney's office in May,
Sondra Kerr Blake says several people told her Blake had taken out a "contract"
to murder her and her then lover, actor Steve Railsback.
Part of her testimony reads: "He had put a contract out on me and the other
man that I was seeing at the time."
Blake allegedly planned to blame the killings on followers of Charles Manson,
as Kerr Blake and Railsback were then filming the 1976 TV movie Helter Skelter,
about the Manson 'family'.
Kerr Blake says the Baretta star wanted them murdered in the same Los Angeles
mansion where Manson's followers slaughtered five people, including the actress
Sharon Tate, in August 1969. His intention was to make the deaths look like
retribution for filming a Manson movie, says the witness.
Kerr Blake claims she was told of Blake's plans by a friend of the actor's
manager, director Bernard Kowalski - who filmed several Baretta episodes - and
his wife Helen.
She made her statement as part of an ongoing civil case brought against Blake
by the family of his murdered second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.
Blake was acquitted of the murder of Bakley in March, but his slain
wife's family still maintain he is guilty.
Kerr Blake was married to Blake, with whom she had two children, from 1961
until their divorce in 1983.
Article Copyright World Entertainment News Network All Rights Reserved.