Blake Plans Acting Comeback

Blake Plans Acting Comeback

By WENN| Tuesday, March 21, 2006

HOLLYWOOD - Baretta star Robert Blake is planning an acting comeback, one year after he was acquitted of murdering his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley.

The 72-year-old actor, real name Michael James Gubitosi, was arrested one year after his wife was found shot to death in their car in May 2001, close to a Studio City, California restaurant where they had just dined.

But the 1970s TV star, who is currently working as a stable-hand for friends, claims he is ready to take on the world once again.

He says, "I want to live. I've woken up some nights and wanted to drive till the car goes off a cliff."

"And an hour later, poetry is coming to me. I want to go act. I want to go teach. I want to dance."

"I can be an actor no matter what happens. I was in the middle of a job when my father committed suicide and I went to work the next day."

Blake pleaded not guilty to the charges, telling police he had returned to Vitello's Italian restaurant to collect a gun he had left at the table when Bakley was shot outside.

He was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2005 when a court asked him to pay his wife's family $30 million damages in a civil suit.