Wife of actor Robert Blake shot dead in Los Angeles

Robert Blake

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The wife of actor Robert Blake was found shot dead in the front seat of her husband's car outside a Los Angeles restaurant, police said Saturday.

Police were questioning the actor Saturday. He was not in custody.

Blake told police he and his wife, Bonnie, left a Los Angeles restaurant at 9:40 p.m. Friday in Studio City, northwest of Hollywood. He said they had gotten into their car when he realized he had left something in the restaurant, LAPD spokesman Guillermo Campos said.

Blake said he returned to the restaurant, retrieved the item, and, when he got back to the car, discovered that his wife had been shot once in the head, Campos said.

Blake walked to a nearby house, where he called paramedics. They were unable to revive the woman, and she was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.

Andrew Percival and his wife also ate at the Italian restaurant Friday night and left about 9:30 p.m. Percival said he saw a man dressed in black inside the restaurant who looked like the actor.

Paramedics were unable to revive Blake's wife, Bonnie, and she was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital

After Percival and his wife paid their $35 check and left the restaurant on foot headed toward their house on the same block, they saw the same man stride "very, very briskly" in the middle of the street through the eatery's parking lot and past them toward a car that they later saw surrounded by police.

Blake apparently was a regular at the eatery, Percival said, noting that the menu had an item named after him.

Both when he went to bed Friday night and when he awoke Saturday, Percival said, police were hovering around the late-model black sedan, which was parked less than 100 yards from the restaurant.

Percival described the area as "a really nice neighborhood. Crime just isn't an issue around here."

Blake, 67, began his career as a child actor in the "Our Gang" comedies of the 1930s and '40s. His career took off with "In Cold Blood," the 1967 film account of the Clutter family killings in Kansas. He later starred in the television series "Baretta."

The Nutley, New Jersey, native was born Mickey Gubitosi. In 1940, he took the stage name Bobby Blake and began playing child roles in a wide range of films. But he continued to use the name Mickey Gubitosi in the "Our Gang" series for another three years.

During talk show appearances in the 1970s, Blake discussed his anger over his treatment by his family and the studio as a child and his bouts with drug abuse.

E! Online - Credits - Robert Blake
The Los Angeles Police Department

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