The Loneliest Star
Now that the Iraqi elections are safely in
the can, it's time to go back to our
favorite national topic, Celebrities in Distress. (Let us pause for a
moment and consider a peculiarity of the print media; and after having
paused without being offered a topic on which to reflect, continue on.)
In
Saturday's NYT, Charlie LeDuff offers us one of the saddest little
profiles we've seen in a while, this moment in time with demi-star Robert
Blake, a man who once had some of it.
Robert Blake, the
B-list actor who is accused of killing his wife, shuffles around the
courthouse in Van Nuys these days, alone, a Pall Mall tucked behind his
ear. He goes unrecognized by the public and unhounded by the trickle of
reporters and others who bother to keep up with his trial.
I am already near tears, and this is only the
first paragraph. A Pall Mall behind his ear. How very sad. This once great
cigarette used to be well known throughout the world, and was even the
preferred brand of the legendary
Saint Nicholas, who swore that it guarded against throat scratch, an
important quality indeed for someone who does not wish to wake up good
little boys and girls. Now it has fallen even lower than the Lucky Strike, a
smoke which can now only be found in small oriental groceries on the poor
side of town.
Mr. Blake, 71,
carries a bitter look, as if cheated, as though the streetlights woke him
up. He says he did not kill his wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley. Few seem to care.
Usually there are just a couple of cameras and a half-dozen reporters at
the courthouse. Mr. Blake's moment in the sun has been eclipsed by the
supernova that is Michael Jackson, whose trial on charges of child
molesting is to begin Monday in Santa Barbara County with jury selection.
It is not just conjecture that few seem to
care. The latest Zogby poll shows that the rate of caring, even in the
greater Los Angeles area, has fallen below three percent. Further his
likability quotient ranked significantly below that of Jackson's, with a
full eighty-three percent of respondents unable to identify a picture of
Baretta. (DVD sales of 'Baretta: Season 1' hover around the 300 mark).
Even People magazine
has demoted Mr. Blake, the star of the 1970's "Baretta" television series.
It put him on the cover in May 2001, shortly after Ms. Bakley's death, but
has not featured him prominently since. "Readers weren't that interested,"
said Larry Hackett, the magazine's deputy managing editor. Barbara Walters
came knocking for an interview. Now he rarely makes the first segment of
the local news.
Mr. Blake not only fails to live up to the title of most-famous celebrity
defendant in Southern California, but he is also debatably not even the
most famous murder defendant in Southern California. Phil Spector, the
hermitic rock producer, famous for the Wall of Sound in the 1960's, was
vaulted into the limelight when he was charged with murdering an actress,
Lana Clarkson, at his Alhambra home in 2003.
As a further sign of disrespect, after
charging Blake with the murder of Ms. Bakley, LA police refused to keep him
incarcerated beyond the three day minimum, telling him to just "hang around,
and keep your nose clean". Blake has had to deal with world-class lawyers
refusing to accept his phone calls, and in a last ditch bid for some
semblance of relevancy, was forced to select Bruce Cutler, the former lawyer
for John Gotti, to lead his defense. Cutler gives Blake a spot of time here
and there, when not consulting with his more important client, Phil Spector.
Mr. Cutler said his
client maintains his innocence and hopes to have the trial begin in late
summer, when the Jackson trial will probably end, and the media will
probably come calling.
But for now, the phone remains silent.
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