R.I.P. Robert Blake

[Big Magilla]

There is no way they will include anyone who has not been declared legally dead in the In Memoriam segment. It takes seven years for a missing person to be declared legally dead in the U.S. Don't expect to see him to be included until 2030.

[Greg]

I'd just finally printed out my list of recent celebrity deaths for my Oscar party (we, too, use last-in-the-In Memoriam as tie-breaker), and, two days in a row, I have to amend it.

This got me thinking, will the In Memoriam include Julian Sands? This puts the Academy in a very delicate position. They do not want to be seen as ignoring Sands; but, they also do not want to be seen as squelching any hope that he could still be found alive.

[Big Magilla]

He was a very good child actor in the 1940s, the second to die this week following Ted Donaldson.

I always thought that the jury knew he was guilty but looked for an excuse to let him off the hook for murdering the woman who ruined his life. I doubt he had much peace in life the last twenty years. I kind of felt sorry for him the way you do him and Scott Wilson in In Cold Blood.

R.I.P. is indeed appropriate.

[danfrank]

He had a pretty big presence in the 70s when he played Baretta. There was a certain charm about him. When you read about his life, starting from the very beginning, it’s pretty Dickensian. The charm appears to have been a survival mechanism, with exceedingly dark layers just underneath.

[Mister Tee]

Like with Phil Spector, I'm not sure R.I.P. sits exactly right for a guy who killed his wife. But you can't take away that he was extraordinary as Perry Smith.

I remember, when he won his Emmy for Baretta, he started thanking Lewis Milestone and Hal Roach. I didn't know at the time that he'd been an Our Gang actor, and I thought he was hallucinating.

I'd just finally printed out my list of recent celebrity deaths for my Oscar party (we, too, use last-in-the-In Memoriam as tie-breaker), and, two days in a row, I have to amend it.

[anonymous1980]

Story.

A complicated legacy but did some good work.