A Hollywood family long haunted by a gruesome murder is being roiled anew by alleged “threats and blackmail” related to the killing — and a dinner-theater whodunit.
“In Cold Blood” actor Robert Blake was accused of shooting his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, to death in the parking lot of Vitello’s Italian restaurant in Studio City in 2001, and now his son is staging a fictional murder mystery in the same eatery.
Blake’s daughter, Rose Lenore Blake, spoke out about her half-brother Noah Blake’s macabre production. But she now tells Page Six that she has been silenced by what she describes as his “threats and blackmail.”
Noah, 61, directs and stars in “A Killer Night in Studio City,” set in 1958, which opened at Vitello’s on Sept. 15 with tickets for $145.
Noah’s father took wife Bonny Lee Bakley to dinner there in 2001. After the meal, she was fatally shot in the couple’s parked car.
Robert was acquitted of Bakley’s murder in 2005, but was later found liable for her death in a civil case.
Rose, who is the daughter of both Blake and Bakley, first took her objections public Monday, denouncing the production on social media and pleading with followers: “Please help me shut down this show.”
By Thursday night, Rose said she was backing off after claiming she had been threatened and blackmailed by her half-brother.
“Noah has reached out to me and threatened to expose me (past life struggles) to the press,” Lenore told Page Six. “I am worried for what’s to come.”
Rose read out texts, allegedly sent from Noah, in a TikTok. One message said: “Don’t start talking about me, and don’t play a pity card about it. If you want to and try to make me look like a bad guy, I will have to go and defend myself, and I will use whatever I need to.”
In a statement to Page Six, Rose called the project “distasteful” and said she stood by her opinion, adding that she wished her brother “no harm.”
Noah’s representative, meanwhile, tells Page Six the production has nothing to do with Rose’s mother and bizarrely notes that she has never even seen the play.
“The play itself has absolutely no connection to the events of the past. It’s an entirely fictional story, and none of its characters or storylines are connected to real people or events,” Blake told us.
“Doing the show at Vitello’s, however, is absolutely intentional. It was a very special part of my life for decades, but after everything that happened, the venue became a physical symbol for me of something much larger and much more painful that I’ve spent years processing.”
He says returning to Vitello’s to create something joyful and entertaining has helped him heal by transforming a place associated with painful memories into something positive, while acknowledging that others may feel differently about his decision.
He continued: “When Rose first raised her concerns with me, I asked that we discuss them directly. I’ve made multiple attempts to have that conversation, and that door remains open. She obviously chose to handle this publicly, which certainly wouldn’t have been my choice, and still isn’t.’
The post Actor Robert Blake’s family rocked by ‘threats and blackmail’ in fight over gruesome Hollywood murder appeared first on Page Six.
