Stuntmen Pivotal in the Blake Case

They took on physical though anonymous roles in movies such as "Patriot Games" and "Midway."

Now, the two veteran Hollywood stuntmen are expected to be the star witnesses for the prosecution in the murder trial of actor Robert Blake.

Both Gary "Whiz Kid" McLarty, 64, and Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton, 68, say Blake tried to hire them to kill his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.

They are set to take the witness stand this week in a Van Nuys courtroom as prosecutors continue to mount their case that Blake solicited Hambleton and McLarty to kill Bakley and, when they refused, eventually pulled the trigger himself.

Blake, 71, faces life in prison if convicted in the May 4, 2001, shooting death of the 44-year-old Bakley in his car near a Studio City restaurant where they had just dined. He has been free on $1.5-million bail for nearly two years.

"If they are believed, they're the best evidence you have, since [prosecutors] don't have any direct evidence linking [Blake] to the shooting," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal law at Loyola Law School.

Hambleton did lead police to records from a prepaid phone card that documents dozens of calls from Blake's home to the stuntmen. Hambleton told police he assured Blake that calls made using the card could not be traced. The card itself was not recovered, but police were able to trace its purchase to retrieve records of the calls.

In the three years since court documents revealed their possible roles in the case, the stuntmen have shunned publicity. Their friends and family also are mostly hesitant to talk about them. Yet details of their lives and careers, as well as their allegations, came out when the men testified as key prosecution witnesses at Blake's preliminary hearing two years ago.

Both testified that they had not seen Blake in more than two decades, since the Emmy Award-winner's television heyday -- nor had they socialized with him when they worked together in the 1970s. Yet neither hesitated to meet, separately, with Blake at a Studio City diner in 2001, each hoping to land a stunt job in the actor's next professional adventure.

"I would like to have found a job. Absolutely," McLarty testified at the preliminary hearing. "I'm always looking for one."

Hambleton, of Lucerne Valley, and McLarty, of Sylmar, worked on the '70s detective series "Baretta," starring Blake as a cockatoo-loving cop whose forte was disguising himself to infiltrate the criminal world. They have led the unusual, sometimes risky lives of men who make their living by doing things that would make others blanch.