bonnie b: l'histoire du bonnie b: jerry lee lewis
l'histoire du bonnie b. et jerry lee
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Bonny's Address Book
Bonny Bakley's resourcefulness was apparent in her address book, which Harland Braun recently made public with the addresses, and sometimes telephone numbers, blacked out.
"Let me show you something," Braun said as he flipped through its pages for reporters. "It's really disgustingThis lady was completely wacko. She was absolutely evil."
The book contains 17 entries, and includes addresses for
The book contains 17 entries, and includes addresses for
Robert Redford,
Sylvester Stallone,
Gary Busey,
Sugar Ray Leonard,
comedian Chuck McCann,
Robert DeNiro,
Prince,
Jimmy Swaggart (a disgraced televangelist and cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis's),
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt,
actor James Best,
Pat McCormick,
Will Jordan,
Chuck Berry,
Lou Christie,
Frankie Valli,
Dean Martin
and, of course, Robert Blake.
There were other listings besides the aforementioned 17 celebrities—men of prominence and wealth, like a cattle rancher in Oklahoma and a man in San Francisco who owns racehorses
A Who's Who in the
Bakley Murder Case
Bakley, Bonny Lee (a.k.a. Leebonny): Born 7 June 1956, the first of three children of Edward and Marjorie Lois Bakley. Bonny Lee was raised by her maternal grandmother, Margaret Hall.
Bakley, Edward: Father of Bonny Lee, Margerry, and Joseph Bakley, abandoned family in 1963, died ten years later in jail.
Bakley, Joseph: Younger brother of Bonny Lee Bakley, currently serving prison time for identity theft.
Bakley, Margerry: Younger sister of Bonny Lee Bakley, worked with Bonny in pornography and prostitution business.
Lewis, Jerry Lee: Country and western singer who achieved international popularity in the 1950s; was relentlessly pursued by Bakley in the 1980s and 1990s.
Lewis, Kerrie: Wife of Jerry Lee Lewis at the time Bakley began stalking the singer; the couple divorced in 1991.
Lewis, Linda Gail: Younger sister of Jerry Lee Lewis; briefly went into business with Bakley.
Stefanow, Robert: Elvis impersonator and associated of Bonny Bakley.
Elvis impersonator
Robert Stefanow
A note written by Bonny Lee
other listings besides the aforementioned 17 celebrities—men of prominence and wealth, like a cattle rancher in Oklahoma and a man in San Francisco who owns racehorses and plays the stock market.
Braun also made public copies of her "day log," typewritten notes that detail the progress, or lack thereof, of the famous and/or wealthy men she had set out to pursue.
An example reads: "Send # to Gary Busey; Tulsa, OK, mother is Virginia, will forward mail."
There is also a "young and rich" section as well as an "old and rich" section.
In one entry under the "young and rich" segment Bonny includes a reminder to send Sugar Ray Leonard, a former middleweight boxing champion, her telephone number. She also included documentation that she had left a message for a man in San Francisco—"makes $170,000 a year, owns racehorses and plays the stock market." In an entry in the "old and rich" section she reminds herself to send a letter to the cattle rancher in Oklahoma—"owns a 320 acre cattle ranch, if he finds a girl that is true, faithful and committed to him at his death she would be financial (sic) secure," and signed it "Sylvia," one of many aliases she had used.
Bonny's resourcefulness, not to mention her persistence, as a celebriphiliac is also evident in the aggressive manner in which she pursued a relationship with Jerry Lee Lewis for years.
"She was all over us," recalled J.W. Whitten, Lewis's former road manager. "She would always stay in the same hotels we were in. She popped up at one of his birthday parties. Once she offered me money to tell her where he was. She actually thought she had a shot at being Jerry's girlfriend."
The problem of celebriphiliacs like Bonny Bakley is prevalent enough, especially in Hollywood that the police there have received special training to learn how to recognize it and deal with it.
Marriages, relationships and children
1) Husband: Evangelos Paulakis (divorced)
2) Husband: Paul Gawron (cousin, m. Nov-1977, div. 1982, 2 children)
Son: Glenn Paul Gawron (with Paul)
Daughter: Holly Lee Gawron (b. 1981, with Paul)
3) Husband: Robert Moon (m. 1984, div. 1987)
4) Husband: DeMart C. Besly (m. 7-Dec-1988)
5) Husband: Joseph Brooksher (m. 1992 for just 1 day)
6) Husband: William Webber (m. 1993 for just 2 days)
Daughter: Jeri Lee Lewis (b. 28-Jul-1993, father unknown)
7) Husband: E. Robert Telufson (married for 6 weeks)
8) Husband: Glynn H. Wolfe
9) Husband: John Ray (m. 1996, div. 1998)
Boyfriend: Christian Brando
10) Husband: Robert Blake (m. 19-Nov-2000)
Daughter: Christian Shannon Brando (renamed Rose Lenore Sophia Blake, b. 2-Jun-2000)
This home at 2731 Calle Olivo in Thousand Oaks, California is one of several bought by Bonny Bakley with the money she took in from her "lonely hearts" and pornography ventures.
Margerry Bakley, sister and sometime-partner of Bonny Bakley in the sex business, hopes to get her hands on a lot of money with a civil lawsuit against Robert Blake.
This drawing shows the tiny town of Hampton, New Jersey (current map) where a young Bonny Bakley lived with grandmother Margaret "Grammy" Hall in a trailer on Red Mill Road.
Christina Scheier (on left) with Bonny Bakley in old photograph. Scheier has claimed that she has inside information about Bakley's scams, as both friend and ID theft victim.
Christina Scheier in 2002 during an appearance on Larry King Live shortly after Robert Blake's arrest.
Elvis impersonator
Robert Stefanow
during an appearance
With
Greta Van Sustern
Fox TV.
Stefanow married Linda Gail Lewis, sister of Jerry Lee, in 1987.
Reportedly,
Ms. Lewis divorced him after he and Bakley got involved sexually.
Bonny Lee Bakley says "Jerry lee Lewis is the Daddy of my little girl"
Star Article 1993
2003 UPDATE -
Bonny Lee Bakley was murdered in California and her husband, the actor Robert Blake has been charged with the crime. In 1989 she made two records for Noway Usa Music of Palisades Park, New Jersey: Using the name Leebonny Bakley, she recorded a number called "Tribute to Elvis Presley" that contained the line "Rock and roll will never be the same/Rock and Roll Leebonnie is my name". She also made a brief appearance in the 1985 movie "Turk 182" which starred Robert Urich.
In 1990 Lee Bonny and Linda Gail Lewis sued a UK newspaper that had reported they were running an expensive sex chat line service.
This is the original Star article from 1993:
ANGRY GIRLFRIEND BLASTS
-
JERRY LEE
IS DADDY OF MY LITTLE GIRL
A scorned girlfriend of Jerry Lee Lewis says he's the father of their love child - and now she's taking the legendary rocker to court. Bonny Lee Bakley wants the legendary rocker to acknowledge and support the 4-week-o1d daughter she's named Jeri Lee. Lewis, 57, his sixth wife, Kerrie, and their son, Lee, are currently living in Ireland to avoid high taxes in the U.S. But that hasn't stopped Bakley, 37, from filing a petition in Memphis to establish paternity. "I took a home pregnancy test. I called Jerry and told him I was pregnant. He didn't really seem enthused," Bonny tells Star.
"He told me, 'Don't tell anybody.' He didn't want me to tell his sister, Linda Gail, even though we were friends. He said he would get back to me but he never did. I thought he was on the verge of a break up with Kerrie," she says, adding that she gave birth just a few minutes' drive away from The Killer's mansion. Now an unemployed mother of three, Bakley says she had, an on-again, off-again affair with the Great Balls of Fire singer for seven years, and adds she always believed she'd be the next Mrs. Jerry Lee right up until the time the child was conceived. 'The last time we made love was on October29, 1982, at the Airport Marriot in Nashville" Bonny recalls. "I wore a blue silk dress. Jerry said, 'you look good tonight. After we made love, he said, 'I got to get up early' and he left."
Now that Bonny has resigned herself to to life as a single mom, she is determined to make Jerry pay up. "I knew that I had to do something to see that the baby had her rights," says Bonny. "So I went to the Memphis juvenile court and told them I was having a baby - but the father isn't responding." Bonny says the paternity tests can't be done for another two months - but she has no doubt the results will prove that the child is Jerry Lee's. "I would marry him in a heartbeat" sighs Bonny "I love Jerry I love him so much I was willing to have his child. I would do it all again."
She says she fell for the aging performer after seeing him on stage for the first time. 'Jerry made a lasting impression on me," says Bonny "I met him backstage while I was living in New Jersey. "I came to Memphis for a visit" recalls Bonny, 'and ended up staying for a month, and seeing him almost every night usually at Hernando's Hideaway - one of Jerry's favorite clubs, "In 1986, I even moved down to Memphis so I could be with Jerry"
Even if she does win her suit Bonny may have a rough time collecting any money. Jerry Lee owes the IRS $1.6 million, and recently, agents seized some of his most prized possessions - including his piano. "Jerry flatly denies he is the father of this child," the singer's attorney, Charles Waldman, tells STAR.
"I hate the word has-been," continued Merich, "but common sense tells you that the B-list people have more of a problem (with celebriphiles). They don't have handlers and can't afford top-notch security. And they tend to visit the same places over and over again, because people know them there and they still get the attention they crave. They leave themselves open to this problemyou have to get into the psyche of the celebrity. Because as much as they complain about it, these people like being famous. They like walking down the street and having people say, 'Oh, my gosh, that's so-and-so.' That's why they became a celebrity in the first place. And your B-list people aren't getting that attention anymore. So they're much more susceptible to groupies or hangers-on or somebody like this Bakley woman."
"I've been in this business for ten years, and these sorts of cases have been a constant," said John C. Lane, Jr. Lane, formerly the lead officer in an LAPD celebrity protection unit, is now employed by Omega Threat Management Group. "There has always been an undercurrent of inappropriate pursuit in the entertainment industry. Usually it gets dealt with behind the scenes."
Braun joked that he was misquoted when he seemed to have said that anyone who met Blake’s slain wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, would have wanted her dead: “What I said: ‘If I was married to her, I would have killed her myself’ ” - drawing big yuks from the crowd.
The book contains 17
entries, and includes addresses for:
Robert Redford,
Sylvester Stallone,
Gary Busey,
Sugar Ray Leonard,
comedian Chuck McCann,
Robert DeNiro,
Prince,
Jimmy Swaggart
(a disgraced televangelist and cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis's),
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt,
actor James Best,
Pat McCormick,
Will Jordan,
Chuck Berry,
Lou Christie,
Frankie Valli,
Dean Martin
and, of course, Robert Blake.
Father: Edward J. Bakley (arborist, d. 1973)Mother: Marjorie Lois HallSister: Margerry Lisa BakleyBrother: Joseph BakleyBrother: Peter Carlyon (half brother)Husband: Evangelos Paulakis (div.)Husband: Paul Gawron (cousin, m. Nov-1977, div. 1982, 2 children)Husband: Robert Moon (m. 1984, div. 1987)Husband: DeMart C. Besly (m. 7-Dec-1988)Husband: Joseph Brooksher (m. 1992, 1 day)Husband: William Webber (m. 1993, 2 days)Husband: E. Robert Telufson (6 weeks)Husband: Glynn H. WolfeHusband: John Ray (m. 1996, div. 1998)Husband: Robert Blake (m. 19-Nov-2000)Daughter: Holly Lee Gawron (b. 1981, with Paul)Son: Glenn Paul Gawron (with Paul)Daughter: Jeri Lee Lewis (b. 28-Jul-1993, with Lewis)Daughter: Christian Shannon Brando (renamed Rose Lenore Sophia Blake, b. 2-Jun-2000)Boyfriend: Jerry Lee LewisBoyfriend: Christian Brando
What Do You Think?
Does synastry shed light on the case?
Can you find her burning ambition to marry a famous entertainer?
Where is the con artist in the chart? What allows her to spin a con and make it believable?
What does it mean that she has an unaspected Ascendant?
Lewis's brother was killed by a drunk driver in front of the family's house when he was eight. His gave his firstborn son a Jeep for his 19th birthday, and the boy was killed when he wrecked it. His second son drowned at three. In 1979, the IRS confiscated many of Lewis's possessions in lieu of payment for back taxes. He was married six times, divorced four times and widowed twice (both times under conditions some saw as suspicious).
During and between his marriages, there were countless groupies waiting for Lewis backstage, in the parking lot, or even coming to his house, Among them was Bonny Lee Bakley, who later married actor Robert Blake and met an untimely death.
In 1980, still married to her cousin, Bonny moved down south. One day she arrived, uninvited at Jerry Lee's boyhood home. Frankie Jean Lewis, the rocker's sister, says Bonny sashayed into her living room with a tape recorder playing striptease music.
"She takes off her blouse and peels down her stockings," says Frankie. "It was good. She said 'I'd like to meet your brother.' So I got Jerry on the phone and I said 'Jerry, we got us a real live one here.' And he said 'Send her up.' That's what he always said."
Bonny Lee Bakley says "Jerry lee Lewis is the Daddy of my little girl"
In the years when Bonny was raking in money from her tawdry sex business, she never lost sight of her appetite for celebrities. Indeed, her pursuit of country musician Jerry Lee Lewis (at left) is one of the most bizarre chapters of her life. The singer, a cousin of disgraced televangelist Jim Swaggert and now in his late sixties, was popular on radio stations in the
1950s, and made appearances at such venues as the Steve Allen Show and even in concert overseas during 1958. But his star quickly lost its luster after a scandal over his marriage to a 13-year-old cousin. His records were dropped by radio stations and he ended up, in the words of a fan web site, doing "an endless string of one-night-stands." Said Lewis, "From $10,000 a night to $250 is a hell of a disappointment."
But even thirty years later, Lewis had one devoted fan - perhaps "obsessed" is a better word - in the person of Bonny Lee Bakley. She set out to get him any way she could, literally stalking him anywhere he went. She reportedly went so far as to bribe a travel agent for information about flights he was planning to take, then booked seats next to his. When Bakley gave birth to a daughter in 1993, she proudly claimed the baby had been fathered by Lewis, even succeeding in getting some tabloid newspaper coverage for her story. Not surprisingly, she named the little girl (pictured with Bakley at upper right) Jeri Lee Lewis. Numerous press reports have stated that tests were done, however, and they revealed the baby was not his.
But that wasn't the last chapter in the bizarre Lewis saga. After years of throwing herself at him, she eventually realized nothing would happen, and she settled for fantasy, calling herself "Bonny Lee Lewis" and sending out Christmas cards with a picture of the two of them and an inscribed signature: "Happy Holidays, Jerry Lee and Bonny Lee."
Altogether, Bakley spent more than 10 years pursuing Lewis, says an article in Entertainment Weekly. It quoted the singer's former road manager, J.W. Whitten: "She was all over us ... She would always stay in the same hotels we were in. She popped up at one of his birthday parties. Once she offered me money to tell her where he was. She actually thought she had a shot at being Jerry's girlfriend." (3)
After Bonny's killing made headlines around the world, Lewis issued a statement to disassociate himself from the woman. "I want to make it clear that I have never fathered a child by Mrs. Robert Blake," said the statement, which referred to Bakley as a nuisance who had gone so far as to threaten to kill Lewis's son if he did not take her as his lover. (4)
The statement added:
"She [Bakley] moved to Memphis in the hope that I would leave my devoted wife, Kerrie, and our son, Jerry "Lee" Lewis III, and marry her; merely a figment of her own imagination. Mrs. Blake then went on to cultivate friendships with my relatives and friends, hoping somehow this would help her cause. However, her stalking of my family, as well as her threats to kill our son, landed her in a Memphis courtroom. As a last-ditch attempt to form a relationship with me, in 1993 she charged she was carrying my child and stories to this effect appeared in the tabloids. This claim was thrown out of a Memphis courtroom as our lawyer proved, with my passport, that I was out of the country longer than her records claimed she was pregnant. Since she had no records to show she had left the country, the case was over before it began... I do hope the child who has my name and has been told I am her father learns that I am not the father and that I am very sorry that she has had to suffer this lie..." (5)
The reference by Lewis to threats by Bakley "to kill our son" are in themselves stunning enough. Even more recently, however, it was revealed that Bakley may also have discussed the murder of Lewis's wife. During a televised 27 August 2002 pre-trial hearing before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lloyd Nash, news headlines called attention to another of Bakley's taped phone conversations in which she reportedly talked about just that. On that date, the judge agreed to a defense request to delay the preliminary hearing until November on the grounds that prosecutors had earlier in the month turned over some 7,100 pages of new evidence in the case to Blake's counsel. It was in the context of this "new evidence" that the revelation about the alleged plot to kill the singer's wife emerged. [See photos of court proceedings, including captions from Fox News, below.] (6)
If Bonny Lee Bakley was deluded about her "relationship" with Lewis, as everyone connected with him has claimed, she was no less imaginative when it came to other, bigger, celebrities. Bakley either targeted or claimed to have had encounters with everyone from Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Red Foxx, and Gary Busey to former televangelist and Lewis relative Jimmy Swaggart. According to some reports, her address book had entries for no less than 17 stars she was intended to pursue. It included an old (now-isconnected) answering service for Robert Redford in New York, Sylvester Stallone's address without a phone number, and the home phone of comedian Chuck McCann. And there were still more. According to Entertainment weekly:
Bakley cast a wide net in her search for famous lovers. The names in her address book range from Oscar-winning actors (De Niro) to pop stars (Prince). Most of the listings, though, have a certain shabby je ne sais quoi to them. Disgraced Pentecostal preacher Jimmy Swaggart is in her book, as is Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who received a note from Bakley last December ("Something like 'Hi, I just married Robert Blake, we need to get together,'" Flynt's assistant remembers). Dukes of Hazzard star James Best makes an appearance, as do comedians Pat McCormick and Will Jordan and singers Chuck Berry, Lou Christie, and Frankie Valli (whom Bakley claimed to have dated in her teens). Bakley had the late Dean Martin's number, too, perhaps scribbled in the book the same night she took a picture with him at Hamburger Hamlet in Hollywood, where the aging crooner occupied the same table every Sunday evening for the last decade of his life. (7)
Bakley financed her extravagant trips, the nightclubs, hotels and favor-buying not only by means of her mail order sex and marriage hoaxes, but by means of credit card and identity theft, fraud, and even trumped-up lawsuits. The book, Blood Cold, notes:
By the mid-1990s, Bonny Lee Bakley was roving ever further out of control. She slept all day and played all night, and always let someone else pick up the check. She had a scam for every occasion. Need a free meal? Go with Bonny for seven courses and you wouldn't even have to pay for coffee? Need gasoline? Pick a card, any card - they all worked at the pump, no matter whose name was printed on them.
She received Social Security checks in all sorts of different names. It was just a matter of getting them cashed, and all that required was ID.
... Bonny found that lawsuits were another way to supplement her income. She would pop into her attorney's office fairly regularly with a possible personal damage action - everything from getting popped in the nose to falling down in a convenience store and injuring her tail-bone. (8)
While her sex and porn racket remained "Bonny's bread and butter," according to the same book, her phoney credit card habit is one that can cause long-lasting misery to victims. And Bonny wasn't the only Bakley involved in identity theft. Brother Joseph (right) financed his life the same way. According to Paul Johnsen of the San Diego District Attorney's office, the younger Bakley "worked his way across the country" using the names and social security numbers of former friends and acquaintances. With this identification, he would apply for credit cards in those names. And, because the bills were sent to Joseph's address in San Diego, the victims were never aware that their credit was being gradually ruined. (9)
Identity theft not only ruins credit. It can - and often does - result in false imprisonment. As one on-line news agency explains it, "There’s nothing new about criminals using aliases to evade the law — criminals often try to give their buddy’s name, address, and date of birth to dupe police. But the explosion of identity theft, and the ready availability of stolen digital dossiers on innocent victims, makes it just as easy for a criminal to give a stranger’s personal data during an arrest. Once police book a suspect under a fake name, that mistake can plague a victim for life." (10)
The news report describes the case of a man, typical of many who have been victims of identity theft, who has been repeatedly arrested for crimes committed by an impersonator who posted bail and vanished, leaving the court to issue a bench warrant. The man in this case was arrested for alleged drug dealing (a charge against the impersonator) when stopped for a minor traffic offense. Though the matter was cleared up quickly, he still lost his job for failure to report a "criminal record." But that wasn't the end. A year later, it happened again. He was jailed for another offense committed in his name by the ID thief. Then came a third arrest. Police came to his house, armed with three arrest warrants, and handcuffed him. Before leaving, officials at child protective services were called to take away the man's children, but a relative arrived in time to prevent the state taking custory. Even though that charge, too, was eventually cleared up, the impostor remains at large, says the report, and continues to commit crimes in the man's name. The victim in this case has at last concluded that his only recourse is to obtain a legal name change and a new social security number. (11)
Indeed, one of Bakley's victims came forward in February of 2004 to talk about what happened to her after Bakley got her hands on an old ID. The woman, 46-year-old Sylvia Simon, says her credit rating was destroyed along with her good name. As it turns out, Sylvia Burks Simon was once married to Bakley associate Robert Stefanow. She divorced him in about 1982, after which Stefanow traveled to Tennessee and became the seventh husband of Jerry Lee Lewis's youngest sister, Linda Gail. After Bakley seduced Stefanow, Lewis tossed him out. Among the things Stefanow left was an old ID of Sylvia's. Bakley paid Linda Gail $500 for it, and proceeded to run up an assortment of bills, including an unpaid debt of more than $1,200 at the French Riviera Spa in Memphis.
For years, Simon was aware of the ID theft problem and even reported it to the sheriff's department at Deltona, Florida in 1999. But nothing could be done. Even though Bakley was arrested with a false ID in the name of Sylvia Stefanow, Simon only learned it was Bakley when her name surfaced as one of Bakley's false identities at the time of her death. "Using my name, driver's license, Social Security number and date of birth, Bonny had been able to obtain a new driver's license for herself, set up bank accounts, rent mailboxes, operate an escort business and order credit cards," she says. "If I could tell Bonny just one thing, it would be that she ruined my lfe." (12)
Given the extreme consequences of identity-theft and the difficulty one has clearing one's name and credit, it is certainly not hard to imagine that someone whose name was used fraudulently by Bakley might be angry enough to have a motive for murder. Indeed, it is known that Bakley preyed on "friends" when in her ID fraud exploits, and that at least some whose identities were stolen were aware of Bakley's culpability. (13)
Celebrity stalking may seem relatively innocent compared to ID theft, but it is not. The stalker is not to be confused with some quirky, obsessed, anad overzealous "fan." Beatle John Lennon fell to an assassin's gun in Manhattan on 8 December 1980, shot by a star-stalker named Mark David Chapman to whom Lennon had, only moments earlier, given an autograph.
Eight years later, another deadly celebrity-hound made the news when he shot to death Rebecca Schaeffer, an young actress who starred in a TV sitcom. Robert Bardo, Schaeffer's killer, spent considerable time and effort to find his prey, reported hiring a private investigator at one point and then tracking her through computer data banks. He lurked in front of her apartment for hours at a time. And when one day a delivery-person dropped off a package for her, Barto went to her door. She turned him away, he became agitated and went back to her door, and then, without saying a word, fired the fatal gunshot.
Director Steven Spielberg was harrassed by one Jonathan Norman, described after his 1997 arrest as a deadly, sex-crazed psychotic. Police found duct tape, handcuffs and a utility knife, as well as pictures of Spielberg, his wife and his seven children. A security guard testified at the Normal trial that Norman had been attmpting to enter Spielberg house on June 29th and again on July 11th, when he was was arrested.
Madonna, too, barely escaped harm at the hands of a psychotic celebrity hound named Robert Hoskins who managed several times to get onto her property and once got within ten feet of her. Hoskins was shot in a struggle with a bodyguard and in March of 1996, after a trial during which Madonna testified that he had threatened to kill her for rejecting his marriage proposals, Hoskins was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Late night comic David Letterman is another who had close encounters with an irrational admirer. 46-year-old Margaret Ray succeeded in breaking into Letterman’s Connecticut home when he was away, even sleeping in his bed, driving his Porsche, and claiming to be his wife. She was committed to a state mental institution and in October of 1998, not long after her release, commimtted suicide by placing herself in the way of a speeding train at Hotchkiss, Colorado.
The truly determined stalker is no mere nuisance but more often a deranged pursuer vicious enough to do serious harm. But in the case of Bakley, the tables were turned. It was she, not the star she managed to snare, that ended up dead.
And the "grieving" Bakley relatives - who didn't even bother to attend Bakley's California funeral - scarcely acted like a family that had lost a loved one. Their stories popped up in tabloids as fast as publishers could write checks. And instead of saying kind things about dear departed Bonny, they gave rambling and often conflicting stories about Blake, from whom they hoped eventually to collect money in a wrongful death civil suit.
"When someone dies, usually you start thinking, 'She wasn't really a bad person,'" ex-hubby and long-time partner Paul Gawron told the Enquirer. "But the truth is, Bonny really was."
Bakley's own mother, Marjorie Lois Carlyon (left), was equally frank when she recalled an incident in which Bonny had submitted a crotch photo of herself to Husstler magazine in Carlyon's name. Bonny, said her mother, "has no shame."
But ex-husband DeMart Besly - the retired Montana sheriff who fell for a typical Bakley con - was even more provocative in his assessment of the Bakley character. Bonny Bakley, he wrote in his memoir, would "fuck a snake if someone would hold its head."
(2) See web page that describes Bonny as a "scorned girlfriend of Jerry Lee Lewis" who claims he fathered "their love child."
Bonny Lee Bakley (June 7, 1956 – May 4, 2001) was the wife of actor Robert Blake.
Early life
Bonny Lee Bakley was born in Morristown, New Jersey to tree surgeon Edward J. Bakley and his wife, Marjorie. She had three other siblings: Margeryy Lois Hall, Joeseph, and her half-brother Peter Carlyon from her mother's second marriage, Peter Carlyon. Problems at home as a teenager led Bonnyto move out of the house and in with her grandmother.
She dropped out of high school at age 16 and decided to go to New York City to pursue a career in modeling and acting at the Barbizon School of Modeling. She was married at 21 to her first cousin and had two children with him.[1]
Bakley's early life is checkered by a criminal record. She was convicted in Little Rock, Arkansas for possessing false identifications. In 1989, she was convicted of drug possession in Memphis, Tennessee and later in 1995, convicted of passing bad checks.
FBI records show that in 1994, while under investigation for fraud, Bakley told agents of a con she ran on a college student, sending her then thirteen year old daughter to seduce the man. [2]
Celebrity Obsession
Bonnie soon made a living running a lonely hearts scheme, sending nude pictures of herself to men with the promise of visiting them if they sent her money.
Bakley also had a history of pursuing celebrities. Her friends and relatives all described her as "celebrity-obsessed". She claimed to have had an affair with rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis and borne his daughter in 1993, but DNA tests later disproved her claim. Lewis has denied ever having a relationship with Bakley. Tapes of Bakley's phone conversations reveal that she was starstruck and bent on marrying someone famous. "I like being around celebrities," she once said, "it makes you feel better than other people."
Her lonely hearts fraud, however, continued to be lucrative. She was able to marry several of her victims swindling a number of men out of their savings and life insurance. Eventually she obtained enough money to buy two houses and several undeveloped lots in Memphis and a house outside of LA; additionally, her lonely hearts fraud funded her unsuccessful Hollywood career as a singer and actor under the stage name Leebonny.[3]
Marries Robert Blake
In 1999, Bonny Lee Bakley met Robert Blake at Chuck McCann's birthday party. At the time she was seeing Christian Brando, before becoming acquainted with Blake. Blake slept with Bakley, later claiming that she had assured him that she was taking birth control pills. Friends of Bakley later said that she was, in fact, taking fertility pills at the time. She was soon pregnant with what would be her fourth child.
Initially, Bakley believed that Christian Brando was the father, but later told Blake she wasn't sure, and that it might have been his. When a DNA test determined that it was Blake, not Brando, that was the father of Bakley's youngest child, Blake agreed to marry her. It was his second marriage, her tenth. Their marriage was somewhat unconventional. Bakley lived in a small guest house beside her husband's house in the Studio City area of the San Fernando Valley. It is rumored that Blake only married her to eventually get custody of their child, whom Blake wanted his childless daughter to raise.
On May 4, 2001 Blake took Bakley to an Italian dinner at Vitello's Restaurant on Tujunga Boulevard in Studio City. Afterward, Bakley was murdered by a gunshot to the head while sitting in the car, which was parked on a side street around the corner from the restaurant. Blake told the police that he had gone back to the restaurant to get a gun he left at the table and was there when the shooting occurred.
She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
Criminal and civil suits
On March 16 2005, Blake was found not guilty of the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley, and of one of the two counts of soliciting a former stuntman to murder her. The other count of solicitation was dropped after it was revealed that the jury was deadlocked 11-1 in favor of an acquittal. Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, commenting on this ruling, called Blake a "miserable human being" and the jurors "incredibly stupid".
Blake's defense team and members of the jury responded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case. During the trial, the defense alleged that Bakley was a drug addict who used her daughter for prostitution [4].
On November 18 2005, Blake was found liable for the wrongful death of his wife in a civil trial. Bakley's four children sued him, asserting he was responsible for their mother's death. The jury ordered him to pay $30 million.
Handwritten Bakley Notes Found
In Blakes Home
Robert Blake - A Biography
Wide-eyed little Bobby Blake began his acting career as an Our Gang kid and eventually matured into one of Hollywood's finest actors. Born Michael Gubitosi, the boy was two years old when he joined his family vaudeville act, "The Three Little Hillbillies." The act was doomed to failure, as were most of the pipe dreams of the Gubitosi family. Relocating from New Jersey to California, Michael's mom found work for her kids as extras at the MGM studios. The young Gubitosi impressed the producers of the Our Gang series, and as a result the six-year-old was elevated to star status in the short subjects series. Little Mickey Gubitosi whined and whimpered his way through 40 Our Gang shorts, reaching an artistic low point with the execrable All About Hash (1940).
During his five-year tenure with the series, the boy anglicized his professional name to Bobby Blake. Freelancing after 1944, Blake's performing skills improved immeasurably, especially when he was cast as Indian sidekick Little Beaver in Republic's Red Ryder series. He also registered well in his appearances in Warner Bros. films, playing such roles as the younger John Garfield in Humoresque (1946) and the Mexican kid who sells Bogart the crucial lottery ticket in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Though sporadically happy in his work (one of his most pleasurable assignments was the otherwise forgettable Laurel and Hardy feature The Big Noise, 1944), Bobby Blake was an unhappy child, weighed down by a miserable home life. At 16, Blake dropped out of sight for a few years, a reportedly difficult period in his life.
Upon claiming a 16,000-dollar nest egg at age 21, however, Blake began turning his life around, both personally and professionally. He matriculated into a genuine actor rather than a mere "cute" personality, essaying choice dramatic roles in both films and TV. He starred in the Allied Artists gangster flick The Purple Gang (1960), played featured roles in such films as PT 109 (1963), Ensign Pulver (1964), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and guest starred on dozens of TV shows. In 1963, he was one of 12 character actors amalgamated into the "repertory company" on the weekly anthology series The Richard Boone Show; he spent the next 26 weeks playing everything from agreeable office boys to fevered dope addicts. His true breakthrough role came in 1967, when he was cast as real-life multiple murderer Perry Smith in Richard Brooks' filmization of In Cold Blood.
Even after this career boost, Blake often found the going rough in Hollywood, due as much to his own pugnacious behavior as to typecasting. He did, however, star in such worthwhile efforts as Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Electra Glide in Blue (1973). Blake achieved full-fledged stardom at last with his three-year (1975-1978) starring stint on the TV cop series Baretta, adding to his already sizeable fan following via several lively, tell-all guest appearances on The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show, and several other video chat fests. Despite his never-ending battles with the ABC executives during the Baretta run, Blake stuck out the series long enough to win an Emmy, and even got to direct an episode or two.
Forming his own production company, Blake made several subsequent tries at TV-series success: Hell Town (1985), in which he starred as a barrio priest, lasted 13 weeks, while the private-eye endeavor Jake Dancer never got past its three pilot films. He has been more successful with such one-shots as the TV miniseries Hoffa (1983), in which he played the title character with chilling accuracy, and the 1993 TV biopic Judgment Day: The John List Story, which earned him another Emmy. His later film appearances were in hard-nosed character parts, such as 1995's The Money Train. Though he's managed to purge some of his personal demons over the years, Robert Blake remains as feisty, outspoken, and unpredictable as ever, especially when given an open forum by such talk show hosts as Tom Snyder.
The Murder Weapon
Who Was Bonny Lee Bakley?
The 44-year-old Bakley, who went by several aliases, had been married numerous times - so many in fact, that several of her former husbands don't know how many marriages she's had or whether she was even divorced when she remarried.
She also made a living running a lonely hearts scheme, sending provocative pictures of herself to men with the promise of visiting them if they sent her money. After receiving money, she would never show.
By the time she died she had accumulated an estate that included three houses.
Bakley's past was further checkered by a criminal record. She had been convicted in Arkansas for possessing false identifications.
Bakley also had a history of pursuing celebrities. She claimed to have had an affair with rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis and borne his child, a girl she named Jeri Lee, but DNA tests later proved he was not the father. Lewis has denied having a relationship with Bakley.
Tapes of Bakley's phone conversations reveal that she was starstruck and bent on marrying someone famous.
"I like being around celebrities," she said on one tape. "It makes you feel better than other people."
Initially, Bakley believed the her fourth child, a baby girl, was fathered by Christian Brando, son of Marlon Brando. Bakley claimed to have become involved with him after he was released from prison after serving half of a 10-year sentenced for manslaughter for killing his half-sister's boyfriend in 1990.
She named her daughter Christian Shannon Brando, but later told Blake she wasn't sure if the baby was Brando's. When a DNA test determined that it was Blake, not Brando, that was the father of Bakley's youngest child, Blake agreed to marry her.
la collusion errante entre les doigts et l’homme.
La fin de l’archétypement l'ivoire doigt-baise.
La putain de bete super-monstre, eighty-eight black and white nights three months and done.
Le lanceur de sorts Steinway.
Elle est assise en train de fumer à gauche.
Elle
attend n'importe quel signe de déférence, mais Jerry Lee, non réduit,
impossible à diminuer, ne brûle que jusqu'à l'extinction de son
auto-immolation (les rêves de Champ et Gene Autry, un récent épisode de
Twilight Zone a le George V. Dire à JW de retrouver Festus et Matt
Dillon dans la Pigalle, mais c'était la vie.
Birth Date:
06/07/1956 (June 7, 1956)
Birth Time:
22:40 (10:40 PM) EDT (+4:00)
Birth Place:
Morristown, NJ
Latitude / Longitude:
40 N 47 / 74 W 29
Rodden Rating / Source:
Dorothy Kovach quotes B.C. 5/2001 (Morris County NJ).
