Find out “10 Facts You Didn’t Know About Bonnie Lee Bakley” Bonnie Lee Bakely wed actor Robert Blake in 2000. Robert and Bonnie were getting married for the second time. Bonnie was shot while riding in Blake’s car outside a Los Angeles restaurant less than a year after they exchanged vows.
Blake was then accused of soliciting a murder, conspiring to commit a murder, and murder. Blake was found accountable for wrongful death in a lawsuit brought by Bonnie’s surviving children, seven months after a jury cleared him of all charges. However, the cause of her death is still undetermined.
1. She dreamed of becoming a model
Bonnie was born to Marjorie and Edward Bakely in New Jersey. At the age of 16, Bonnie decided to quit high school and move to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming a model. She subsequently enrolled at the Barbizon School of Modeling to study her craft. It was while at the school that she met her first husband, an Immigrant called Evangelos Paulakis. As Paulakis required a visa, Barkley agreed to marry him (albeit at a price). No sooner had the vows been said, Bonnie ended the marriage and Paulakis was swiftly deported.
2. She married her first cousin
Six years after her first marriage to Evangelos Paulakis bit the dust, Bonnie married Pawl Gawron, her first cousin. Despite the marriage only surviving five years, it would turn out to be the longest of any of her subsequent relationships and even managed to spawn two children, Glenn and Holly. Bonnie and Garown eventually divorced in 1982.
3. She ran a successful mail-order business
After the dissolution of her marriage to Gawron, Bonnie launched a mail-order business to financially support both herself and her two children. The main activity of the business centered on sending nude pictures of herself and other women to men. She also ran a sleazy ‘lonely hearts’ newspaper ad, which Bonnie used to swindle lonely men into sending her money for rent or travel expenses. The business proved so successful Bonnie was able to buy several properties across both Memphis and Los Angeles.
4. She recorded using the stage name LeeBonny Bonnie
While her mail-order business afforded her a considerable income, Bonnie’s second career as a singer and actor proved less successful. Shortly after her death, one of her recordings from the mid-1970s was unearthed. The track, which was entitled “Just a Fan”, contained the ominous line “I am chasing a celebrity/ There’s no future I can see.” The record was placed up for auction on eBay… although with the seller describing it as “absolutely terrible” and another listener claiming it was so bad it had “removed the enamel from his teeth”, it’s clear any interest generated came on the strength of Bonnie’s celebrity, rather than her merits as a singer.
5. She had a huge arrest record
Due to the nature of her scandalous little mail-order business, Bonnie spent much of the 1980s and 1990s going from one arrest to another. In 1989, she was fined $300 for drug possession. In 1995, she was sentenced to work on a penal farm and fined $1000 for writing two hot checks. 3 years later, she was arrested again, this time for possession of five driver’s licenses and seven Social Security cards all bearing different names.
6. She was obsessed with celebrities
“Being around celebrities, it makes you feel better than other people”, Bonnie was once quoted as saying, which certainly gives us some insight into her history of “pursing” celebrities. In 1990, Bonnie began to chase Jerry Lee Lewis and even managed to wangle her way into the inner circle of his sister, Linda Gail Lewis. The friendship came to an abrupt end when she gave birth to a child she claimed to be Lewis’ — something both Lewis and DNA tests contested. Other celebrities that managed to find their way onto her radar included Dean Martin, Frankie Valli, Gary Busey, and, perhaps most famously of all, Christian Brando.
7. She claimed Christian Brando fathered her child
After falsely accusing Jerry Lee Lewis of fathering her child during the early 90s, Bonnie was up to her old tricks again 6 years later when she repeated the story on Christian Brando, the son of iconic actor Marlon Brando and actress Anna Kashfi. The two struck up a friendship while Brando was serving 10 years for the voluntary manslaughter of his half sister’s boyfriend, Dag Drollet. After his release, the two embarked on an affair, which (she claimed at the time) ended with the birth of her daughter, Christian Shannon Brando. As it turned out, the true father was Robert Blake. After her true parentage was revealed, Christian’s name was changed to Rose Lenore Sophia Blake.
8. She had an unhappy childhood
During an interview a few years on from Bonnie’s death, her sister, Margerry, revealed the depth of their unhappy childhoods. “[Our] father drank all the time. [Our] parents told us we were ugly. They made fun of us when we got out of the shower,” she revealed to LA Observed. “They were always fighting. It used to make Bonny hyperventilate and she would pass out.”
9. She had four children and ten husbands
Over the course of her life, Bonnie married a total of ten times. Her 8th marriage to Glynn Wolfe was, until her last marriage to Blake, her most famous, largely thanks to Wolfe’s status as the holder of the record of largest number of monogamous marriages. She also had four children, a son, Glenn, and a daughter, Holly, with her second husband Paul Gawron; a daughter named Jeri Lee Lewis, and a third daughter named Rose Lenore Sophia Blake with Robert Blake.
10. She had a rocky relationship with Blake
After a DNA test proved that actor Robert Blake was the father of Bonnie’s fourth child, Rose, Blake agreed to marry Bonnie on the condition she signed a temporary custody order that allowed her friends and family to visit Blake’s home only with written permission, and for her visits with Rose to be monitored. She agreed and the couple was married on November 4, 2002. The marriage was rocky throughout, with Blake even allegedly hiring a private investigator at one point to dig out information about his new wife’s past.
Life of Bonny Lee Bakley, Murdered Wife of Actor Robert Blake
Bonny Lee Bakley was not a good girl. She was a con artist who used $ex and deception to bilk men—many of the rich and famous—out of their money, and their children out of their inheritance. She was shot to death in May 2001 and her husband at the time, actor Robert Blake, was charged with the crime. Still, there was a long list of other people with a motive.
Bakley’s Childhood Years
Bonny Lee Bakley was born June 7, 1956 in Morristown, New Jersey. As a young girl, her dreams were similar to others her age, to one day become rich and famous. Perhaps her impoverished home helped to drive these fantasies. Or, perhaps the desire to leave her hometown and begin her road to stardom grew deeper after she suffered from $exual abuse by her father. Whatever the cause, her drive for stardom became a blind obsession.
Marriage for Profit
It is believed that Bakley felt ostracized as a child for being poor. She grew to be an attractive teen. She decided to try modeling, and she signed on with a nearby agency. Through the agency, she met an immigrant named Evangelos Paulakis, who was desperate to stay in the U.S. and needed to get married to do so. Bakley agreed to marry him for a price, but not long after the two shared “I dos,” Bakley, with the money safely tucked away, ended the marriage, and Paulakis was picked by the authorities and deported.
After high school, Bakley headed to New York to begin her climb to stardom. She started calling herself Lee Bonny. She managed to get various small modeling jobs, and even worked as an extra in a few movies. But her goal of becoming a star was not happening. So, she set her attention on other ways to achieve, if not stardom, the fortune that came with it. Her focus switched from becoming a star to marrying one.
Bakley’s $ex Scam Business
In her mid-twenties, Bakley married her cousin, Paul Gawron, a laborer who was street tough and prone to violent behavior. They had two children who Gawron mainly cared for while Bakley worked toward her new endeavor, a mail-order business that focused on scamming lonely men out of money. Had Bakley not chosen a less-than-desirable avenue, her entrepreneurial spirit mixed with her ability to market, organize, and profit in a highly competitive industry could have been admirable.
Gawron and Bakley had a twisted and volatile marriage. Bakley, who was busy scamming money from men, sometimes in the couple’s bedroom, was satisfied to let Gawron stay home. He seemed to enjoy not having to work. But, by 1982, the marriage ended. Bakley’s obsession to be in the inner circles of the famous mixed with the fact that she was not getting any younger. This motivated her decision to leave her kids in Gawron’s care and head to Memphis, Tennessee, to the door of musical artist, Jerry Lee Lewis.
Bakley Stalks Jerry Lee Lewis
Bakley’s money-making $ex schemes coupled with her use of stolen credit cards and identification kept her mobile, and she was able to fly to locations where Jerry Lee Lewis was performing. Bordering stalking, Bakley would often crash parties and show up at performances just to get in closer to Lewis. Finally, the two met around 1982, and a friendship developed.
Jerry Lee Lewis and Bakley remained friends until Bakley became pregnant and told everyone that the child’s father was Jerry Lee Lewis and that he was leaving his wife to marry her. When the child was born, Bakley named her Jerry Lee and put on the birth certificate, “father undetermined.” The friendship between Lewis and Bakley ended and baby Jerry Lee was sent to live with Bakley’s ex-husband and her other children. Later it was discovered that Bakley made death threats against Lewis’s wife.
Bakley’s “Anything Goes” Policy
Bakley’s address book filled up with names, some famous and some just rich. Names such as Robert DeNiro, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Jimmy Swaggart were found among the list. Bakley’s $ex business became bolder, and she advertised in $ex magazines that she was a “tri-$exual,” meaning she would try anything once and her preference was sadomasochism, couple’s $ex, and bi$exuality. She swindled men out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with her “anything goes” claims.
Bakley was arrested for trying to write bad checks to the tune of $200,000 and was sentenced to report to a penal farm on weekends for three years. In Arkansas, she was arrested for carrying more than 30 fake identifications and was placed on probation. When she completed her sentence in Tennessee, and her friendship with Lewis was over, she decided it was time to leave the South, and she headed to the land of fame and stardom—Hollywood.
Bakley and Robert Blake Tie the Knot
Bonny continued running $ex scams in magazines, and dating a few stars, one being Christian Brando. How she and “Baretta” star Robert Blake met, depends on who you ask. Bakley’s sister said they met at a jazz club and bonded from across the room. Blake’s attorney said Robert Blake did not even know her name and they had $ex in the back of a truck, never in his home. Whatever is the truth, one thing was for certain; it was not a match made in heaven.
Shortly after the affair began, Bakley told Blake that she was pregnant. Sources say Bakley was taking fertility pills as a way to trap the star into her web. When the baby was born, she named her Christian Shannon Brando and listed Brando as the father. A paternity test later proved the father to be Blake. Bonny Lee and Robert Blake married in November 2000, and Bonny moved into a guest house on the property.
Bakley’s Murder
After only six months of marriage, in May 2001, Blake and Bakley went to dinner at Vitello’s Italian Restaurant, where Blake was a regular customer. After dinner, the two walked to their car. According to Blake, he realized he left his revolver at the restaurant and left to retrieve it. When he returned to the car, he found Bakley with a gunshot wound to her head, dying in the front seat. Blake ran for help, but Bakley soon died.
After a year of investigations, Blake was arrested and charged with the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley. On March 15, 2005, a jury of seven women and five men deliberated for more than 36 hours before returning a verdict of not guilty in the murder of his wife and not guilty on one count of soliciting someone to murder her.
Although acquitted in criminal court, the “Baretta” star was not so lucky in civil court, where a verdict does not need to be unanimous. A civil jury decided 10 to 2 that the tough-guy actor was behind the slaying and ordered him to pay Bonny Lee Bakley’s four children $30 million.
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