Not So Much A Dream As A Nightmare

Today’s disc comes to you courtesy of my good friend, fellow Sheena’s Jungle Room DJ and oddball music enthusiast Rich Lindsay, host of the excellent Cratedigger’s Lung. I knew nothing of its existence until I opened up my email yesterday morning, but it the story behind it is so fascinating that I could not wait to share it with you. This is a long read but bear with it… it’s worth it.

Celebrity-obsessed con artist, all-round good time gal and mother of four Bonny Lee ‘Leebonny’ Bakley was shot twice through the head, aged just 44, in 2001 near Vitello’s, a restaurant in Studio City, California as she sat in the passenger seat of her 10^th husband’s car. That husband, Robert Blake, is not exactly a household name here in the UK, but in the States he was a major star, having appeared in films and on TV since childhood, most notably in 40 Our Gang shorts (initially under his real name, Mickey Gubitosi) for MGM in the 1940s, and numerous hit films in the 50s and 60s – including Pork Chop Hill (1959), Town Without Pity (1961), Ensign Pulver (1964), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and In Cold Blood (1967). In the mid-70s he cemented his star status by taking on the lead role of street-wise, plain clothes police detective Tony Baretta in the internationally popular television cop series Baretta.

Born on 7 June 1956 in Morristown, New Jersey, Bakley, whose sole goal in life was to marry someone rich and famous, was alone in the car at the time of the shooting, Blake having returned to the restaurant to retrieve a pistol that had fallen from his waistband. They sure do like their guns in America, don’t they? In a strange move, on discovering his mortally wounded but still breathing wife he ran to the nearby house of a friend to summon help, rather than straight back to the restaurant.

Blake had suffered with both depression and alcoholism. Bakley had a track record that included stints in jail, fraud charges and a reputation for running various scams to con money out of gullible older men. She had attempted to trap Jerry Lee Lewis into a relationship, turning up at his family home in Memphis and later claiming that the child she gave birth to in 1993 was his (it was not, despite Bakley giving the baby the name Jeri Lee Lewis). His sister, Frankie Jean Lewis would later claim that Bonny pushed her way into the living room holding a cassette recorder that was playing striptease music. ‘She takes off her blouse and peels down her stockings,’ she said. ‘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.’

Her pursuit of The Killer kept up even after he and his family moved to Dublin. Although she seemed intent on causing trouble between Lewis and his sixth wife, Kerrie (apparently issuing the real Mrs Lewis with death threats), Bonnie became close friends with Jerry Lee’s sister Linda Gail, herself a musician who later claimed that she had been in a relationship with Van Morrison, taking him to a tribunal over ‘sexual misconduct and unfair dismissal’. After three years she withdrew her claims and apologised to Van, who had always denied all of the allegations. According to Linda Gail, Bonnie Lee ‘was a nice person, but she did some unusual things… She also had an affair with my now ex-husband, who’s an Elvis impersonator.’ Nothing like keeping it in the family.

Bonny Lee, who also used the names Bonnie and Leebonny, tried to break into acting – according to IMDB she makes an uncredited appearance in the 1985 film Turk 182 and in Woody Allen’s Radio Days (1987) - and also fancied herself as a singer. She is known to have recorded at least four sides. The first coupling, Just a Fan backed with Let’s Not Dream, although hard to find, definitely does exist, and you could purchase a copy, complete with a photograph of ‘Miss Leebonny’ by answering an advert in the personal column of Amazing Science Fiction magazine - ‘Girl singer wishes correspondence’ – and sending her five bucks. It seems that Bonny had 100 copies pressed on her own Leebonny Records label. I cannot find a release for the second pairing, Tribute to Elvis Presley and Rock-A-Billy Love: although they are often mentioned books and articles about her, all information about them comes from one source.

When these attempts at stardom failed she set up a company, United Singles, Inc., which sold nude photographs of herself through the mail and operated a lonely hearts scam, advertising for companions and then, using various aliases, extracting money from them with hard luck stories. She had tried to finagle herself into Dean Martin’s affections but managed little more than a quick snapshot with him before he died. Apparently she also set her sights on Frankie Valli and Gary Busey. Bakley was arrested in 1989 for drug possession and again in 1995 for fraud. Three years later she was arrested again, this time for using a number of fake IDs.

She married at least 10 times. The longest-lasting of her marriages was to her first cousin, the father of her first three children – after the DNA test he was also found to have fathered Jeri Lee. Five of her known marriages ended in annulment within days of the ceremony; the last would end in death. One of those annulled marriages was to Baptist minister Glynn Wolfe, the world’s most married man with 31 marriages and 100 children to his credit. Another was to a man called Erik Robert Tellefsen (real name Robert Stuhr), a musician who – according to the book Blood Cold: Fame, Sex, and Murder in Hollywood by Dennis McDougal and Mary Murphy – issued an album on his own (and, frankly, obscure) Norway USA record label featuring both Tribute to Elvis Presley and Rock-A-Billy Love, although I cannot find any such album listed anywhere else on the internet.

Bonny Lee met Blake in 1999, while she was dating Marlon Brando’s son Christian. Officially the couple met in a rundown jazz club: according to Blake’s attorneys he did not even know the name of the woman he had sex in the back of a truck with. Bakley became pregnant and told both Brando and Blake that her baby was theirs, initially naming the child Christian Shannon Brando. After DNA tests proved that Blake was the biological father of the child the pair married, and their daughter was renamed Rose Lenore Sophia Blake.

But this as not a marriage in the traditional sense. Blake inserted a clause in their marriage contract, insisting that she stop fraternising with known felons and demanded that she bring an end to her dodgy business dealings. The pair never lived together: Bonny Lee and her kids sharing a house on Blake’s estate instead. Five months after the marriage, Bonny Lee was dead.

In April 2002, almost a full year after her death, Blake was arrested and charged with Bakley’s murder. Police alleged that he had her executed because he felt ‘trapped in a marriage he wanted no part of’. Blake’s bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, was also arrested and charged with conspiracy in connection with the murder, and retired stuntman, Ronald ‘Duffy’ Hambleton, agreed to testify against him, alleging that Blake tried to hire him to kill Bakley. A second retired stuntman, Gary McLarty, came forward claiming that Blake had attempted to contract him to murder his wife. Blake claimed that it was not he but Christian Brando who had her murdered.

The trail was broadcast on national television, garnering comparisons to the O.J. Simpson case. On 16 March 2005, Blake was found not guilty of murder and not guilty of one of the two counts of solicitation of murder. The other count, the solicitation of McLarty, was dropped when the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. Los Angeles District Attorney Stephen Cooley, commenting on this ruling, called Blake ‘a miserable human being’ and the jurors ‘incredibly stupid’ to fall for the defence’s claims. On the night of his acquittal several fans celebrated at Blake’s favourite haunt — and the scene of the crime — Vitello’s.

Bakley’s three eldest children filed a civil suit against Blake, asserting that he was responsible for their mother’s death, and in November 2005 a jury found Blake liable for wrongful death and ordered him to pay the children $30 million. His legal team appealed, filing evidence that suggested that Christian Brando may have indeed been responsible for the murder. The following February, Blake filed for bankruptcy. 

According to testimony Bakley had continued to claim Brando was the father of her child. Brando had form: he had already served a five year prison term for the manslaughter of his sister’s boyfriend. Brando’s friend Dianne Mattson told the court that she overheard a phone conversation between Brando and someone named ‘Duffy’ in which there was discussion about putting a bullet through Bakley’s head. A tape-recorded conversation between Brando and Bakley was played to the jury; in it Brando stated, ‘You're lucky. You know, I mean, not on my behalf, but you’re lucky someone ain’t out there to put a bullet in your head.’ Despite this, the appeals court upheld the civil case verdict, but cut Blake’s penalty assessment in half, to $15 million.

Blake continues to deny any involvement in the murder of his wife. Rose, their daughter, was taken into care and raised by Blake’s eldest daughter, Delinah and her husband, bestselling author Gregg Hurwitz. Christian Brando died in January 2008, taking any information about his involvement in the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley to the grave with him. In April 2010, the state of California filed a tax lien against Blake for more than a million dollars in unpaid taxes. Seemingly broke, and unable to find work, in 2017 he wed for the third time, although his marriage to Pamela Hudak – who had testified on his behalf during his trial - lasted for little over 18 months, the actor filing for divorce in December 2018. The one bright spot in this whole torrid affair is that Rose – who was just 11 months old when her mother died - seems to have grown into a well-adjusted young lady, who did well in school, made lots of friends and lives quietly with her boyfriend.

And so ends the sad story of Bonnie Lee ‘Leebonny’ Bakley.  Luckily, we have her 45 to comfort us. Here are both sides, Just a Fan which – in the light of the way her life panned out seems awfully prescient – and Let’s Not Dream.

Enjoy!

Download Fan HERE

Download Dream HERE