Bonny Lee Bakely: Hollywood Dreams and Nightmares

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Bonnie. A voice on the recording
of a phone call between two friends asked,

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did you ever stop and try to
figure out why you're only attracted to

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famous people? Bonnie's answer was swift, and it seemed to come to her

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easily quote being around celebrities makes you
feel better than other people, And it

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was this feeling of happiness that Bonnie
Lee Bakeley would chase her entire life.

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Her journey started on June seventh,
nineteen fifty six, in Morristown, New

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Jersey, and right from the get
go, her life was rife with grief

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and abandonment. Her father, Edward
J. Bakeley, was an alcoholic and

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almost never around Marjorie Lewis. Bakeley
sent Bonnie off to live with her mother

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in Glen Gardner, New Jersey,
so Marjorie could focus on running her own

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business. There, Bonnie grew up
with her siblings, seemingly lacking the sense

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of attention and affection that children need
from their parents. When Bonnie was only

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eleven, she and her sister stumbled
upon a pool party run by a nearby

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nudist colony, and Bonnie got her
first real fix of the limelight. After

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that, Bonnie often attended parties and
events held by this nudist colony, and

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it was shortly after that that some
of the other attendees began taking pictures of

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her. The dark undertones this whole
situation were lost on the young Bonnie,

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who reveled in this sudden influx of
attention from the adults around her and didn't

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stop to ask what those pictures were
being used for or who they were being

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sold to. But then again,
she was only eleven. Maybe spurred on

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by her popularity amongst the nudest colony, Bonnie dropped out of school at the

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age of only sixteen. Her ambition
was to become a model, and to

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achieve this she moved to New York
City so she could attend the Barberizon School

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of Modeling. It was there that
she met the first of what would be

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a very long line of husbands.
His name was Evangelos Polachus, and he

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was also a student at the Barberzon
School of Modeling. But what sparked between

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the young couple was hardly a whorld
win romance. Evangelos needed a green cart,

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and Bonnie was willing to help him
get one for a price. The

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two struck up a deal and Evangelos
paid Bonnie to marry him, held up

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her end of the bargain just long
enough to get her payout, and then

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she divorced Evangelos. Shortly after that, he was deported and Bonnie had a

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clean slate to work with. Then, at only twenty one years of age,

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Bonnie married her second husband, her
first cousin, Paul Goron. They

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had two children together and were married
for a total of five years, making

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their union the longest that Bonnie would
ever have. And it was during the

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next few years that Bonnie would cement
the most successful part of her career.

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Perhaps thinking back to those early days
in the Nudest Colony, Bonnie began selling

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nude pictures of herself and other women. This was before the time of the

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Internet and smart phones. Obviously,
Bonnie would take out ads and magazines and

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newspapers, and people who wanted to
buy her pictures would reach out and pay

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Bonnie through the mail. Bonnie would
then send them pictures or simply just keep

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the money and give them nothing in
return. Bonnie set herself up quite nicely

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with her mail order earnings. She
managed to buy herself several properties, including

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a house just outside of Los Angeles, which would come in handy for the

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next part of her journey. Spurred
on by her success, Bonnie moved to

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Hollywood to pursue a career in singing
and acting. Bonnie arrived in the beating

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heart of America's entertainment industry with probably
more than most than her shoes do.

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But like so many that have come
before her and the minis that would come

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after, Bonnie found herself a small
fish and a very very big pond.

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She didn't manage to make much of
a splash with her new career, but

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she always had the old one to
fall back on. Bonnie expanded her business.

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She began forging driver's licenses and checks, some of which were used to

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open peo boxes for her mail order
business, but some of them she sold

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when she was picked up by the
police in nineteen eighty nine. She also

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had drugs and her p although it's
hard to say for certain if she was

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dealing them herself. Bonnie was in
and out of the court system for years.

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If she wasn't in the courthouse marrying
a new husband, she was usually

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bargaining her way out of another charge
of forgery. On one occasion, when

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she was arrested yet again. Bonnie
had five driver's licenses and seven Social Security

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cards in her possession. But despite
the turbulence that seemed to follow Bonnie wherever

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she went, she still hadn't given
up on making it big one day.

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It may have been that Bonnie would
never be famous in her own rights,

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but that wouldn't stop her from rubbing
shoulders with celebrities, and maybe, if

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she was lucky and persistent enough,
she could even end up marrying one too.

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Bonnie had always been a fan of
celebrities, but after moving to Hollywood,

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she seemed to take her love to
a whole new level. She then

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began to actively seek out celebrities,
hoping that one day her stars would align

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and her luck would turn. She
had her first brush with success in nineteen

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ninety when she met Jerry Lee Lewis, then in his fifties, The American

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musician who went by the nickname The
Killer wasn't exactly at the height of his

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career anymore, but he was still
good enough for Bonnie. The two mets

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and three years later, Bonnie claimed
that Jerry Lee Lewis was the father to

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her newborn daughter, a daughter Bonnie
named Jerry Lee, just in case anyone

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was unsure of the parentage. A
DNA test later revealed that Jerry Lee Lewis

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was not actually the father, and
Bonnie left the young girl with her second

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ex husband, Paul, so she
could move closer to Hollywood. There she

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met and allegedly had relationships with men
like Dean Martin, Frankie Valley, and

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Gary Busey. But it was in
nineteen ninety one that Bonnie would discover the

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target of her next big obsession,
Christian Brando, the son of actor Marlon

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Brando. Christian was in the news
a lot at the time for killing Dag

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Drawlitt, his sister's ex boyfriend.
Christian had attacked Dag after finding out that

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he was often violent towards Christian's sister. Christian claimed that during a scuffle,

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the gun he had been holding accidentally
went off and killed Dag. Christian then

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pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and spent
five years in prison. It was during

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Christian's incarceration that he began receiving fan
mail and nudes from Bonnie Lee Bakeley.

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The two struck up a connection,
and when Christian was released, that connection

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became physical. A while after that, Bonnie found out that she was pregnant

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once again. Bonnie gave birth to
another daughter and named her Christian Shannon Brando,

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a bold move to make when Bonnie
herself wasn't exactly sure who the child's

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father really was. It turned out
that during the time that Bonnie became pregnant

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with her fourth child, she wasn't
dating one celebrity, but two. The

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other man in question was actor Robert
Blake, and there was a good chance

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that Robert was actually the father to
Bonnie's baby. Unsure and wanting to be,

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Robert insisted that tests were done to
determine the child's paternity, and Bonnie's

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life was changed all over again.
When the results came back, it turned

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out that Christian Shannon Brando wasn't a
Brando after all, she was a Blake.

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So Christian Shannon Brandeau became Rose leonor
Sophia Blake, and a new agreement

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was struck up between her parents.
Just happy to finally be an official part

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of a celebrity family, Bonnie signed
a prenup that would hand over her rights

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as a parent to Robert if she
were to ever file for a divorce.

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The stipulation was the same the other
way around, but Bonnie couldn't sense the

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danger that clause could potentially put her
in. She signed the pre nup and

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married her tenth husband. Bonnie and
baby Rose moved into Robert's estate, although

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they were made to live in the
neighboring guest house instead of living in the

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main house. It seemed like Bonnie's
new marriage had hit the Rocks before it

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had even left the harbor. Robert
was suspicious of Bonnie and her intentions and

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hired a private investigator to dig up
any dirt he could on his new wife.

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The PI uncovered that Bonnie was still
running her mail order business and was

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still selling her nudes. The couple
were now in a tight situation and trapped

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in an unsuccessful marriage. Neither could
file for divorce without losing custody of their

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child to the other, and neither
of them wanted to do that. But

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it was only when the baby was
eleven months old that fate would intervene and

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solve the issue of custody for the
newly formed family for them. On May

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fourth, two thousand and one,
when Bonnie was forty four years old,

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Robert Blake took her out to dinner
at his favorite restaurant, Thetello's. Dinner

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went well enough, and it was
only when Bonnie was sitting in the car

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afterwards that Robert realized that he'd forgotten
his gun back at the dinner table.

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He left his wife in the car
and went back to the restaurant to pick

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it up, but when he returned
to the car, he was up a

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gun but down a wife. While
Robert had briefly gone back to the restaurant,

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somebody had approached Bonnie and shot her
twice in the head. She later

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died on the way to the hospital. The gun that Robert had gone back

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to collect that day was quickly determined
not to be the murder weapon, and

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a city wide hunt ensued. Ten
days after Bonnie was killed, The murder

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weapon was recovered from a trash can
close to the restaurant. It was an

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older Walter pistol, quite unique and
a collector's item, but the serial number

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had been filed away and there was
no way for the investigators to trace it

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back to the owner. Bonnie was
buried, and four years later Robert sat

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in court charged with the murder.
The prosecution argued and presented witnesses who claimed

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that Robert had approached them and tried
to solicit their services in killing his wife.

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They put to the courts that Robert
not only wanted Bonnie gone to avoid

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losing custody of his daughter, but
that he was furious with her too.

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She'd approached Robert and tricked him into
fathering a child, also that she could

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finally attain her dream of becoming rich
and famous. The motive sounded solid enough,

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but Robert's defense lawyers were able to
chip away at the integrity of the

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prosecution's witness, and they put forward
their own theory. The defense argued that

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Bonnie had been killed by a disgruntled
customer, possibly one of the many men

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that she had conned out of money
during her years running her mail order business.

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The courts agreed, and Robert Blake
was found not guilty of killing Bonnie.

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He was, however, found liable
for Bonnie's wrongful death when Bonnie's three

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eldest children suit him in a civil
court kind of an O. J.

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Simpson situation. He was ordered to
pay thirty million dollars in compensation. Shortly

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after that, Robert filed for bankruptcy, but the courts upheld of verdict.

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After he filed an appeal. They
did, however, cut his penalty down

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to fifteen million dollars. That's ten
Minute Murder for today brief and bingeable true

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