Wally George’s Wife, Daughter Turn Up in England

The wife and baby daughter of snarling, liberal-baiting talk show host Wally George--the objects of a weekend-long police hunt after they vanished from their Sherman Oaks home--turned up safe Monday in England.

“She went to visit relatives, and she made a request that she did not want her location disclosed,” not even to her husband, Los Angeles Police Detective Doug Stark said of Janis George, 24, the TV personality’s wife of three years. “There is no evidence of foul play, and we have no more role in this,” Stark added.

In an interview, the normally garrulous George--the host of the talk show “Hot Seat” on KDOC-TV in Anaheim--said his wife telephoned him this morning and said she is safe. He suggested that her disappearance was linked to a “health problem.”

George, 51, who has made a career of demolishing guests on his show with withering blasts of bombast and ridicule, declined to elaborate on why his wife is “emotionally distraught.”

Usually quick with a sharp remark, George struggled Monday to describe what has happened to his marriage to the young woman he met in 1988, after she called to talk to a guest on his radio show and, he said, he fell in love with her voice.

“This is a personal, critical thing I was not aware of that has nothing to do with our marriage . . .,” George said. “Neither she nor I want to discuss it in the press. She is in a state of being distraught, emotionally uneasy. She needs a healing process.”

George told police Saturday that his wife and their 13-month-old daughter, Holly, had been missing since Thursday, when she left a note at the couple’s home.

“The note said she was going to stay with friends, needed some time and that she would call him,” Stark said. “She packed a few changes of clothes for her and the baby and took about $6,000 they had in their apartment and in a checking account.”

George, who offered a $10,000 reward for information about his family, said a loaded .45-caliber handgun, $4,000 in cash and his wife’s 1987 Ford Escort were missing. George also told police that he feared for his family’s safety because of recent anonymous telephoned death threats to his studio office in Anaheim.

“When I get a phone call from someone saying ‘we’re going to get your wife and baby’ and three days later they’re missing,” George said Monday, “I began to give that crank call some validity.”

The car was found at Los Angeles International Airport, Stark said. As for the gun, he said, “We don’t know where it is and we don’t think she got it on the plane.”

Times staff writer George Frank contributed to this story.