Show and Tell

Bonny Lee Bakley, the slain wife of actor Robert Blake, was a pack rat. It was sobering to view her personal effects, sorted and stacked on an office floor the other night. We were summoned by Blake’s attorney, Harland W. Braun, to see for ourselves the evidence of Bakley’s interstate lonely hearts business. Now that evidence is in the hands of LAPD detectives trying to solve her slaying.

There also were bits and scraps documenting a life that once held much promise. A portfolio stuffed with glossy photos reveals that Bakley, a middle-age woman the New York tabloids have dubbed “the dowdy grifter,” started out as a beauty. A scrapbook of newspaper clippings shows she enjoyed her first 15 minutes of fame in August 1974, when lifeguards pulled her from the rough surf off Atlantic City.

She was crazy about Elvis. Shortly after Presley’s 1977 death, she told a newspaper reporter that as a teenager she sneaked into Graceland and installed a private hotline in her bedroom in case the King called. In 1983, she agreed to marry a New Jersey man--once he divorced wife No. 25. Later, she hoarded dozens of supermarket tabloids with stories about the famous men she pursued: Jerry Lee Lewis, Blake, Marlon and Christian Brando, Frankie Valli and the late Dean Martin.

We paused over the photograph Bakley saved of a billboard over the Sunset Strip advertising her availability for acting jobs. It’s not clear when the picture was taken, but it could be that before Angelyne, there was Lee Bonney, as she called herself.

A long and rambling to-do list dated April 6, along with other documents, shows that even after she married Blake last year, Bakley rented a mail drop in Studio City to keep her business going. She wanted to back out of a prenuptial agreement with the “Baretta” star. And she shared the concerns of many women in their mid-40s. She was considering plastic surgery, and she worried about her weight. How sad that the fame that eluded her during her lifetime finds her now.

The Arnold Watch

“Give me a call sometime. We’ll get coffee.” So shouted outgoing Mayor Richard Riordan to on-again, off-again gubernatorial wannabe Arnold Schwarzenegger at a party Wednesday night at Arianna Huffington’s house in Brentwood.

Then Michael Ovitz wandered over. “Here we are,” he announced to Schwarzenegger and Brad Freeman, “two Republicans and a Libertarian. And guess who the Libertarian is.” Well, we know that Schwarzenegger is a Republican. And so is Freeman, who’s the adoptive owner of Ernie, the Bush’s wandering cat. So, that leaves Ovitz as the lone Libertarian. Whew! We didn’t even have to use up any lifelines.

Everyone was there for a reception for billionaire financier Ted Forstmann, who heads the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which has helped send 41,000 poor children to good elementary schools.

Good Help Hard to Find

A former employee of Peter Guber has been charged with swiping a 1937 Picasso ink drawing from the uber-producer’s home over the Christmas holidays. Sammie Archer III, also known as Tony Hargain, was Guber’s driver. He’s now in jail on $480,000 bail, awaiting court hearings on charges of burglary, grand theft by embezzlement and receiving stolen property.

Beverly Hills police say Archer tried to sell the drawing, worth about $100,000, but was detained May 3 at Christie’s auction house by a suspicious employee who didn’t think he knew much about art. The LAPD’s art-theft detail also investigated. Turns out Archer had the drawing in his car, wrapped in a shirt. Police are still looking for Guber’s Tiffany lamp, several Picasso plates, and two bronze sculptures.

Celebrity Mother’s Day

Jacqueline Stallone and her psychic dogs are flying to Toronto on Mother’s Day to meet her famous son for a “surprise” appearance on a television show. “Frankly, I’d like to sleep in,” she said. Meanwhile, Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, will dine quietly in Malibu at Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, Granita, with her diva daughter and grandchildren Chastity and Elijah.

Tippi Hedren will celebrate Mother’s Day tonight with daughter Melanie Griffith, who’s having her personal chef whip up a vegetarian feast. Griffith heads to Spain on Sunday to celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary with hunky husband Antonio Banderas.

The three celbrity moms made the rounds this week promoting https://www.greetNwin.com, a Web site that offers a lottery entry for each e-mail Mother’s Day card sent.

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Times staff writers Gina Piccalo and Louise Roug contributed to this report. City of Angles runs Tuesday-Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.