BURBANK, Calif. — Robert Blake told jurors Thursday that he has three people inside him: the little boy who sleeps with a cap gun under his pillow; the swaggering teen who likes fast sports cars; and the old man who once enjoyed Bonny Lee Bakley's company because she was game for a little casual sex.

But none of them, the actor said, ever wanted to hurt Bakley.

"Did you hire anyone to shoot Bonny Bakley?" Blake's attorney Peter Ezzell asked.

"No," Blake said.

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"Did you shoot Bonny Bakley?" Ezzell asked.

"No," the actor said.

Blake was previously acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in the May 2001 shooting death of his 44-year-old wife.

He has spent the last four days on the stand in his civil wrongful death trial, offering his side of the strange and violent end to his relationship with Bakley, a mother of four and mail-order porn queen.

Bakley's eldest son, Glenn Gawron, sat quietly next to his attorney as Blake described his affair with Bakley, whom he met in 1999 at a jazz club in Burbank.

"I didn't have much of a life. I was very, very single — very much a loner. And there aren't many women who will simply just sleep with you and get back on the bus, if you know what I mean," Blake said. "With Bonny, pathetically, a part of me required that — that 'help me make it through the night and I'll see you later.'"

Gawron left briefly when two grainy snapshots of his mother posing in lingerie were projected in the courtroom.

One of the pictures was of a younger Bakley, posing in a sheer teddy that exposed her breasts and pubic area. Jurors appeared interested, but unmoved.

Blake said he had shown the photos to men he hired to look into his wife's past. Gawron believes Blake asked many of these same men to kill Bakley.

After Bakley's shooting death, investigators found small traces of gunshot residue on Blake's hands and clothes, but expert witnesses have always contended that the debris may have come from Blake's handling of his own gun collection.

Blake told jurors Thursday that since he began his acting career at age 2, he found himself in a state of arrested development. He liked to play with sparklers, lead toy soldiers, and cap guns — all of which contain elements that may have attributed to the residue on his hands and clothes.

He also kept a cap gun under his pillow.

"That's Mickey's gun," Blake said, referring to his birth name, Mickey Gubitosi. "That's the very same gun that my mother took away from me."

Pillow talk

The grown-up Blake who took the stand Thursday was not without praise for his dead wife. Despite their casual affair, he said he enjoyed Bakley's company.

"Bonny liked to talk ... She was extremely intelligent. I would guess her IQ at 150. She could charm the eyes out of a rattlesnake," Blake said.

He also shared with jurors some of the couple's intimacies, including Blake's aversion to condoms.

"I guess I figured if something was going to put me in the bone orchard it wouldn't be venereal disease. I'm not comfortable with condoms anyway. Sex doesn't go well," Blake said with a sheepish grin.

But in the end, it wasn't venereal disease that soured the relationship. It was Bakley's pregnancy.

Blake said she rebuffed his offer: $250,000 if you get an abortion. "She said there isn't enough money in the world. That wasn't going to happen."

He admitted to being scared about her pregnancy and at one point cutting off all contact.

"I was an old man, and here was this woman who offered me up her own daughter," Blake said. "I just couldn't see any good coming out of it at all."

Much has been said about Bakley's shady business practices and her penchant for bilking lonely men out of cash and gifts. But Blake claimed that Bakley once presented her daughter, Holly Gawron, for his sexual whims.

"She introduced her as her daughter and kind of teased around and said, 'Well, I guess you probably think she's a lot prettier than me. You'd probably like to see her more than me," Blake began. "Holly left the room. And Bonny said, 'You know, you really could have sex with her. She's the right age.'"

"What did you say?" Ezzell asked.

"We just dropped the whole subject," Blake said.

Holly, 25, has been at her brother's side during the civil trial, now in its sixth week. However, she was not in court Thursday, as the new mother briefly returned to Tennessee to care for her 6-week-old daughter, Love Lee.

Saved by fatherhood

Blake told jurors that the idea of being a septuagenarian father frightened him, especially since he wasn't even sure if he was the real father.

Bakley was also in a relationship with Christian Brando, the son of Blake's good friend Marlon Brando. On June 2, 2000, she named her newborn girl Shannon Christian Brando.

"When you saw the pictures of Shannon Christian Brando, what did you think?" Ezell asked the actor.

"She looked a lot like me," Blake said. "But she also looked like Marlon Brando."

When he finally held his daughter at 2 weeks old, Blake said, it was like being struck by lightning.

"I just felt different about a lot of things. There was just a whole big rush of emotion. I held her and pretty soon me and Bonny were walking down the hallway," Blake said, his voice cracking. "But I wasn't me and she wasn't Bonny. There were just two people who had a baby. I felt blessed. I felt young. I felt that God had given me a new lease in life. Like a light comes on."

"Were you in love with Bonny Lee Bakley?" Ezzell asked.

"No," Blake said. "I started feeling affection and fondness for Bonny, and a while later I admitted to myself that I loved her. She had given me the greatest gift that anyone could have ever offered me on the planet."

A few months later, DNA tests confirmed the baby was his. He called Marlon Brando to say he was marrying Bakley.

"He was angry. He said, 'You're crazy. You're an old man.' Things like that," Blake said. "It was a very brief conversation and the tone of the conversation was, 'This conversation's over and our relationship's over.'"

Blake took custody of the child, married Bakley in November 2000, changed the baby's name to Rose Lenore Sophia Blake, and made arrangements for Bakley to eventually move into his guest house.

"Rosie had saved my life and changed my life and gave me a reason to live, and I had Bonny to thank for that," Blake said. "It would be my pleasure for Bonny to have a good life for the rest of her life."

But before Bakley ever moved in, her life was cut short on May 4, 2001, when she was gunned down by an unknown assailant as she sat in Blake's black sports car outside an Italian restaurant.

A jury spent about 35 hours over nine days in March to find the actor not guilty of his wife's murder. Blake, who never took the stand in his criminal trial, has vehemently maintained his innocence throughout his civil trial.

"Regardless of the conversation, I loved Bonny and I always prayed that God would find a way to sneak in there and get a little light in her life," Blake said. "I thought that a great deal of her life would just kind of fall off as baggage."

Court is not in session next week. Blake will conclude his testimony when trial resumes on Oct 17.