BURBANK, Calif. — "Baretta" star Robert Blake spoke for the first time in court Monday about an ominous stranger he nicknamed "Buzz Cut" who was lurking near his home in the weeks before the actor's wife was gunned down.

The actor told jurors in his civil trial that he tried to hire two stuntmen to scare the mysterious man, whom he described as a "young, brawny, kind of weight-lifting-looking guy in T-shirts and Levis with tattoos and a flattop."

Blake called those weeks the "Buzz Cut period," and said it lasted up until Bonny Lee Bakley's death.

"And how late did you see Mr. Buzz Cut?" his lawyer, Peter Ezzell, asked.

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"I saw Buzz Cut right along. He did not stop being around," Blake said.

Blake, nicknamed "the buzzard" by his stunt pals, was acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in March. His wife's killer has never been brought to justice.

Monday marked the 72-year-old actor's fifth day on the stand describing his short, doomed relationship with Bakley, a 44-year-old mail-order porn purveyor whom he met in a jazz club in 1999 and with whom he later had a child.

The actor has admitted that he was not in love with Bakley and did not approve of her successful career as a scammer of lonely men, but he deeply loved their infant daughter, Rosie, and agreed to marry Bakley to protect the child's best interests.

Bakley was shot to death in May 2001, just days after she moved to California to be near the TV star.

Bakley's four children are now suing Blake for their mother's wrongful death. They are seeking an unspecified amount of monetary damages, and previously rejected a $250,000 settlement offer from the actor.

Chasing the culprit

Stuntmen Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton and Gary "Whiz Kid" McLarty testified at Blake's criminal trial that the actor approached them for help — not for protection, but to offer the job of "whacking" his wife. Both men said they ultimately refused.

Blake denied the accusations Monday, telling jurors he had very real security concerns because of his wife's history of conning men into parting with their cash.

Before her death, he said, he saw three unfamiliar vehicles parked in front of his home: a blue van, a Lincoln Continental and the big black Ford truck driven by "Buzz Cut."

Blake said that he and a private investigator tried to follow and corner the driver of the Lincoln Continental, but were unsuccessful.

"Why did you not just call the LAPD and ask them to stake out your property?" Ezzell asked.

"Didn't I already answer this?" Blake replied in a clipped tone. He was previously asked the same question by plaintiff's attorney Eric Dubin during direct testimony. "That would not make sense. Nobody was breaking any laws. They weren't going to 'stake out' my property. All that would do is alert the police that there was a problem."

Blake said he wanted the freedom to handle the problem his own way, but his attorney pushed him to clarify his answer.

"Did you understand what I meant about the police?" Blake said. "You know, if you have a daughter and her boyfriend is being a little unpleasant with her, you don't call the police — you handle it. The police come in, and then it's in their hands."

"Was it your intention for Mr. McLarty to shoot someone?" Ezzell asked.

"Shoot someone? No," Blake said.

Bakley was shot twice as she sat alone in the passenger seat of Blake's sports car. It was parked near Vitello's, the actor's favorite Italian restaurant, where the couple shared their last meal together.

"Vitello's was my joint," Blake said. "I had my private table. We could talk. I didn't have to deal with anybody if I didn't want to."

Blake said he walked with Bakley back to his car after dinner and soon realized he had left behind his licensed revolver, which was not the murder weapon. Bakley was shot, he said, during the time it took him to walk back, retrieve his gun and return to the car to find her bloody and unresponsive.

However, the actor was never able to procure any witnesses to say they saw Blake return to the restaurant to retrieve his revolver from under the table.

Blake told jurors for the first time Monday that he remembered seeing three employees, perhaps busboys, at the cash register when he returned. He believed they never came forward on his behalf because they may have been undocumented workers.

"Do you know one way or another whether these people that were standing at the cash register station understood English?" Ezzell asked.

"I don't know," Blake said.

"Did you speak to them in Spanish?" Ezzell asked.

"No," Blake said. The judge interrupted to ask Blake if he spoke Italian.

"Sometimes I dream in Italian," Blake replied.

"Did you ever speak to anyone at Vitello's in Italian?" Judge David Schacter asked, presumably trying to determine if the three mysterious employees were Italian and not Hispanic.

"I sang in Italian sometimes," Blake said.

Blake also had no knowledge of the murder weapon, a German-issued WWII relic, which was found in a Dumpster at the crime scene the next morning. It was covered in an oily substance, and forensic investigators failed to lift a single fingerprint from it.

Blake, whose cross-examination continues Tuesday morning, told jurors he had hoped that by marrying Bakley, he might give her a chance at a normal life.

"I always thought that her life could go differently. As long as you're on the right side of the dirt, it can happen," Blake said.

"But we're sitting here four years later, and it didn't go well for Miss Bakley, did it?" his attorney asked.

"I don't know what you mean," Blake said.

"She's dead," Ezzell replied.

"Oh, well, yeah, right," Blake said solemnly.

The actor said he was thankful that God was on his side through his stint in "that cement box" while a suspect in his wife's death, and while enduring a second trial related to her murder.

"I've had problems all my life, big problems. God's been on my shoulder all of my life and I have no real conviction for why some people have trouble on one shoulder and God on the other and why some people don't, but I'm just one of those people," Blake said. "The boss has always been there and if I keep rowing, I come out on the other end."