Slain wife’s heirs sue Blake

Los Angeles The heirs of Bonny Lee Bakley filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Robert Blake on Monday, saying the actor personally shot his wife to death after conspiring with his bodyguard.

Blake has pleaded innocent to criminal charges of murder and conspiracy. The bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, pleaded innocent to conspiracy and was freed on $1 million bail posted by Blake.

The heirs for whom the civil lawsuit was filed include Rose Lenore Sophie Blake, the actor’s nearly 2-year-old daughter by Bakley, a girl named Jeri Lee Lewis and two adult children, Glenn Paul Gawron and Holly Lee Gawron.

Bakley, 44, was shot last May 4 as she sat in Blake’s car near a restaurant where the two had dined.

Beatle halts lyrics copy auction

London Former Beatle Paul McCartney won a last-minute court order Monday preventing the auction house Christie’s from selling his handwritten lyrics to the song “Hey Jude.”

The sheet of note paper with the scrawled lyrics had been expected to fetch up to $116,000 at an auction scheduled for Tuesday, but McCartney took the matter to the High Court, claiming the piece had disappeared from his home.

The lyrics will remain at Christie’s London headquarters until ownership is decided by agreement or a trial.

Johnny Carson keeps busy

New York Since his final goodbye on “The Tonight Show,” Johnny Carson has kept busy: Playing poker with pals like Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. Learning to speak Swahili. And cruising in his custom-built, triple-decker, 130-foot boat.

But Carson has mostly avoided public attention since his May 22, 1992, farewell although he sat down for a rare, exclusive interview with Esquire magazine to discuss life since stepping away from his desk.

“I think I left at the right time,” the 76-year-old says in the June issue. “You’ve got to know when to get the hell off the stage, and the timing was right for me.”

Everybody wants Dave

Radnor, Pa. Jane Clayson, a co-host on CBS’s “The Early Show,” has a suggestion for who should replace the departing Bryant Gumbel: late-night television host David Letterman.

“He’s on at 11:30 p.m. He could stick around for a couple more hours,” Clayson told TV Guide for its May 4 issue. “He’d be fun.”

Clayson said Gumbel called her into his office before his surprise announcement.

“He said he’s moving into a new phase in his life,” she told the magazine. “He’s getting married. He’s tired of waking up early.”