Los Angeles ? Actor Robert Blake, accused of murdering his wife, was denied bail Wednesday after making a personal plea to the judge to release him, saying, “This is my right to fight for my life.”

Superior Court Judge Lloyd Nash said he was not ruling out the possibility that Blake could be released on bail later, but said he wanted to see the evidence in the case at the preliminary hearing before he made such a ruling.

Blake’s attorney, Harland Braun, was arguing when Blake asked if he could speak.

“I’d like to be out and see Rosie (his daughter) and the sunshine of the world. But this is my right to fight for my life. … This is my chance to fight, and I can’t do it from that cement room with thousands of pages I can’t read,” he said.

He told the judge that he was so severely dyslexic that he cannot read any of the legal documents, and would have to have them read to him.

Prosecutors had opposed bail, laying out their arguments in legal filings before the hearing at which Braun hoped to have Blake released on $1 million bail.

Prosecutors attached to the motion extensive phone records allegedly showing that Blake, 68, made dozens of telephone calls to two stuntmen and a private investigator in the days preceding the May 4, 2001, shooting of Bonny Lee Bakley, 44.

The judge scheduled another hearing for May 21 to set the date for the preliminary hearing.

Blake was jailed without bail on April 18 on charges of murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy and the special circumstance of lying in wait. His bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, 46, was arrested on the conspiracy count and was released on $1 million bail posted by Blake.

Police claim Blake, star of the 1970s TV show “Baretta,” had contempt for Bakley. He married her on Nov. 18, 2000, five months after she gave birth to their daughter, Rose.

Bakley was shot as she sat in Blake’s car down the street from Vitello’s restaurant, where the couple had just dined.