News

Phil Spector Trial Date Set

Famed producer Phil Spector will go on trial in January on charges that he shot and killed 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson in February 2003. Spector has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers are expected to argue that Clarkson -- a B-movie star who had met Spector at the House of Blues in Hollywood -- committed suicide. An autopsy concluded that she died after a revolver was fired into her mouth.

Spector, 66, is currently free on $1 million bail. He was previously best known for manning the boards for The Beatles on Let It Be (to controversial results) and creating the dense production style that came to be known as the "Wall of Sound."

Four weeks prior to his arrest, Spector told a British newspaper, "I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent. I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic. But I have bipolar personality, which is strange. I'm my own worst enemy."

Prosecutors say that Spector has pointed guns at a number of women over the years, and an episode when the producer allegedly pulled a gun on Leonard Cohen is a part of rock lore. At the time of his arrest, his ex-wife, Ronnie Spector, said, "I don't know what the circumstances are: I can only say that when I left in the early '70s, I knew that if I didn't leave at that time I was going to die there."

Phil Spector, however, has maintained his innocence, and told Esquire in 2003 that Clarkson was a stranger who had asked to see the faux castle that Spector calls home, and, upon arriving, had kissed the revolver before fatally shooting herself.

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
06.26.06