Lana Clarkson

Critic's Notebook: The dramatist who used to regularly scorch the stage with complex stories has let his anti-P.C. rage blunt his work. What in the world has happened to David Mamet? The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Glengarry Glen Ross," a modern classic that can survive even the ham acting of Al Pacino at his Broadway goofiest, has become a wide-ranging controversialist, ever ready to tap dance on eggshells with military boots. Music producer Phil Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Alhambra mansion.

Critic's Notebook: The dramatist who used to regularly scorch the stage with complex stories has let his anti-P.C. rage blunt his work. What in the world has happened to David Mamet? The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Glengarry Glen Ross," a modern classic that can survive even the ham acting of Al Pacino at his Broadway goofiest, has become a wide-ranging controversialist, ever ready to tap dance on eggshells with military boots. Music producer Phil Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Alhambra mansion.

In the days before Lana Clarkson was found dead inside Phil Spector's Alhambra castle, a Web site devoted to tracking and mocking lesser celebrities had some fun with the fact that Kmart, which had used Clarkson in its television commercials, had fallen on hard times. "With Kmart going out of business now," the site asked, "what will become of Lana Clarkson?"

"Phil Spector," a new HBO film that purports both to be and not to be about the famous music producer and creator of the Wall of Sound, now serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life, is a vexing piece of work. Well-crafted, with interesting Big Talent attached - writer-director David Mamet, stars Al Pacino and Helen Mirren - it's better than most films of its kind, even as it remains unsatisfying as historical re-creation, philosophical meditation or pure drama. Spector (Pacino)

When Phil Spector was booked for murder in 2003, he was a jet-setting millionaire who stayed in luxury hotel suites, left $450 tips on $13 bar bills and paid cash for a 30-room mansion. Six years later, with the case against him in the hands of a jury for a second time, the famed music producer still flashes trappings of wealth -- bespoke suits, a chauffeured car and a pretty, young wife who walks down the courthouse hallway next to him in designer pumps.

"Phil Spector," a new HBO film that purports both to be and not to be about the famous music producer and creator of the Wall of Sound, now serving a prison sentence of 19 years to life, is a vexing piece of work. Well-crafted, with interesting Big Talent attached - writer-director David Mamet, stars Al Pacino and Helen Mirren - it's better than most films of its kind, even as it remains unsatisfying as historical re-creation, philosophical meditation or pure drama. Spector (Pacino)

Filmmaker Michael Bay on Monday denied snubbing Lana Clarkson at a Hollywood party weeks before her death -- an incident the defense has suggested wounded the pride of the statuesque, blond actress so deeply, it helped push her to suicide. Bay's testimony came as Phil Spector's murder trial headed into the final lap with the prosecution presenting its last three rebuttal witnesses.

A defense expert endured a daylong cross-examination in the Phil Spector murder trial Thursday, maintaining that actress Lana Clarkson shot herself in the legendary music producer's home four years ago. Forensic pathologist Werner Spitz, in his second day of testimony, repeated the defense's assertion that Spector was standing as far as six feet from Clarkson when she was shot, and thus could not have been holding the handgun, which was fired when the barrel was in her mouth.

In the months before her death, actress Lana Clarkson e-mailed friends to say that she was "truly at the end of this whole deal" and planned to "tidy my affairs and chuck it," attorneys said in court motions Monday detailing how they planned to defend Phil Spector against murder charges. Spector and his lawyers have long suggested that Clarkson, 40, shot herself at his Alhambra mansion in February 2003.

You have to wonder about Lana Clarkson. Yes, "Lana Clarkson" was her real name; she wasn't Frances Gumm or Norma Jeane Baker. And Lana was born right here in Southern California, not eastern Tennessee or northern Minnesota. So you have to wonder why -- even fading, at 40 -- she didn't know better. And what was she thinking when she climbed into Phil Spector's limo that night? At what point do you realize that the B-movies you've made for half your life have become the B-movie that is your life?

Are you planning to watch HBO's "Phil Spector"? Then step into my cubicle. We need to talk. I'm just a reporter, so my opinions about film aesthetics don't add up to much, but as one of the only journalists to cover both of Spector's murder trials, I can tell you that this movie, which premieres Sunday, is a bomb factually. And in an era when millions depend on "The Daily Show" for their news and best picture nominees for their history lessons, that scares me. Most viewers will know very little about the Spector case, and when the program is over, their understanding will be deeply flawed.

A lawyer for Phil Spector urges a state appellate panel to overturn the music producer's murder conviction on the grounds that the judge was a participant in a multimedia presentation used by prosecutors in their closing arguments. A lawyer for Phil Spector urged a state appellate panel Tuesday to overturn the music producer's murder conviction on the grounds that a multimedia presentation used by prosecutors in their closing arguments turned the trial judge into a government witness.

Whatever the theme song to Phil Spector's troubled life and times might be, "To Know Him Is to Love Him" probably isn't it. That, as Spector fans know, is the title of the legendary record producer's first hit, recorded by the Teddy Bears in 1958 with words taken from the epitaph on his father's tombstone. Spector went on to produce hits almost without number, including "Be My Baby," "He's a Rebel," "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. " Today, however, the man Sean Lennon called "the genius geniuses come to" is in prison serving 19 years to life after the jury in a second trial convicted him of the Alhambra murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

Music producer Phil Spector was legendary for his work with Tina Turner, the Ronettes and the Beatles. But certainly his greatest feat would seem to be the release this summer of a new CD proclaiming him as its producer while he sits in Corcoran State Prison, serving 19 years to life for the second-degree murder of struggling actress Lana Clarkson. The new CD is the work of his wife, fledgling singer Rachelle Spector — and it was produced before he went to prison last year.

Lawyers for imprisoned music producer Phil Spector urged a state appellate court this week to throw out his conviction for the murder of an actress in his Alhambra mansion. In papers filed Wednesday, attorneys for the music legend cited a number of grounds on which justices from the 2nd District Court of Appeal should grant the 70-year-old a new trial. But they focused on a judge's decision to allow testimony from five women who claimed Spector menaced them with firearms in the decades leading up to Lana Clarkson's shooting.

Phil Spector's six years in Los Angeles County's justice system, an odyssey that began with his arrest for shooting an actress in 2003 and included a grand jury presentation and two trials, will conclude this morning when he is sentenced to prison for murder.

Los Angeles County prosecutors ignored or manipulated the facts to make Phil Spector "the first celebrity notch in the government's gun belt," an attorney for the music producer argued Thursday in the final phase of his defense. Spector, 67, has been on trial for four months in the death of actress Lana Clarkson. "Seek the truth," attorney Linda Kenney Baden implored jurors during her four-hour summation of the case, which is expected to go to the jury this afternoon or Monday.

Music legend Phil Spector told a judge Monday that he's seeking a new attorney to defend him for the retrial of his murder case but has yet to find the lawyer he wants. Spector's first trial for the alleged murder of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion in 2003 ended in a mistrial last month. Jurors deadlocked 10 to 2 for conviction after a four-month trial.

A Los Angeles jury convicted Phil Spector of second-degree murder Monday, making the legendary record producer who worked with the Beatles and a host of other pop stars the first celebrity found guilty of murder on Hollywood's home turf in at least 40 years. The verdict read in a tense, standing-room-only courtroom came six years and two trials after police found Lana Clarkson, a statuesque blond actress, shot to death in a chair in Spector's 30-room Alhambra mansion.

When Phil Spector was booked for murder in 2003, he was a jet-setting millionaire who stayed in luxury hotel suites, left $450 tips on $13 bar bills and paid cash for a 30-room mansion. Six years later, with the case against him in the hands of a jury for a second time, the famed music producer still flashes trappings of wealth -- bespoke suits, a chauffeured car and a pretty, young wife who walks down the courthouse hallway next to him in designer pumps.