Phil Spector

A week after a jury deadlocked on whether to convict Phil Spector of murder, plans for his retrial got underway Wednesday with talk of a new defense team for the famed music producer. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler scheduled Spector to appear at a hearing Oct. 23 with new attorneys to defend him against charges that he shot actress Lana Clarkson to death in his Alhambra mansion four years ago.

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.

Ellie Greenwich, the New York songwriter behind a string of 1960s hits that gave effervescent voice to unbridled teen romance including "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel of Love" and "Be My Baby," many of them in collaboration with producer Phil Spector, died Wednesday of a heart attack, according to her niece, Jessica Weiner. She was 68. She was being treated for pneumonia and "some other heart issues" at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York when she suffered the heart attack, Weiner said.

Phil Spector stood inside the front door of his mansion Thursday morning wearing a chocolate brown suit, a shiny gold tie and an impassive expression. Before him, a group of people milled about on the crimson carpet of his foyer. They studied his furniture, peered at personal photos and inspected an adjacent bathroom. They strolled through his living room and gazed at his grand piano. Through it all, Spector displayed a stoicism at odds with the day's very high stakes.

Phil Spector stared straight ahead. It was the appointed hour for the legendary music producer's six-year murder case to come to a close and the courtroom was packed with reporters, fans and detractors eager to hear his sentence. But he did not look at the judge, take notes or whisper to his lawyer. For Spector, it seemed, it wasn't worth it.

Since his murder retrial began a month ago, Phil Spector has heard himself described as a gun-obsessed boor with a mouth filthier than a truck stop restroom and mood swings as sharp and scary as a dagger. Surprisingly, this ugly portrait came courtesy not of prosecutors -- although they've offered their own unflattering character sketch -- but from the legendary music producer's own lawyer.

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?"

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.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office has determined that the death of a woman at record producer Phil Spector's mansion in Alhambra was a homicide, a spokesman said Monday. Lana Clarkson died of a gunshot wound to the head and neck, and she was shot by another, the coroner said. The decision about any charges Spector could face rests with the district attorney's office. Spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said the case is under review. Details of the coroner's report remained sealed at the request of prosecutors.

In a courtroom with dimmed lights that recalled the dark Alhambra estate where an actress was shot to death six years ago, a prosecutor Monday called Phil Spector a "demonic maniac" with "a history of playing Russian roulette with the lives of women." "By the grace of God, five other women got the empty chamber and lived to tell," Deputy Dist. Atty. Truc Do said, referring to a string of former love interests who testified at Spector's murder retrial about harrowing encounters with him.

If ever there was an ambassador for Christmas, it's singer Darlene Love. "My favorite season of the whole year is Christmas," she says from her home in Rockland, N.Y. "People forget about me all year. In November, they remember." Darlene Love may not be a household name, but chances are you know her. In 1963, she recorded the Phil Spector song "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." Since then the song has been covered by myriad musicians: U2, KT Tunstall, Joey Ramone. But Love's original version, with her wailing, emotive soprano, is a quintessential Christmas song.

The planned transfer of Phil Spector to a different prison has been halted, a corrections official said Friday, but different reasons were given as complications continued to surround his incarceration. Spector, 69, a legendary music producer, is serving 19 years to life for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Spector's wife, Rachelle, said she interceded with a prison official and Spector filed an inmate appeal after it was announced that he would be moved to Pleasant Valley State Prison at Coalinga with a group of other prisoners.

Ellie Greenwich, the New York songwriter behind a string of 1960s hits that gave effervescent voice to unbridled teen romance including "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel of Love" and "Be My Baby," many of them in collaboration with producer Phil Spector, died Wednesday of a heart attack, according to her niece, Jessica Weiner. She was 68. She was being treated for pneumonia and "some other heart issues" at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York when she suffered the heart attack, Weiner said.

Phil Spector: In Friday's Section A, the article about Phil Spector's murder case said the music producer could be 77 when first available for parole. He will be 88 when first eligible for release.

Phil Spector stared straight ahead. It was the appointed hour for the legendary music producer's six-year murder case to come to a close and the courtroom was packed with reporters, fans and detractors eager to hear his sentence. But he did not look at the judge, take notes or whisper to his lawyer. For Spector, it seemed, it wasn't worth it.

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.

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.

For a second time, deliberations in Phil Spector's murder retrial have been interrupted by juror illness. The panel, which began weighing evidence March 26, went home at midday Thursday after a juror became sick. Because of court holidays and a prior instance in which a juror was ill, the panel has deliberated only about 27 hours over seven days. Spector, 69, faces second-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting six years ago of Lana Clarkson, a 40-year-old actress.

Re "Legal fees sapping Spector's fortune," April 8 Instead of another puff piece on Phil Spector's fame and fortune, how about questioning whether he is just another in a seemingly endless stream of unbalanced men who threaten women with guns? If the five women who've stepped forward to testify against him had been more interested in the pursuit of justice back when Spector threatened them, he would have been in jail years ago. In an exercise in obscurantism reminiscent of the O.J. debacle, Spector's legal team has tried everything from questioning his driver's ability to understand English to trotting out the obligatory blood-spatter experts.

The fate of Phil Spector, who gained fame working with John Lennon, Tina Turner and other pop music stars in a recording studio, now rests in the hands of an East Los Angeles bus driver, a San Gabriel social worker, a Whittier postal clerk and nine other citizens. After listening to five months of testimony, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury began deliberating Spector's role in the fatal shooting of actress Lana Clarkson at his home six years ago.