Phil Spector

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.

By now, Phil Spector must certainly wish he had stayed at home Monday night, in his faux chateau in the city he so famously called "a hick town where there is no place to go that you shouldn't." That city, of course, is Alhambra. And Spector was right. If you wanted to get in trouble, you'd have trouble finding it there. Alhambra has no clubs, little live music (unless you count the city-sponsored outdoor entertainment on weekend nights).

For the better part of the '80s, legendary rock producer Phil Spector lived in seclusion behind the walls of his Beverly Hills mansion. While his classic hits from the '60s were still celebrated, the pop world whispered stories about the reclusive record producer's eccentric behavior, past and present--tales that led some to call him the Howard Hughes of rock.

An hour before sunrise at the end of a very long night, Officer Michael Page was struggling to pin Phil Spector as the famed music producer wrestled with Alhambra police in the foyer of his hilltop mansion. Page pressed his knee into Spector's back and held down his arms. The officer had discarded his Taser after two shots from the stun gun failed to drop Spector, and now Page's submachine gun was slipping off his back. Another officer grabbed the weapon before it fell within Spector's reach.

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.

A bizarre legal battle over a long-lost, $4-million race car took yet another strange twist Tuesday when a lawyer for Phil Spector contended that the pop music legend still owns the rare 1964 Cobra Daytona Coupe. "Mr. Spector is the owner of the Cobra," Peter C. Sheridan, an attorney for Spector, said Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court. "He never gave it or sold it to anyone." Sheridan later declined further comment, referring questions to Spector attorney Robert Shapiro.

A smiling Phil Spector shuffled out of a downtown Los Angeles courthouse 13 months ago after his murder trial ended in a hung jury, stepped into a chauffeured Mercedes and sped back to his Alhambra mansion. In the driveway of the hilltop estate, the legendary music producer and his wife danced ebulliently while waving to hovering news helicopters.

Is pop music pioneer Phil Spector a murderer trying to use his wealth to buy an acquittal? Or did prosecutors, eager to put a celebrity behind bars, ignore proof that a troubled Hollywood hanger-on took her own life in Spector's Alhambra mansion? As a Los Angeles jury begins deliberating Spector's fate, it will face these questions that evoke both film noir motifs and the recent history of celebrity justice in Los Angeles.

Phil Spector, the influential but erratic rock 'n' roll producer best known for his layered "Wall of Sound" recording technique, was arrested on suspicion of murder early Monday after an actress was found shot to death at his hilltop mansion in Alhambra. Police said they were called to the gated estate about 5 a.m. by a limousine driver who reported hearing shots fired after he dropped off the couple in Spector's Mercedes-Benz.

Phil Spector's driver moved the prosecution's murder case against the famous record producer toward its climax Tuesday, testifying that Spector emerged from his mansion holding a revolver in his bloody hand and said, "I think I killed somebody." Adriano DeSouza, who was the only other person with Spector and actress Lana Clarkson at Spector's Alhambra home the night Clarkson was found shot to death, said he stood just outside the open doorway speaking with Spector about 5 a.m. on Feb. 3, 2003.