Fifty years of Phil Spector

Last week, after more than four years of continuances, Phil Spector went on trial for the murder of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson, who was found dead with a bullet hole in her mouth in the legendary music producer's Alhambra mansion on February 3, 2003. The proceedings got off to a fast start when, on Thursday, the prosecution brought Spector's ex-girlfriend Dorothy Melvin to the stand to recount a 1993 incident in which the "Wall of Sound" pioneer terrorized Melvin with both a revolver and a shotgun. Melvin is just one of at least four women who will take the stand, say prosecutors, in an effort to paint Spector as a man with a "rich history of violence" toward women.

Spector stories are the stuff of legend: He's pulled a gun on everyone from Leonard Cohen to the RamonesOf course, if the jury were filled with rock fans, the character assassination would be unnecessary. Sometimes referred to as "the mad genius of rock," Spector stories are the stuff of legend: He's pulled a gun on everyone from Leonard Cohen to the Ramones, and it's reputed that his antics, and cape-wearing, ruffle-clad persona are the inspiration for the lisping and lethal band manager character "Ronnie 'Z-man' Barzell" in Russ Meyer's camp classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. In reality, just weeks before the Clarkson murder, Spector told a journalist with the Daily Telegraph that he was on medication for schizophrenia and "relatively insane." The reputation is one that's loomed over the producer for as long as he's been in the public eye. "If he's found innocent," says Dave Thompson, author of the book, Wall of Pain: the Biography of Phil Spector, "he'll be the new OJ."

For those who haven't been sequestered, Radar offers a more unedited timeline of Phil Spector's "rich history of violence."

1958

While touring with his first band, the Teddy Bears, Spector endures a traumatizing incident that may be responsible for setting the tone for his subsequent persecution complex. According to a music publisher associate of his, Spector is followed into a public restroom and cornered by four prankster show-goers who proceed to urinate on him.

1965
Tony Hall, of Decca Records in Britain, recounts to one Spector biographer tales from his "Japanese period," an epoch that sees Spector flanked by five martial arts black belts wherever he goes—recording sessions, night clubs, and in later years, even on-stage ceremonies.

1966
When comedian Lenny Bruce dies of an overdose, a Los Angeles Police Department detective contacts one of Spector's friends, offering to sell some black market postmortem photographs of Bruce with a needle protruding from his arm. Though the friend refuses to buy the images, Spector apparently leaps at the opportunity, shelling out $5,000 for the negatives.

1968

Spector marries his head-turning second wife, singer Ronnie Bennett of The Ronettes, the girl band he popularized in the early '60s. But when he isn't busy controlling her career he spends his days controlling her. A sort of bouffant-era Rapunzel, the former Mrs. Spector later describes having been a virtual prisoner in the producer's mansion, around which he is said to have built walls in order to keep his significant other significantly trapped. He is also purported to lead his mother-in-law to his basement where he keeps a glass coffin, telling her that if his wife ever leaves him he will kill her and exhibit her corpse there á la Snow White.

Beyond the death threats, Spector also makes sure his bride is never free of his influence. Apparently, he insists that she place a life-sized inflatable dummy replica of himself in the passenger seat of her car when she leaves the house. He has allegedly planned it out right down to the cigarette he places in its mouth and the angle of the hat. Spector's goal is to prevent other men from picking up on her. The couple—big surprise—divorces four years later. Recently, in a statement to the press, Spector's ex-wife stated: "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."

1971

Spector has a panic attack and exits a boarded plane headed from Los Angeles to New York, causing a bomb scare. In October 1971, he is heading from New York to Los Angeles after attending a John Lennon and Yoko Ono art show when he refuses to board a plane for fear of it crashing, and even tries to persuade Ringo Starr to take another flight with him. He eventually goes alone on a separate plane.

1973
During a recording session with John Lennon, the frustrated producer apparently takes a shot at the ceiling of A&M Studios in Hollywood during an altercation with the Beatles' gofer, Mal Evans. To add insult to near-injury, he later absconds with Lennon's master tapes mid-project. Spector biographer Dave Thompson contends that it was Lennon and his friends who were "out of control," saying that "...pulling a gun was the only way Phil could ever get their attention."

1977

Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen describes Spector as being "flipped out" during the recording of his album Death of a Ladies' Man. On one occasion, apparently, the producer approaches him with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other.

CIRCA 1978
In 2003, Spector's sons Gary and Donte tell the tabloid press stories of a childhood filled with sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of their father. Both brothers speak of being held on house arrest, locked in their separate rooms, behind the barbed wire and bars that cover their windows. They are allegedly only permitted to leave their quarters for breakfast and when they are escorted to school by guards.

Gary tells of being blindfolded and sexually molested by his father as a "learning experience," while Donte reports that, at the tender age of nine, he was blindfolded, handcuffed, and forced to simulate intercourse with his father's girlfriend.

1978

Aspiring musician and topless dancer Sandy Kane gets her first introduction to Spector's gun in a limousine where she and performers Nino Tempo, April Stevens, and comic Kenny Kramer (the inspiration for the Seinfeld character) are hanging out after a comedy club show in New York. The boozed up Spector is purported to later bring her to his hotel room where he holds her down and forcibly kisses her. Then he tells her to perform oral sex on him. When she refuses, he pulls a gun.

1979
Spector is known for extreme methodology in the studio, but he takes the reputation to its limit during the recording of the Ramones' End of the Century, when he makes the band wait eight hours as he mixes a single opening guitar chord for "Rock 'n' Roll High School."

The band is also privy to a behind-the-scenes look at Spector's castle, a fortress surrounded by barbed wire and electric fencing riddled with dead insects, as well as warning signs that read, "Beware of the big dog," and "Achtung Minefield." The former admonishment apparently refers to a St. Bernard that dwells in one of Spector's closets.

During this period, Spector out-punks the Ramones in his usual pistol-packing manner. When bassist Dee Dee Ramone attempts to leave the producer's home, Spector allegedly points a gun at him, saying, "You're not going anywhere, Dee Dee." Then, like a robber holding up a bank, he leads the band over to his piano at gunpoint; ultimately forcing them to listen to him play his hit, "Baby I Love You."

1989

Spector is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When he steps onto the stage to receive his honor, he is joined by three bodyguards who—as the account goes—each has his hand ominously stuffed inside his jacket. Upon stepping down from the stage, despite the support of his pack, Spector trips and tumbles off.

1993
Spector points a gun at girlfriend Dorothy Tiano Melvin, formerly Joan Rivers's manager, on one 4th of July weekend, commanding her to undress. When she refuses, he strikes her and aims the shotgun at her as she tries to run off the property.

1995

Photographer Stephanie Elizabeth Jennings accompanies Spector to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction after-party in New York. But when she refuses an invitation to go back to his room at the Carlyle Hotel, he allegedly blocks the door to her room while holding a gun.

CIRCA 1996
Girlfriend Barbara Nichols paints a kinky and dangerous picture of Spector. Prior to their sexual encounters, he apparently takes off his wig and replaces it with a bandana just after injecting himself with performance enhancement drugs. He often dons not one but two condoms. After one tryst, claims Nichols, he whips out his other pistol and threatens, "I could kill you."

1999
Spector moves out of the 90210 zip code and into the significantly less posh 91803—the 'burbs of Alhambra, that is. He buys a three-story, three-acre, $1.1 million mansion on S. Grand View Drive that is dubbed "Pyrenees Castle." There, in reclusion from the exhibitionism of Hollywood, he is said to live in darkness—curtains always closed—parading around in a Batman costume in the company of a jukebox that plays only his records. Clearly a fashion maven, he is also said to change clothing four times daily and to coordinate his attire with whichever gun he happens to be carrying at the time.

During this period, while at a party in Beverly Hills, Spector is said to have once flicked cigar ash on a man's dog. The man's girlfriend, who witnesses the uncouth gesture, reacts in an offended manner. Spector in turn purportedly points a gun to her cheek and threatens, "What are you going to say now?" before he is escorted off the premises.

2003
Lana Clarkson is found dead of a bullet wound in Spector's Alhambra mansion.

2005-2006
Spector sues his former personal assistant Michelle Blaine for embezzlement. The following year, Blaine counter-sues him for over $5 million alleging sexual harassment, among others charges. She claims that he would appear naked in front of her and ask her to find him prostitutes—even once going so far as to invite her to join him and one of his paid girlfriends. Even worse, Blaine is forced into the dreaded role of promoter and publicist, instructed to go to music industry parties and pass out flyers that claim that Spector did not kill Clarkson.