Behind Wall of Silence, Spector Busy With Suits

Rock ‘n’ roll legend Phil Spector pores over the evidence police have assembled against him in the death of an actress shot in his mansion, according to his former aide, and spends his days with few visitors, among them the wig maker who styles the hairpieces he wears on forays out of his hilltop castle. He also is often in the company of his new assistant-turned-fiancee.

The producer who has been called a genius for creating his “Wall of Sound” technique to produce songs including “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and “Be My Baby,” has said in court documents that he is taking five medications a day for sleep and “emotional stability.”

Spector, 65, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted of killing actress Lana Clarkson, 40, more than three years ago. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, but has made few public statements since her death. He has appeared in court several times, at one point sporting flyaway locks of hair and a knee-length suit coat with a silver dragonfly brooch.

Asked by a former lawyer during a deposition whether he would describe himself “as not being there all the time,” he said yes.

“Because I’ve been called a genius, and I think a genius is not there all the time and has borderline insanity,” a transcript states.

If he cannot be spotted out at night in Hollywood nowadays, his name has turned up in at least four civil filings in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

He filed a lawsuit -- which was quietly dismissed late last year -- against his first criminal lawyer in this case, celebrity attorney Robert Shapiro, demanding his money back.

And he also sued Michelle Blaine, 41, his longtime assistant, alleging that she embezzled money from him. She countersued, alleging that he pressed her to marry him to keep her off the witness stand in his trial, set for early next year.

On May 12, a judge ruled that those civil lawsuits can proceed before Spector’s criminal trial.

In an interview in her lawyer’s office, Blaine talked about her allegations and about Spector’s life, which she witnessed during the four years she worked in his Alhambra mansion, “The Pyrenees Castle,” built in 1926 by a Basque rancher in the style of a French chateau.

Blaine was one of Spector’s few conduits to the outside world from the time of Clarkson’s death Feb. 3, 2003, until last fall, when Spector fired her, she said.

But to Spector’s latest criminal defense lawyer, Bruce Cutler, Blaine’s story is “a baldfaced lie, told by a liar and a thief.”

In a declaration filed with the court, Spector said he discovered in September that Blaine was making unauthorized withdrawals from his personal bank accounts.

He said Blaine “confessed to me ... that she ... had ‘erroneously spent’ hundreds of thousands of dollars of my money, and promised to pay me back the stolen funds.”

Spector also testified that Blaine had gone to his accountant and secured a $425,000 loan from his pension plan without his knowledge and deposited the money into two limited-liability companies she controlled.

“I was shocked when advised of Ms. Blaine’s actions,” Spector said.

He added that he believes she “embezzled somewhere between $500,000 to $1 million from my various accounts.” The suit does not state how he found out about the transactions.

Blaine tells a dramatically different story. Her countersuit alleges that Spector gave her $700,000 to buy a house. “He told me I would never have to pay it back,” she said.

The countersuit also alleges that rather than issuing paychecks in a traditional fashion, Spector authorized her to simply reimburse herself from his accounts as if her salary were a business expense.

An aspiring filmmaker, Blaine said she went to work for Spector in 2001 because she was intrigued and wanted to eventually make a movie about his life. She had met the producer through her father, drummer Hal Blaine, who worked with him in the 1960s.

As Spector’s assistant, Blaine reported to work at the mansion each day and carried out a variety of tasks, including booking his travel, picking up his prescriptions and dry cleaning, and coordinating with his attorneys and business associates, she said.

It was never an easy job, she said. Spector flew into intense rages, in which he would rail at her for hours, she said. Other times, she said, he was brilliant and sweet, and full of “witty, intelligent” conversation.

“He’s such a tormented soul,” Blaine said, adding that when she would talk of quitting he would beg her not to.

“Please don’t leave me,” she said he would say. “I need you.”

After Clarkson’s death, Blaine’s duties expanded to include “protecting Spector from the ensuing media circus and helping ... in attempts to rehabilitate his image,” according to her lawsuit.

She says in court documents that she also was appointed executor of Spector’s will and given power of attorney.

Blaine said Spector became obsessed with his trial. He kept two copies of his “murder book,” the compilation of the evidence against him, and read them constantly, she said.

Spector’s only other regular visitors, she said, were his housekeeper, his attorneys and his hairdresser, who came as often as three times a week to groom Spector’s wigs.

After a radio station reported that Clarkson “probably shot herself accidentally,” Spector tried to dispatch Blaine to music industry parties in Los Angeles and New York to pass out fliers proclaiming Spector’s innocence, she said, adding that she refused to go.

But she enthusiastically participated in another unorthodox scheme to rehabilitate her boss’ image, Blaine said.

At Spector’s behest, she said, she launched a production company whose goal was to make a movie or reality television show that would show the human side of Spector. The working title, according to the countersuit, was “Phil Spector’s The Producers.” Another film idea, the suit says, was “a noble and heartfelt story about a teacher.”

In preparation for his trial, meanwhile, Spector reportedly asked Blaine to buy an RV for use as “a mobile lounge and office during his criminal trial.”

The record producer “constantly asked Blaine to have sex with him,” according to the lawsuit. On one occasion when the two were traveling in New York, Spector asked Blaine to find him a prostitute, the lawsuit states, and he had a habit of asking her to work around him while he was naked.

Spector twice proposed marriage, arguing that she could not testify against her boss if he also was her husband, Blaine alleges.

“We deny it,” Roger Rosen, another of Spector’s criminal lawyers, said of the marriage proposal. “Philip has denied it vehemently to me.”

Despite all the ignominious treatment that she alleges Spector subjected her to, Blaine said she did not quit her job.

“I needed the money,” she said, adding that she had six children and was in the middle of a divorce.

Meanwhile, after he was indicted on the murder charge, Spector made it worth her while to stay, she said.

Spector’s lawyers declined to discuss Blaine’s lawsuit in detail. But they contend that her allegations are part of a web of lies to cover her alleged embezzlement.

Blaine, a slight blond woman who appears younger than her age, denied that she had stolen from Spector and said he turned against her after he met the woman he now calls his fiancee, Rachelle Short.

Short, who according to her website is pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter, was hired to be Blaine’s assistant, according to Blaine. But she did very little work, Blaine said.