Character Assassination

First off, let me apologize for the recent blog inactivity--Mrs. Sleuth and I have just returned from "a figure finding mission" all around South America! And just in time for the start of the Phil Spector murder trial--the first televised courtroom spectacle since O.J.! And, as in that case, the beautiful blonde victim is about to get slimed.

As gossip guru Cindy Adams wrote two days ago (photo): "The defense will muddy up LANA CLARKSON, the blonde B-movie actress he's accused of icing." And this takes the cake: "Since Clarkson got dead via a gunshot in her mouth, also to be played up is that she once made a movie called Vice Girls (photo). Her role? A cop who placed the 2-inch barrel of a revolver in a man's mouth" (photo - photo). That would tie in with Spector's assertion that, "She killed herself…she kissed the gun" (photo) before putting it in her mouth and pulling the trigger. "They will produce some witness," Adams alleges, "to say she told a friend she would kill herself."

A unique feature of this blog is to try to offer Sleuth's personal perspective: I met Lana just two months before her death (photo was taken that day, 11/16/02) at a convention in L.A. and asked her to pose for the magazine (clearly upbeat, photo). "Oh, I love Celebrity Sleuth," Lana enthused. "But I've just taken this hostess job {at the House of Blues} and I don't think my bosses would allow me to do any nudity. If it were up to me, sure. So get in touch in a couple of months, and we'll see." In a couple of months, she'd be Phil-iminated.

So not only was Lana in an optimistic frame of mind and planning ahead, but the details of her death go against every notion of a beautiful woman committing suicide: "She was wearing a little black dress (from her hostess gig, photo)," reveals the crime scene report, "black nylons and black shoes. A leopard print purse hung from her right shoulder" (leopard was her favorite print; here a similar coat "hung from her right shoulder," photo). How does a right-handed woman decide to shoot herself while she has her handbag hanging around her right shoulder? And how isn't it dislodged by the "reverb"?

If I were on the jury {and weren't kicked off for "prejudging the case"}, I'd bring the following to the (deliberations) table: It's highly unusual for a beautiful woman--especially an actress who knows she'll be found and photographed--to shoot herself, much less in the face {her fortune}. They are far more likely to take pills or expire from exhaust fumes, hoping to leave "a beautiful corpse." Not to mention that Spector's first words to the limo driver who'd brought the duo to his house at 3 a.m. on February 3, 2003 were: "I think I just shot her." And he certainly looks reliable (in court, photo).

Even more damning is the account of former topless dancer Sandy Kane, who told detectives "that Spector forced her to perform oral sex at gunpoint 25 years ago." Partying with the rock producer and brother-sister singing act Nino Tempo and April Stevens--who had a #1 hit with "Deep Purple" in 10/63--Kane's date was none other than comic Kenny Kramer (yep--the inspiration for Michael Richards' character on Seinfeld!, photo). Under oath, Kane claims that later that night in his hotel room, Spector, "reeking of alcohol," forced himself on her and "asked for oral sex. " When she refused, "he pulled his gun out and said, ‘You better.' Fearing for her life, Kane complied. And, as you'd expect, Sleuth has located a topless photo of still stripping Sandy Kane, plying her trade a quarter century later (photo). And a bottomless one (photo).

So isn't it far more likely that Spector demanded Clarkson "go down on him" (photo) or, as a female friend of Lana's lamented: "Spector wanted sex and she turned him down--so he shot her."


Next week: Rare nudes of luscious Lana.