SPECTOR CASE FILLED WITH TRAGIC IRONY TRIAL REVEALS COMPLEX PERSONALITIES.

Byline: TONY CASTRO

Staff Writer

On the last night of her life, Lana Clarkson was doing what a lot of beautiful, out-of-work actresses do in Hollywood. She was working a $9- an-hour job as a hostess in a nightclub.

As she greeted patrons at the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, Clarkson didn't know who Phil Spector was when he arrived with a date near closing time looking for a table.

Clarkson initially refused to let Spector into the members-only area. She even thought he was a woman, referring to him as "Miss Spector" before colleagues filled her in.

But within hours, Clarkson was dead at the famed music producer's Alhambra mansion.

A jury today enters its second week of deliberating whether Spector killed Clarkson, weighing weeks of testimony and evidence that has included tales of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, glamour and violence and despair.

In the end, the murder trial has been marked with ironies that began when the blond beauty agreed to go home with a man she hardly knew, and then watched the James Cagney movie "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" in the car on the way to his mansion.

During the months of testimony, a high-priced mob defense attorney from the East Coast prone to dramatic courtroom antics blew it at a celebrity trial in the entertainment capital of the world.

And one of the prosecution's strongest points may have been the testimony of an illegal immigrant, with limited English, who said he heard Spector utter some incriminating words just moments after the shooting.

The most poignant irony may be the victim herself, as Spector's defense attorneys attempted to portray Clarkson as both unsympathetic and a femme fatale -- not an unusual tactic.

"But with Lana Clarkson, they had a fair amount to work with," says University of Southern California law professor Jean Rosenbluth, an expert in criminal prosecution who attended parts of the trial.

"The defense showed that she allegedly forged some letters purporting to be from entertainment moguls attesting to how great an actress she (was). This is the type of thing you will only see in Hollywood."

Back at the House of Blues on that fateful night, Sophia Holguin, a cocktail waitress in the club's VIP lounge, did recognize Spector and asked Clarkson to seat him and his date in the Buddha Room, where Holguin was waiting tables.

Spector was quickly smitten -- but not with Clarkson. What caught his eye was Holguin's beauty. He left her a $436.50 tip on a $13.50 bill, dispatched his chauffeur Adriano De Souza to take his date home and then propositioned the Latina waitress.

She lied and said she had an early-morning call. That's when Spector turned his attention to Clarkson.

"I don't know how many women Phil Spector could have picked up, but whether it was for money or power, she goes with him," says famed Hollywood author John Gilmore, whose work includes books on the Black Dahlia and Charles Manson.

For all Holguin's apparent interest in the wealthy recording producer -- she knew that Spector was a "multimillionaire" who tipped extravagantly -- she testified she became "uncomfortable" with the music icon when he angrily yelled at his date, Kathy Sullivan:

"Just sit down and have a (expletive) drink!"

It was enough to turn her off. But did she warn Clarkson? If not, why? And would it have mattered?

"It's a strange case with a strange set of circumstances," says Gilmore.

Had Clarkson given up at age 40 on her movie career dreams and was she now so desperate as to hope the 67-year-old Spector could open some doors for her, as his defense team theorized?

An argument Spector's lawyers could have used to underscore this theory would have been: Only a desperate, depressed woman would be attracted to an aging short man with bad skin wearing a hilarious toupee, Edwardian frock coat and high-heeled boots.

But Spector's legal team also was riddled with ironies and paradoxes from the outset. It has included Robert Shapiro of O.J. Simpson fame; Leslie Abramson, who defended the Menendez brothers; and mob lawyer Bruce Cutler of New York, who won three acquittals for Mafia don John Gotti.

But by most accounts, the vaunted team flopped in delivering the opening statement for Spector. The most disappointing, to many legal watchers, was Cutler.

"Some of what happened can be attributed to the fact that this was an entertainment trial in the heart of Hollywood," says Rosenbluth.

"In a strange sort of way this impacted Bruce Cutler negatively. You would have thought his flamboyant, boisterous, animated style would have played well here, but another side of Los Angeles came out in the trial -- the laid-back Los Angeles. And his very sort of East Coast in-your-face style didn't fly here.

"The other point is when your client is on trial for bullying women, you don't want to have a defense lawyer who is bullying women."

Then there is Spector's 26-year-old wife Rachelle, who sounds like a younger version of Lana Clarkson -- a struggling actress with a resume of one B-movie and a former Playboy model.

She has been on his arm every day he entered the courthouse, as if trying to calm his hands that shake constantly, reportedly because of medication he is taking.

Key witness

There's also the irony of the key prosecution witness -- Adriano De Souza, Spector's chauffeur, who testified that he heard a gunshot while sitting in a Mercedes in the courtyard outside the Alhambra mansion.

De Souza called 911 and then testified he saw Spector holding a .38- caliber revolver in his blood-splattered hand. He said Spector told him, "I think I killed somebody."

Defense attorneys attempted to cloud De Souza's credibility, noting he is a Brazilian citizen in the U.S. illegally.

How could he have heard anything with the windows of the Mercedes rolled up, the car heater running, the radio playing and the courtyard fountain splashing nearby?

But Rosenbluth believes attempts to impugn De Souza's credibility fell flat.

"He was the strongest prosecution witness in the trial," says Rosenbluth. "He basically said Phil Spector confessed he killed Lana Clarkson."

Which raises the question of whether Clarkson could have committed suicide, as the defense team has claimed.

Although many of her friends described Clarkson as the consummate optimist who was always networking and schmoozing to land a role that might change her career, she had in fact taken the House of Blues job out of desperation.

"Lana was always out there auditioning, taking classes, networking with people in the industry at every opportunity," says an actress who knew her but doesn't want her name publicly connected to her.

"She had been doing this for some time and in the last few years, she had exuded this air of desperation. She was getting older. She hadn't gotten the parts that would elevate her career.

"And this town can be cruel to actresses getting on in years."

A defense witness who called herself Punkin Pie said that two weeks before her death, Clarkson was snubbed by "Transformers" director Michael Bay at a Hollywood party.

Pie said it caused the actress to break down and sob, "I hate this town and I don't want to be here anymore."

Add to that an account that three months before her death, shortly before Christmas, Clarkson reportedly called her longtime mentor and friend Sally Kirkland to tell her she was broke. She wanted to know if taking a day job would hurt her career.

Told that it would not, Clarkson went to work at the House of Blues on Jan. 6.

Punkin Pie and defense witness Jennifer Hayes, both claiming to be friends of Clarkson, testified that the actress felt humiliated by her new hostess job.

But other friends say she remained upbeat. She had just gotten a new agent, and the week of her death, she starred in an advertising campaign for Chesterfield cigarettes appearing in Spain.

Things may have been beginning to turn in her favor.

tony.castro(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) CLARKSON

(2 -- color) SPECTOR