Phil Spector Went From Being a Musical Genius to a Murderer — Lana Clarkson Was His Victim

Almost 20 years after Lana Clarkson was killed, Donna Clarkson spoke with the Los Angeles Times about her daughter's legacy. The woman who was often described as a bombshell rose to fame starring in cult classics such as Barbarian Queen or Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.

Clarkson was a favorite in the sci-fi genre who knew how to laugh at herself. She was not ashamed of her career, which is how the media tried to spin her death. So, what happened to Lana Clarkson? Here's what we know.

What happened to Lana Clarkson? She spent her final night with record producer Phil Spector.

In a now infamous exchange with his chauffeur, Phil Spector opened the door to his house and said, "I think I killed somebody." The 63-year-old record producer who was known for working with bands like The Beatles and the Ramones, and who developed a production style known as Wall of Sound, was in shock. According to Vanity Fair , Spector told investigators it was a suicide. Clarkson was found slumped over, in a white French bergère chair, bleeding from her nose and mouth.

Spector didn't call the police. His driver did. Two hours before this, Spector was driven by this same chauffeur to a few of his favorite spots: Dan Tana's, Trader Vic's, and finally the House of Blues, reported The Guardian . It was in that last spot that Spector met Clarkson, a statuesque blonde woman who in all likelihood went home with the diminutive music mogul because she thought he could open a few doors for her. Sadly he could only close them.

When police arrived, Spector was a mess, though it's not clear if he was drunk or trying to recover from being tased after refusing to remove his hands from his pockets. While there, Los Angeles police officer Beatrice Rodriguez included a few odd statements from Spector in her report. "What's wrong with you guys?" he asked. "I didn't mean to shoot her, it was an accident." This doesn't sound like something a person would say if someone took their own life. And yet, that's how the defense tried to spin it.

Phil Spector's attorneys did everything they could to make Lana Clarkson's death look like a suicide.

In March 2007, four years after Clarkson's death, Spector went on trial for her murder. His attorneys chose to paint the entertainer as a struggling B-movie actor frustrated by her lack of success. That was not the Clarkson her friends knew. Dianne Bennett told Fox News in 2023 that she remembers the last time she saw Clarkson, and it was not the kind of conversation one has when they are about to take their life in a stranger's mansion.

Bennett had run into Clarkson at Nordstrom, where she was shopping for shoes with her mother. At the time, Bennett was a matchmaker, which prompted Clarkson to cheerfully say, "I’m ready to get married, and I want you to call me this week. Let’s find me Mr. Right!" The three of them had a laugh about it. When Bennett's daughter called to tell her that Clarkson had been killed with Spector, it truly made no sense to her. "It was beyond comprehension," she told the outlet.

The idea that Clarkson thought of herself as "washed up" was being perpetuated by the media after her murder. The defense even managed to find two people who testified that Clarkson was terribly depressed. Her mother later told Vanity Fair she had never heard of either of these people.

Clarkson's story is being revisited in Netflix's Homicide: Los Angeles , which premieres July 16, 2024. Here's hoping they give the actor the respect she deserves.