Trial raises longtime issue

When Phil Spector walked into the House of Blues in February 2003, club hostess Lana Clarkson saw a slight, older man sporting a wild crown of hair – not the sort of guy a beauty normally gives a second look.

But Clarkson had reason to do just that and more. She was told that Spector, a famed 1960s record producer, was a VIP to be treated “like gold.”

As the night waned, she accompanied Spector to his mansion. Hours later she was dead.

Spector, 67, is on trial for murder; he claims Clarkson committed suicide.

Clarkson, an actress past her screen sexpot prime at 40, may have succumbed to the Hollywood game that induces many women to latch onto anyone who might help launch or reignite their careers – perhaps even music executives with their glory days behind them.

“What normal person, who’s not looking for something, goes with Phil Spector or anyone else at 5 in the morning?” longtime Hollywood manager Bernie Brillstein says.

“It’s the promise that ‘I finally hit the jackpot. He’s going to help me.’ “

That’s the way of the world, at least in a high-stakes, competitive industry.

“Actresses are a dime a dozen, pretty ones,” says Lila Selik, a casting director with 30 years in the business. “People set themselves up to be exploited. They’re willing to do anything to get a part, sacrifice anything.”

In Hollywood, it’s often the youngest newcomers at the greatest risk of exploitation.

Laura Segura, an actress and model who moved from Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles a few years ago, retained a female agent after growing wary of men in the industry.

“I wasn’t naive coming out here, but I wasn’t ready for how many people would blatantly or underhandedly try to take advantage of you,” she says. “That was a big shocker.”

Every meeting with a prospective representative ended up being “Let’s go to lunch or dinner,” Segura says.

Her YouTube video blog includes an emotional account of one would-be manager who made a sexually graphic suggestion. She broke off communication.

“It’s so rampant that almost every man that makes me any kind of promise or builds up my ego … I think, ‘What’s he really after?’ ” Segura says.

It’s something that’s gone on for decades.

In his 1993 autobiography, actor Tony Curtis recounted an early 1950s meeting with studio boss Harry Cohn at Columbia that was disrupted by “a magnificent young woman in a beautiful summer silk dress” who demanded a private meeting with Cohn and was refused.

“Harry, I can’t go on this way,” she said, nervously. “You promised to take care of me, put me in a movie. … You have to do something, or I’m going to have to call your wife.”

Cohn picked up the phone, dialed and held it out to the woman, Curtis wrote. “Tell her yourself,” the mogul said.

Brillstein says aspiring performers must be mindful of what they’re getting into.

“There’s not a young girl that comes into this office that we don’t say, ‘Do whatever you want, but this is not a business for the soft-minded,’ ” he says.

What places youngsters in jeopardy when they move to Hollywood is the same thing that prompted them to take the plunge in the first place, says Dorian Traube of the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work.

“It’s that kind of adolescent, throw-caution-to-the wind (attitude),” says Traube, who focuses on adolescent development and risk-taking.

In Spector’s case, four women have testified that at different times over the years he was armed and threatened violence or sexual assault against them. Only one said she reported her encounter to authorities, who didn’t follow up. No charges were brought.

After music industry photographer Stephanie Jennings stood Spector up for a date, he left an angry threat on her answering machine. The message was played for jurors.

“I’ll … put you out of business,” Spector told her. “I’m gonna try real hard to do so and I guarantee you I will.

“You know who this is. Trust me – I’m good at what I do.”