What's the Verdict on Phil Spector's Hair? - Phil Spector : People.comWhat's the Verdict on Phil Spector's Hair?
Originally posted Tuesday March 20, 2007 01:00 PM EDT
Spector in 2005 (left) and on March 19
When Phil Spector appeared at a Los Angeles courthouse Monday for the start of jury selection in his upcoming murder trial, he sported a dramatically different look.
The legendary producer, who has become nearly as famous for his wild, curly hair as for his signature "Wall of Sound" music style, had traded his unruly locks for a smooth blond bowl cut.
Why the makeover? Some experts offered their opinion.
"He's projecting a younger, toned-down look," beauty expert Scott Vincent Borba, who has worked with Eva Longoria and Kristen Bell, tells PEOPLE. "He's always extreme, but he's trying to be more approachable to the jury, judge and media. Honeycomb highlights project warmth."
But the image overhaul could backfire, Borba says: "Such a dramatic change can send the wrong message. He's a chameleon, which makes you wonder who he really is."
Spector's friend and former companion, entertainment journalist Anita Talbert, has a similar take. "Phil wants to look kinder and softer and gentler," she tells PEOPLE, "but someone is giving him some bad advice. Maybe this idea was that if you look like the devil or you look like Dracula, change your hair color."
Loyola Law School Professor Laurie Levinson says Spector's unusual hairdos underscore his eccentric nature. "I just think he lives in his own world," she tells PEOPLE. "This is his image. He likes to make a statement. It gives him and identity and he likes attention."
But, she says, it could backfire with a jury. "When the jury first sees him, that are going to think, 'Who is this guy? He is not like the rest of us.' But whether it helps him or hurts him is another question."
Prosecutors from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office would not comment on the case or Spector's new hairstyle. Members of his defense team also declined to comment on the new look.
July 31, 2009
What's the Verdict on Phil Spector's Hair? - Phil Spector : People.com
GUESS WHAT I FOUND? A VIDEO REPORT - COMING NOW: Phil Spector allowed to have jamming sessions with inmates | Mail Online
Murderer Phil Spector left terrified after receiving 'creepy' prison note from notorious killer Charles Manson
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:10 PM on 26th July 2009
Phil Spector used to take calls from Tina Turner and John Lennon, but now the only person who wants to work with him is mass murderer Charles Manson.
Manson is anxious to make music with the 69-year-old producer, who is serving life in prison for the shooting of actress Lana Clarkson.
Spector’s wife Rachelle told a U.S. newspaper: ‘A guard brought Philip a note from Manson.
‘He said he considers Philip the greatest producer who ever lived. It was creepy. Philip didn’t respond.’
Musical killers: Both Spector and Manson had music careers before being convicted of murder
Manson, 74, is being held at Corcoran State Prison in Los Angeles, where he is serving a life sentence for conspiring to murder seven people, including movie star Sharon Tate, in 1969.
‘I think Manson wants to glean some musical advice from Phil, who was a Sixties music god with his “Wall of Sound”,’ publicist Hal Lifson said.
‘But Phil’s like, “I used to pick up the phone and it was John Lennon or Celine Dion or Tina Turner and now Charles Manson is trying to get a hold of me!’’.’
Manson is being held in a separate wing to the producer of hits Be My Baby and Unchained Melody.
The cult leader was initially sentenced to death in 1969 for the deaths of movie star Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and three others stabbed and shot to death at Tate's LA home.
Phil Spector allowed to have jamming sessions with inmates
Cell of sound: Phil Spector
Phil Spector could be allowed to take part in 'jamming sessions' with other inmates while he serves his life sentence for murder.
The 69-year-old music producer, who is classified as a medium security prisoner, has also been told he can keep personal items in his cell.
Spector was moved to the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in California State Prison, after it was deemed he may be at risk of attack by other inmates.
A prison spokesman said: 'The facility he is on now, there are a bunch of inmates that have instruments and they all play together on the exercise yard.'
Spector, who worked with some of the music world's biggest names and was responsible for the 'Wall of Sound' production technique, may be allowed to join in.
He was convicted in April of the 2003 killing of actress Lana Clarkson.
He was convicted of second-degree murder in April after the first trial ended with a mistrial.
As a medium security prisoner he has a cell to himself and can make some requests for items he wants in his cell.
His wife, Rachelle, said a list was already being compiled.
‘He wants a TV and an iPod or something like that for listening to music - and he would like to be able to receive e-mail,’ she said.
Mug shot: Phil Spector, pictured for the first time without a wig after arriving in jail last month, will now be housed with under-threat gangsters and sex offenders
Rachelle Spector said she was relieved her husband was out of North Kern State Prison, where he has been undergoing evaluation.
He had been forced to ditch his trade-mark wigs and posed for a less than flattering prison mug-shot which showed him to he bald.
Rachelle said Spector said he was forced to sleep naked on the floor for two nights and to eat out of a bowl with his hands ‘like a dog.’
A man of many wigs: Spector's different looks over the years
Prison authorities denied the claims.
The state prison in Corcoran, which houses 6,900 inmates, has played host to other entertainment figures in the past.
Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr served time there in 1999 for violating his probation in a drug conviction and ended up counselling other inmates before he was released.
California Corrections Department Denies Manson-Spector Link
Phil Spector 'alarmed' By Manson NoteCalifornia Corrections Department Denies Manson-Spector LinkA California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson told NewsBlaze the alleged contact between Charles Manson and Phil Spector is false.
Terry Thornton, the spokesperson, says Manson is housed in protective housing in the main prison at the California State Prison, Corcoran, also known as "CSP-COR."
Spector is located in another prison, almost four miles away, at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran, also called "SATF-CSP, Corcoran."
Each facility has its own warden, and separate staff.
An investigation by the department revealed no evidence of a contact between the two men and no evidence that any guards passed a note from Manson to Spector.
See the original report: Phil Spector `alarmed` By Manson Note
July 30, 2009
ELVIS' VEGAS CURSE
Forty years on
looking back
astigma
Thu, Jul 30, 2009 (midnight)
Elvis at the International, in the residency’s early days.
Courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau
On July 31, 1969, Elvis Presley played the first headliner show at the Las Vegas International (soon to be the Hilton). He played to an invited VIP audience.
At the time, Las Vegas existed outside the counterculture erupting around the rest of the country. George Carlin could still get fired for swearing here, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas had not yet been written.
The rock generation might not have been going to Elvis’ movies, but he still had its ear as he arrived in Vegas, triumphant off of his still-revered ’68 Comeback Special. Two months before opening in Vegas, he released what might have been his best studio album, From Elvis in Memphis. Sure, 10 years of bad movies were behind him, but Presley was still a major music player re-entering the game, and Las Vegas was to be the staging ground for the ultimate comeback by the then-best-selling solo artist of all time.
Putting Presley onstage in Vegas with a band of gospel musicians might not have appeased his early rock following—or endeared him to the counterculture—but it found him revitalized and making his best music since his Sun Studio days.
Vegas was not meant to be the grave it became for Presley, but rather the launch of a new model, in which a hot artist could forsake touring and let audiences come to him. Old-school entertainers, like Frank Sinatra, had been doing Vegas for years, but their success did not rise and fall with the charts, nor did their audience expect a tour to follow each new release.
Elvis’ always-ingenious manager, Colonel Tom Parker, got his man record sums of money for Vegas, and, at first, Presley responded with some of his best music, bringing all his influences—blues, rock, gospel, country and pop—to one stage. Early live Hilton recordings remain among Presley’s most vital work, offering a sound he had a large hand in creating (compared with his produced studio work).
Entering with Elvis Presley, Vegas hit the rock world on top. Had it all stayed there, maybe artists like Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed would not have avoided the Vegas stage for decades. But Presley died a pathetic, bloated, drug-addled parody of himself in 1977, and that image became nearly synonymous with Vegas. On bootlegs, you can hear the King near the end, talking about karate and cracking bad jokes as much as singing. And his voice, when he does sing, is shocking, lacking any of the cocksure confidence and bottomless power that defined his music as late as singles like “Burning Love.”
A year before Presley died, critic Bill Burke, witnessing a Hilton show, wrote a review quoted in Peter Guralnick’s definitive Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley: “After sitting through Elvis Presley’s closing-night performance at Las Vegas Hilton, one wonders how much longer it can be before the end comes, perhaps suddenly, and why the King of Rock ’n’ Roll would subject himself to possible ridicule.” Such ridicule became symptomatic, though Presley’s sold-out crowds here seemed indifferent to his dissipated talent.
Not until the Joint and House of Blues opened in the 1990s did Vegas became a regular touring stop. Even then, artists playing those hot venues could be found insisting to the press that Vegas was just another tour stop—and not the spot where bygone musicians went to die.
The century rolled over by the time Celine Dion opened her Vegas show, A New Day. That’s how long it took for a major artist to repeat the Presley model of 1969. Dion paid tribute to Elvis in her show’s music and style, and, while she lacked Presley’s artistic greatness, the ease of her success helped erode the Vegas stigma. The door once shut by Presley’s Vegas decay suddenly opened for headliners from Elton John to Prince to Santana, the current headliner at the Hard Rock.
But before all that, Las Vegas was a symbol for all that was uncool. Forty years ago this week, Elvis Presley opened a world of possibility, and then later destroyed it.
DRUG SEEKERS, FREQUENT FLIER OKIES OUTSMART PHARMS AND DOCS
Fake Prescriptions a Problem in the OzarksThursday, Jul 30, 2009 @09:43pm CST
The Los Angeles Times is reporting Michael Jackson used a number of different alias's to get his prescription drugs. KOLR/KSFX found that people trying to fake prescriptions in our area is a big problem. Pharmacists say not only are people using fake names they are posing as fake people to get those prescriptions.
Rob Shockley oversees St.John's pharmacies. These days his team of pharmacists have a lot more cut out for them. "The drug seekers or the frequent flyers are getting a lot more clever," explains Shockley. He says people will use fake names, but he says people are pretending to be doctors and nurses calling in prescriptions with legit medical information.
"If they know the DEA number, which is a number specific for each individual medical doctor, its very hard to detect," adds Shockley.
In the last couple of weeks pharmacists at St. Johns say they have caught three people calling in fake prescriptions for hydrocodone and one person was arrested. "Lots of time people will steal prescription pads out of the doctors office," adds Shockley.
"If they know the DEA number, which is a number specific for each individual medical doctor, its very hard to detect," adds Shockley.
In the last couple of weeks pharmacists at St. Johns say they have caught three people calling in fake prescriptions for hydrocodone and one person was arrested. "Lots of time people will steal prescription pads out of the doctors office," adds Shockley.
So some doctors have started drug testing their patients. Making sure the drugs are in their system and not on the streets. Doctors are also turning away from paper and switching to electronically filing their prescriptions to pharmacies. Of course checking id's never hurts.
"If you tell them to bring photo id then lots of times they won't show up," explains Shockley.
A pharmacy hotline is set up in Springfield which connects pharmacies and allows them to alert each other about suspicious people. Working even harder to filter out the fakes, so drugs don't end up in the wrong hands.
The Springfield Police narcotics division says fake prescriptions is one of its biggest problems. In the last 30 days its taken seven reports of people trying to pass off fake prescriptions and that's just the ones the pharmacy's called in. Prescription fraud is a felony and can carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail and a fine. But some experts say if its your first offense you could get probation but would probably have to go into a drug treatment program.
Michael Jackson Timeline
14 Feb 1983
"Beat It" is a song by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was written by Jackson and co-produced by Quincy Jones for the singer's sixth solo album, Thriller (1982). Jones had wanted an ambitious black rock 'n' roll song, however, Jackson had never previously shown an interest in the genre. Eddie Van Halen was drafted in to add the distinctive overdriven guitar solo with tapping, but initially thought the phone calls from J...
Michael Jackson Timeline
| 1958 Aug 29 | Michael Jackson Born Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana (an industrial suburb of Chicago, Illinois) to a working-class family on August 29, 1958. The son of Joseph Walter "Joe" and Katherine Est... |  |
| 1969 | The Jackson Five debut In August 1969, shortly before Michael turned 11, the Jackson 5 opened for Diana Ross at the L.A. Forum, and in December, they issued their debut album, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5.... |  |
| 1972 | Michael Jackson's first solo hit “Ben” reaches No. 1 "Ben" is a number-one hit song recorded by the teenaged Michael Jackson for the Motown label in 1972. The song, the theme of a 1972 film of the same name, spent one week at the top of the... |  |
| 1974 | Michael Jackson introduces "The Robot" In 1974, during a performance on "Soul Train," Jackson introduced a dance called the robot, made of moves that were mimicked on dance floors across the country. |  |
| 1978 | Michael Jackson plays "The Scarecrow" in the movie "The Wiz" alongside Diana Ross, Richard Pryor and Nipsey Russell. The Wiz is a 1978 American musical film produced by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures, and released by Universal on October 24, 1978. An urbanized retelling of L. Frank Baum's The... |  |
| 1979 | "Off the Wall" solo album catapults Michael Jackson to superstar status Off the Wall is the fifth studio album by pop musician Michael Jackson, released August 10, 1979 on Epic Records. The album follows Jackson's critically well received theatrical performan... |  |
| 1982 Nov 30 | Michael Jackson Releases "Thriller" Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. The album was released on November 30, 1982 by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and c... |  |
| 1983 Jan 2 | Michael Jackson releases "Billie Jean" "Billie Jean" is a dance-pop R&B song by late American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was written by Jackson and produced by Quincy Jones for the singer's sixth solo album, Thriller... |  |
| 1983 Feb 14 | Michael Jackson releases "Beat It" "Beat It" is a song by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was written by Jackson and co-produced by Quincy Jones for the singer's sixth solo album, Thriller (1982). Jones had w... |  |
| 1983 Mar 25 | Michael Jackson popularizes the moonwalk The moonwalk or backslide is a dance technique that presents the illusion that the dancer is stepping forward while actually moving backward, giving the appearance of a person moving alon... |  |
| 1984 Jan 27 | Michael Jackson burns hair during Pepsi commercial While filming a Pepsi Cola commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, he suffered second degree burns to his scalp after pyrotechnics accidentally set his hair on fire. Happening... |  |
| 1985 Mar 14 | "Donga", Starring Chiranjeevi and Radha, Released in India Donga (Thief) is a Telegu film which was released on March 14, 1985. This film was directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy, and stars Chiranjeevi and Radha. This film is produced by T. Trivikram... |  |
| 1987 Aug 31 | Michael Jackson releases 7th studio album "Bad" Bad is the seventh studio album by Michael Jackson. It was released on August 31, 1987 by Epic/CBS Records. The record was released nearly five years after his last studio album. 20 years... |  |
| 1988 | Michael Jackson releases "Moonwalk," an autobiography Moon Walk is an autobiography written by American musician Michael Jackson. The book was first published in in 1988, a year after the release of Jackson's Bad album, and named after Jacks... |  |
| 1993 Feb 10 | Oprah Winfrey interviews Michael Jackson Jackson gave a 90-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey in February 1993, his first television interview since 1979. He grimaced when speaking of his childhood abuse at the hands of his fat... | |
| 1993 Aug 17 | Michael Jackson accused of and investigated for sexual abuse In 1993, Michael Jackson was accused of abuse by Evan Chandler, on behalf of his then-13-year-old child, Jordan Chandler. Jackson and Jordan had become friends in May 1992, to the father'... |  |
| 1993 Nov 12 | Michael Jackson cancels "Dangerous" tour in Mexico City Jackson began taking painkillers, Valium, Xanax and Ativan to deal with the stress of the allegations made against him. By the fall of 1993, Jackson was addicted to the drugs. His health ... |  |
| 1994 May 26 | Michael Jackson marries Lisa Marie Presley In May 1994, Jackson married singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley. They had first met in 1975 during one of Jackson's family engagements at the MGM Grand Ho... |  |
| 1996 Jan 18 | Lisa Marie Presley divorces Michael Jackson. Presley and Jackson divorced less than two years after getting married in the midst of Jackson's child sexual abuse scandal and, at the time, it was speculated by the tabloid media that t... | |
| 1996 Nov 15 | Michael Jackson marries Debbie Rowe During the Australian leg of the HIStory World Tour, Jackson married dermatologist nurse Deborah Jeanne Rowe, who bore him two children, a son, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. (also known as ... |  |
| 1997 Feb 13 | Michael Joseph (Prince) Jackson Jr. born to Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe During the Australian leg of the HIStory World Tour, Jackson married dermatologist nurse Deborah Jeanne Rowe, who bore him two children, a son, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. (also known as ... |  |
| 2009 Jun 25 2:18PM | Michael Jackson Rushed to Hospital in Cardiac Arrest LOS ANGELES -- Pop star Michael Jackson has been taken to UCLA Medical Center by ambulance suffering from cardiac arrest, fire officials confirm. Los Angeles Fire Department Captain St... |  |
| 2009 Jun 25 3:09PM | Michael Jackson dies at 50 Michael Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and fai... |  |
| 2009 Jun 29 | Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine, gets temporary custody of his children On Monday, the children, ages 7, 11 and 12, were placed under the temporary guardianship of their paternal grandmother, Katherine Jackson, by a Los Angeles judge. The biological mothe... |  |
| 2009 Jul 1 | Michael Jackson Tops Charts and Breaks Records Again After Death As soon as the news of Michael Jackson’s death began to spread last Thursday afternoon, radio programmers around the country cued up his songs, and fans rushed to retail and online outlet... |  |
| 2009 Jul 7 | Public Memorial Held for Michael Jackson at Staples Center in Los Angeles Michael Jackson's public memorial started out more spiritual than spectacular Tuesday, opening with a church choir singing as his golden casket was laid in front of the stage and a shaft ... |  |
| 2009 Jul 15 5:00PM | Video Footage of Michael Jackson's Hair Catching Fire During the Filming of a Pepsi Ad Released Jackson suffered a setback on January 27, 1984, causing repercussions for the rest of his life. While filming a Pepsi Cola commercial at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, he suffered ... | |
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