ShareThisBy MARK BROWN
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Among Phil Spector's craziest actions, as told by Mick Brown in "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector":
1968: Spector and wife Ronnie adopt a child, but Spector insists on pretending it's a natural birth. He suggests Ronnie shove a pillow under her shirt for a few months. "If I say you were pregnant, who's going to say any different?" After caring for the child for a few months, he grows bored and hires a nurse to do the job.
1972: Ronnie comes home from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to be wrestled to the floor by a drunken Spector, who rips her shoes off and yells, "Don't even dream about divorcing me!" He had previously threatened to blind her by sticking his fingers in her eyes. She serves papers four days later.
1974: At the famed Record Plant recording studio in Los Angeles, Spector is producing John Lennon's "Rock 'n' Roll" album. During the song "You Can't Catch Me," Spector becomes enraged and pulls out a gun, which goes off. Lennon says: "Phil, if you're going to shoot me, shoot me, but don't (mess) with me ears. I need them to listen with." Lennon is shaken to see the bullet the next day -- he'd assumed Spector was shooting blanks.
Early '90s: The vastly wealthy Spector files a series of small-claims-court cases against the mother of his two children for items such as a VCR and a television. Employees are warned that mentioning her name is a firing offense.
2003: Spector tries to get his assistant, Michelle Blaine (daughter of famed drummer Hal Blaine), to marry him so that she couldn't testify in his murder trial. She declines and later sues him for sexual harassment after he allegedly repeatedly appeared naked in front of her.
Phil Spector might have been
Phil Spector might have been great with music, but it sounds like he is a bit nuts and should have been put away for a while. It's never too late to talk to someone also.