There is an old joke about Phil Spector in Hollywood: he is the only celebrity who hires bodyguards to protect his fans.

According to legend, Spector once forced Dee Dee Ramone to play bass guitar at gunpoint; he once let off a gun in the studio while recording John Lennon’s album Rock ’n’ Roll; and he once showed his wife a gold, glass-topped coffin in his basement, and told her that she would die there if she ever left him for a member of the Rolling Stones.

But the joke about Spector’s eccentricities has long since stopped being funny, and will become even less so when his murder trial begins today in Los Angeles with a lengthy jury selection process. The proceedings will be televised when the opening statements begin next month.

The 66-year-old former Beatles producer — who styled himself as “the Tycoon of Teen” and considered his Wall of Sound recordings “a Wagnerian approach to rock’n’roll, little symphonies for the kids” — is accused of fatally shooting Lana Clarkson, a B-movie actress whose career had stalled.

Spector, who has been free on $1 million (£515,000) bail since his arrest in 2003, making rare public appearances in ever more elaborate hair-pieces, and Cuban heels to disguise his 5ft 7in height, maintains that it was a bizarre suicide.“She kissed the gun,” he told Esquire magazine.

The story of the shooting began on Sunday, February 2, 2003 with the reclusive producer spending the evening drinking at several restaurants and ending up at the House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard, where he ordered a cocktail and a bottle of water. The waitress was Clarkson, a 40-year-old blonde who had appeared in the 1980s teen film Fast Times at Ridgemont High as well as TV shows such as Knight Rider and The A-Team. More recently, she had appeared in Vice Girls, a pulp movie about “sexy cops”, and was reportedly struggling to make her car payments.

According to Spector, Clarkson asked to see his home, the 33-room Pyrenees Castle in Alhambra, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles, and the two of them left the restaurant together.

No one is sure what happened next, but a neighbour of Spector’s called the police in the early hours of Monday morning. The first officer at the scene discovered Clarkson’s body, with a gunshot wound to her mouth, and arrested Spector after “shooting” him with a Taser for refusing to follow orders.

During the trial, prosecutors are likely to drag up as much of Spector’s troubled history with women as possible, including reports that he mixed guns with sex games. His former wife, Ronnie Spector, recounted the tale of the gold coffin in her autobiography, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Mini-skirts, and Madness.

“I knew that if I didn’t leave at that time, I was going to die there,” she wrote.

Central to the trial, however, will be the issue of whether Clarkson had rejected Spector’s sexual advances before the gun went off. Douglas Sortino, a prosecutor, told a grand jury in 2004 that Clarkson was sitting by the door, waiting to leave, at the time of her death.

“She's not sitting there saying, “Oh, I think I'll kill myself’,” he said.

Spector is being represented by Bruce Cutler, the former lawyer of the New York Mafia boss John Gotti. Spector had previously hired Robert Shapiro, a member of O.J. Simpson’s defence team, but the two are now involved in a lawsuit over a $1 million retainer.

Tycoon of teen

—Spector, known in his heyday as the Tycoon of Teen, became famous for the “Wall of Sound” production technique

—His father, a steelworker, committed suicide when Spector was aged just nine

—Spector is thought to have been on seven prescriptive medicines at the time of the shooting

—He left a $450 (£232) tip for a $13.50 drinks bill before returning home that night

—In an e-mail to friends after the shooting, Spector called Ms Clarkson’s death “an accidental suicide”

—He has twice been put on probation for firearms offences — once for carrying a loaded gun in a public place and again for brandishing a gun in a hotel.

Source: news agencies

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