Death of a Barbarian Queen

Sometime in the 1990's, thanks to the miracle of late night cable TV, I rediscovered my love for low-budget 80's barbarian movies. By that I mean, movies made in the 80's about barbarians, not movies about barbarians in the 80's. In other words, this:

not this:

Lana Clarkson had a small role in Deathstalker (the first one, the one that nobody remembers), a starring role in Barbarian Queen, and many other roles in many other low-budget swords and sorcery romps. She never quite managed to break out of that genre, but she made the most of her accomplishments, appearing at comic book conventions to sign autographs and pose for photos with fans. A small, yet bright luminary in the geek universe.

She might have gone on like this indefinitely; geeks are noble savages, we love forever and hate forever. But it was not to be. For reasons unknown to anyone living, she ended up at the house of Phil Spector on the dawn of February 3, 2003.

I'm willing to extend to Mr. Spector the benefit of the doubt, and speculate that Ms. Clarkson's death might have been an accident. No one knows exactly what happened in those early morning hours, possibly not even Mr. Spector himself, by many accounts he was hopelessly drunk that night, and by many more accounts had been losing his grip on reality for decades.

Based on various anecdotes, what I think happened was this: Mr. Spector was engaging in gunplay, the second most dangerous form of sex play in existence (the first being autoerotic asphyxiation) and forgot which of his guns were loaded and which were not. He reportedly had about eight guns, and was clearly out of his mind. He had supposedly done this before, but this time, instead of clicking on an empty chamber, he put a bullet in Ms. Clarkson's head.

The homicide, and subsequent trials, made very little impact in the news, even here in Los Angeles. By then, people were sick and tired of celebrity trials. People largely ignored it. I ignored it.

But I wouldn't have ignored it if the media had said who Lana Clarkson was. Not that I knew her name, but if they had just mentioned Deathstalker or Barbarian Queen, I would have sat up and taken notice. Instead, they referred to her as an "adult film" actress, giving me and everyone else the impression that she was yet another porn star who came to an unfortunate end, following in the footsteps of Dorothy Stratton and John Holmes.

If the media hadn't been so intent on devaluing the victim in a transparent attempt at propping up Phil Spector's sagging star, they might have generated a lot more interest. Lana Clarkson may not have been a big-time celebrity, but she had found her place in the scheme of things, and it was a place worthy of respect.

As it was, I didn't put two and two together until about a week ago, when I was tipped off. Lesson learned: pay attention to names and don't automatically believe what the media says.