Entertainment

First look at Phil Spector murder movie

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WIGGED OUT: Al Pacino as music legend Phil Spector (inset) and Helen Mirren as his defense lawyer in the HBO movie about his 2007 murder trial. (AP/HBO)

As HBO begins to promote its upcoming movie about Phil Spector and the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, the imprisoned music producer has cut himself off almost completely from the outside world.

Confined to a 45-square-foot cinderblock cell — with a cellmate — in a minimum-security prison in central California, Spector is estranged from his children and has almost no visitors, say officials, besides his fourth wife — Rachelle Short Spector, 41 years his junior.

“He doesn’t go out to the yard too often,” says Lt. Lupe Cartagena, a spokesperson for the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, where Robert Downey Jr. was briefly housed in 1999.

“He doesn’t have many visitors. He turns a lot of people away.”

When he was asked to help out an inmates’ band, he refused, the official recalled.

One of Spector’s sons called recently for information on how to contact his father, but so far has not appeared on a list of approved visitors, says the spokesman. The official declined to say which son. (Spector has three adopted sons and a daughter, all grown.)

The creator of such legendary hits as “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling,” “Be My Baby” and “Spanish Harlem” is entering the fourth year of a 19-years-to-life sentence for the shooting death of Clarkson, a 40-year-old B-movie actress whom he’d met that night in a club.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the killing.

On Friday, HBO released the first photos and teaser clips for the much-anticipated movie starring Al Pacino as Spector, Helen Mirren as his defense lawyer and with famed playwright David Mamet directing. It is set to air March 24.

Producers of the HBO film approached Spector in jail last year about consulting for the movie — and they too were shunned.

“He chose to have no involvement with them at all,” attorney Dennis Riordan tells The Post.

“He certainly doesn’t view it as an accurate portrayal of what went on at the trial — because it is not. It has invented events.”

Officials say they get at least one phone call a week from the media requesting interviews or from aspiring musicians trying to get their tapes into Spector’s hands. He’s turned them down.

Because of his age and celebrity, Spector is housed is a part of Corcoran State Prison called the Sensitive Needs Yard.

Elsewhere on the grounds is one of the state’s toughest lock-ups where Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and serial killer Juan Corona are incarcerated.

Prison life has been difficult for the fragile music maker, 72 — who, in his former life, lived in near isolation in his hilltop mansion and rarely ventured outside without bodyguards.

Because he dropped out of high school in The Bronx as a teenager, prison rules required that the multi-millionaire producer attend basic education courses and try to pass the GED.

“His ego is shattered,” musician and long-time friend Steve Escobar says. “I am sure this is an embarrassment.”

Spector’s eight-bedroom, 8700-square-foot Pyrenees Castle — the scene of the killling — sits ominously atop a large hill, surrounded by tiny stucco homes in the working class LA suburb of Alhambra.

Neighbors say they see rarely see his wife — or any household help — come or go.

“What goes on behind those gates is a big mystery to all of us,” one nearby resident says.

Rachelle has said she would like to sell the heavily mortgaged property, which is in serious need of repairs. But Spector has refused.

He is currently appealing his verdict and could soon be free on bail, Driscoll says. “Phil hasn’t given up!”

The HBO movie focuses mostly on Spector’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury (10 to convict, two to acquit) in 2007.

Producers admit the film was “inspired by actual persons in a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor to comment upon the outcome,” according to an on-screen disclaimer.

“The horror is it is going to be a great movie,” says Edward Lozzi, a spokesperson for the 50-member support group Friends of Lana Clarkson.

“Seeing Al Pacino play a crazed murderer like Phil Spector . . . who wouldn’t want to see that? But it is a bunch of lies.”

Lozzi says the group is concerned his former client will be portrayed as a suicidal waitress.

“If this in any way makes Lana Clarkson look responsible for her own death, we are going to lobby the [Television] Academy to prevent anyone from receiving an award,” he says.

“We are really worried about this.”

Spector, meanwhile, may never have a chance to see the film.

“We don’t get HBO,” Cartegena says.