Robert Shapiro, who secured a not guilty verdict for Mr Simpson, was asked to represent Mr Spector shortly after his release on bail of $1 million (£600,000) yesterday. Mr Simpson, a former American football star, was acquitted of double murder in 1995.

Mr Spector, 62, was charged after police found the body of a woman at his mock château in Alhambra, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles. She had been shot dead.

The police named the victim as Lana Clarkson, 40, an actress who attracted a cult following for her roles in films such as Barbarian Queen and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Her body was found sprawled in the marble entrance hall of Mr Spector’s home. Mr Spector’s black Mercedes, with the driver’s door wide open, was still parked outside the house yesterday. It had been cordoned off by the police.

Neighbours said that they had been woken by shooting in the early hours of Monday. “I heard the boom, boom, boom. It was about three or four shots,” Terrie Arias, a neighbour, said. “I just ignored them because I never thought it was a shooting.”

Police said they had found the weapon, but declined to say where. The authorities also declined to comment on the nature of Ms Clarkson’s relationship with the music producer, who revolutionised pop music in the 1960s with his “wall of sound”, a way of layering instruments and voices to create a dramatic backing track.

Police did confirm that the initial call reporting the shooting came from inside the Spector house.

The last hit single that Mr Spector worked on was John Lennon’s Instant Karma, released in 1970. He is best known for his work with acts such as the Righteous Brothers, the Crystals and the Ronettes in the 1960s. His contribution to the Beatles’ Let It Be has been the subject of controversy, with Paul McCartney saying recently that he was not happy with the producer’s work.

Ronnie Spector, the former member of the Ronnettes who was married to Mr Spector for six years, said yesterday that her former husband was paranoid but not mean. “I never thought he would ever kill anybody,” she said. “I ran away a lot of times when I was married to him because he would yell, but he would never hit me.” He had once drawn a gun on her. “He pulled a gun and I ran away because I was afraid, and I never saw him with a gun again,” she said.

According to Marvin Mitchelson, a Los Angeles lawyer and friend of Mr Spector, the music producer lived alone and did not have a girlfriend.

“His mental state has been great — very rational, very together, super-intelligent, a very funny man,” he said.

Marky Ramone, drummer for the Ramones, one of the many bands that worked with Mr Spector, said: “I don’t think he would hurt a fly. You are innocent until you are proven guilty. I don’t think Phil had it in him to murder anybody.”

The producer’s behaviour, however, has long raised eyebrows in the music business. He was well known for his fascination with firearms and once took to wearing a huge cross around his neck.

“It had to stop,” Mr Spector said of his own behaviour in a 1977 Los Angeles Times interview. “Being the rich millionaire in the mansion and then dressing up as Batman. I have to admit I did enjoy it to a certain extent. But I began to realise it was very unhealthy.”

Mr Spector, who was inducted into the rock’n’roll Hall of Fame in 1989, produced his first number onehit for the Teddy Bears. It was a ballad called To Know Him is to Love Him. The title was taken from the inscription on the gravestone of his father, Benjamin, who killed himself when Mr Spector was nine. At the time of the hit, Mr Spector was 18 and a high school pupil in Los Angeles. He was a multimillionaire by the age of 21, but his career was effectively over by the time he was 30.

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