In Deathstalker, Lana Clarkson was stabbed in the stomach. In The Haunting of Morella, she was shot in the back. But Lana Clarkson, in pursuit of greater stardom, in pursuit of her passion, always came back for more.

"I think (though I pretend like I'll walk away), that I'll act 'till I die!" she wrote on the message board of her official Website last June.

Clarkson died early Monday and was found lying in a pool of blood on the marble foyer of legendary rock producer Phil Spector's faux castle in the glamour-free Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra.

The 40-year-old actress was felled by a single gunshot, sources close to the police investigation tells Reuters. The same sources say it's believed Spector, arrested on suspicion of murder, was the shooter.

Reports indicate Clarkson and Spector hooked up Sunday night at the House of Blues club on West Hollywood's famed Sunset Strip. Clarkson worked at the nightspot as a hostess. Spector was a regular in the V.I.P. room, friend and attorney Marvin Mitchelson tells Reuters.

At 2:15 a.m. Monday, Clarkson was spotted leaving the club in Spector's car, the Los Angeles Times reports.

About three hours later, she was dead.

By all appearances, Clarkson and Spector were an odd couple. She was the outgoing, leggy B-movie queen of the cult-classic Barbarian Queen (and, its sequel, Barbarian Queen 2--The Empress Strikes Back). He was the reclusive, five-foot-seven innovator of the "Wall of Sound" and its dozens of A-list hits ("Be My Baby," "Then He Kissed Me," "To Know Him Is to Love Him").

Even Clarkson likely would have conceded Spector wasn't her type.

"I am automatically physically attracted to tall men," she wrote last month. "Being that I am six feet tall, it is nice to date men that I can look up to."

But Clarkson wasn't the type to close the door on opportunity, even if a short guy was doing the knocking.

"I've had plenty of boyfriends who were five-10 or 11," she wrote. "I am fond of a twinkle in the eye and a spring in the step. Someone with confidence, sensuality and a great sense of humor."

"I hope to make some sort of difference in this lifetime...I'd like to find a partner who has the same aspiration."

The never-married Clarkson was born in 1962 (other sources list her birthday as 1961) in Long Beach, California, and raised in Cloverdale, California, a wine-country community. She returned to the Los Angeles area as a teenager, and the Marilyn Monroe collector began to pursue her own Hollywood dream.

"There are millions of hopeful actors out there who have no idea what kind of stamina, courage and self-confidence it takes to pursue acting," Clarkson wrote last month.

Clarkson did have some idea how hard it was. She was a plugger. Bit parts here (a 1983 episode of Three's Company), bit parts there (a 1984 episode of Knight Rider).

As a would-be starlet in the early 1980s, the busty blonde played the nerdy science teacher's babe of a wife in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and a clubgoer in Scarface.

Her signature role came in the 1985 Roger Corman production, Barbarian Queen. Clarkson liked to refer to the low-budget, feminized Conan knockoff as a precursor to Xena: Warrior Princess.

"Lana was a beautiful woman, a wonderful actress and an adventurous spirit," Corman said in a statement to the Associated Press on Tuesday. "Always brave, she performed all of her own stunts and showed unusual fortitude and athleticism in her horseback riding and fight sequences."

But while Xena made Lucy Lawless a TV Guide cover star, Barbarian Queen never got Clarkson off the B-movie circuit (although it did earn her a permanent seat at sci-fi and comic-book conventions, including one she attended last weekend in Pasadena, California).

In 1996, a fan on the alt.cult-movies newsgroup posed the inevitable "Whatever happened to her?" question. "I would hazard a guess that she got fed up with the business, moved to Nebraska and started a family," the Netizen wrote.

The Netizen was wrong. Clarkson never left Hollywood. She did commercials (for Kmart, Honda, Budweiser, Playtex bras and others). She tried stand-up. She volunteered for an AIDS charity. She formed her own production company, Living Doll Productions. She did bit parts here (a 2000 episode of the G. Gordon Liddy series, 18 Wheels of Justice), she did bit parts there (a 2001 episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's Black Scorpion).

Last month, she accepted a full-time job at the House of Blues. According to the Times, she saw the gig as a chance to meet the right people, to network, to stay in the game.

"She supported herself, but it was tough," Robert Hall, an ex-boyfriend, tells the newspaper. "For as hard as she worked, I think she deserved recognition."

Still, Clarkson never sounded discouraged. She said she understood that some would advise her to move on, to try another career.

"[But] they do not understand my passion and commitment to my art," she wrote. "Don't let anyone discourage you, no matter what!"

Clarkson's final message-board entry was posted last Thursday. It was a quick two-word reply to a fan who'd sent her a couple of links.

Wrote Clarkson: "Thanks doll!"

Spector, 63, currently remains free on $1 million bail. No charges have yet been filed. His attorney, O.J. Simpson player Robert Shapiro, has declined comment on the case.

There was no word on funeral plans for Clarkson. In a statement from her attorney on Monday, her family was described as "devastated" and "deeply saddened" by her death.

In life, "tenacious" usually was the word applied to Clarkson.

"If you follow your heart, your dreams, it seems as though somehow the universe will bless you with an opportunity to shine in your chosen field," she wrote last June.

"That is my hope, my dream."