His offices are on the 19th floor of a tower block at the junction of the aptly named Galaxy Avenue and Avenue of the Stars in Century City . The veteran actress Polly Bergen tells the story of the evening she and the novelist Judith Krantz and friends including Shapiro,52, walked into the Pinot Bistro restaurant in Beverly Hills . 'I've gone to places with Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Clark Gable and I've never seen what happened happen. 'The room literally stopped. It was absolutely extraordinary. In this town everyone is used to celebrities and is much more blase but you absolutely knew that every eye was staring at him.' Well, Clarence Darrow did not have a TV audience of tens of millions watching him every day. That said, Darrow did not have his photograph taken by photographers like Avedon or Annie Leibovitz and stare out at you from the perfumed pages of glossy magazines. Shapiro, like the rest of his team, is a sharp dresser. Image is all. Prosecutor Marcia Clark, a former dancer, has taken acting lessons to better present her case which she does like a schoolmarm finding it difficult to tell the jury all the awful things Simpson is guilty of. But with aplomb she does, she does. When O.J. Simpson is brought to court from Los Angeles County jail he is wearing manacles and prison blues. By the time he reaches his seat in court he is in pressed Armani or Lavin. All dress for effect in this tale of celebrity, love, lust, sex, brutality, race, bloody murder, obsession and what many believed is a vain attempt at getting justice. O.J. Simpson, guilty or innocent, is now an industry. Just think what has gone on in the past 31 years since President Kennedy was shot in Dallas ....it has been an ongoing cottage industry of conspiracy theories all of which have been for sale in books or film. No matter what the criminal-justice system determines happened to Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman on June 12, 1994 , there will always be people who will dispute the verdict. If Simpson is convicted there will be the books and tapes to convince us that he could not possible be guilty. If acquitted similar books and tapes will be produced to show that he must have done it. If it sounds absurd to equate the killing of JFK with the murder trial of a celebrity sportsman you only have to spend moments around the antics of the Los Angeles Superior Court to understand. This is another moment of American history of which no one involved wants to let go. The trial of O.J. Simpson with its vast cast of characters will be discussed for years. As they say on Broadway it's one of those plays that will run and run. Of course, that only happens when the audience wants it to. At this early stage of the trial which may go on for as much as six months most observers believe Simpson will be acquitted; the defence just have to convince one of the 12 jurors ,eight of whom are black women, that there is reasonable doubt for a Guilty verdict must be unanimous. Often in these celebrity trials the victims are forgotten but not so with The People Vs O.J. Simpson. Robert Shapiro was at a Beverly Hills restaurant the other night and a persistent waiter insisted on meeting him. 'I've just been cast as Ron Goldman in the TV movie of the case,' he told Shapiro who congratulated the young man on his good luck.
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