an acting career.
When Miss Short came to Los Angeles, she spent a few
years
drifting from one dingy apartment or boarding house to
another.
She supported herself through odd jobs, both licit and
illicit.
In fact,
police say that she was last seen at the Biltmore Hotel in
Los
Angeles, allegedly soliciting as a prostitute.
Short had a reputation as a rather promiscuous young
woman.
She frequented bars and nightclubs and enjoyed the company
of
men and women, and was even rumored to have had an affair
with
young Marilyn Monroe. However, she especially adored
military
personnel, and often claimed to be engaged to various
servicemen.
Unfortunately, her life was cut short at the age of 22.
A
passerby discovered her nude body in a vacant Hollywood lot
on
Jan. 15, 1947. Her corpse, sliced in half at the waist,
was
mangled, bruised, and badly battered. Her organs had
been
removed, her body drained of blood, and her face slashed
almost
from ear to ear. Before she died, the murderer had
brutally
tortured
his victim.
During the investigation of this horrendous crime by the
Los
Angeles Police Department (LAPD), detectives learned
many
interesting facts about the young woman=92s life. One
such
noteworthy fact was Short's love of the color black. She
dyed
her
hair and almost all of her clothes this color,
prompting
newspaper
reporters to refer to her as the "Black Dahlia."
News reports of the grisly murder shocked the nation.
The
LAPD has kept the case open, pursuing copious leads
that
invariably turned out to be dead ends. Many
individuals
confessed
to the murder, but all were ultimately discredited. Perhaps
the
most interesting clue came when someone sent the LAPD
an
address book believed to have been used by Short--with at
least
one page ripped out. Authorities speculated that the
killer's
identity
was thus removed. The killer left absolutely no
incriminating
evidence behind, and the police were unable to name any
viable
suspects.
Although fifty years have passed, the case still waits to
be
solved. Interest in the murder has spawned several
books,
including those listed below. The 1981 movie entitled
"True
Confessions," starring Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall,
was
also
based on the Black Dahlia crime. Elizabeth Short achieved
the
fame that she sought, though the price of that fame was
her
very
life.
For Further Information
Web Sites
The Black Dahlia Web Site
Ask Mr. ShowBiz
Non-fiction
Newspaperwoman by Aggie Underwood (1949)
Reporters by Will Fowler (1991)
Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia
Murder by John Gilmore
Hollywood Babylon II by Kenneth Anger (1984)
True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne (1977)
Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer by Janice
Knowlton with Michael Newton
Fiction
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy (1987)
A movie was made in 1984 from the John Gregory Dunne account
of the case
called True Confessions, starring Robert DeNiro and Robert
Duval.
The Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake movie, The Blue Dahlia, based on
the novel
by Raymond Chandler, was made in 1946
Dick Tartow
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