At 21, wanderlust \u2014 that aching desire to escape to somewhere else \u2014 took hold of Elizabeth Short.<\/p>\n
Medford may have been her home, but Los Angeles was salvation, a bustling city the young woman arrived in the late summer of 1946 just after her birthday. Some friends heard that she had plans to become a model, others that she wanted to become an actress. Her immediate goal was simply to find freedom that the liberal metropolis had embraced after the war.<\/p>\n
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The Elizabeth Short, or \u201cBlack Dahlia,\u201d crime scene in January 1947.<\/p>\n
(Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
This image, of a young woman with dreams, goals and a few foibles, is what historian William J. Mann sketches in his sensitive new book, \u201cBlack Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood.\u201d <\/a>The bestselling author of \u201cTinseltown<\/a>\u201d and \u201cBogie & Bacall<\/a>\u201d arrives with a meticulous and thorough retelling \u2014 five years in the making \u2014 that resists the sensationalism of the infamous crime to restore dignity back to this young woman\u2019s image.<\/p>\n Short\u2019s personality and complexity, attributes long discarded as her life became bastardized, stand in stark contrast to the inhumanity of her death. On Jan. 15, 1947, Short\u2019s naked body was discovered in a vacant lot<\/a> in Leimert Park severed in half, drained entirely of blood and posed for the public to find. Deep cuts were made to her breasts and torso while a perverse ear-to-ear \u201cGlasgow smile\u201d was sliced across her cheeks.<\/p>\n After almost 80 years, the unsolved murder now remains part of the city\u2019s lore<\/a>. A metaphor of L.A.\u2019s past immortality and exploitation after World War II, the crime has fascinated novelists, filmmakers and countless true crime writers. James Ellroy stresses Short\u2019s promiscuity against the city\u2019s moral decay in his 1987 novel, \u201cThe Black Dahlia<\/a>,\u201d while many others painted her as a femme fatale in their salacious attempts to solve her murder.<\/p>\n This envelope, containing the birth certificate, address book and personal papers of 22\u2013year\u2013old Elizabeth Short, was received at the L.A. post office on Jan. 24,1947, and turned over to police .<\/p>\n (Associated Press)<\/p>\n Taking either path never appealed to Mann, who was determined to deliver justice to Short in his compassionate chronicle of her brief life. \u201cUntil now, they\u2019ve all been focused on the killer,\u201d Mann says over Zoom. \u201cEighty years later, and we still aren\u2019t given a picture of who this young woman was.\u201d<\/p>\n Short\u2019s image has proven collateral damage in the long project to solve her crime. Mann was insistent, however, on breaking that vicious cycle. \u201cElizabeth is very, very different from \u2018Black Dahlia,\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re two very separate creations. I wanted to do my best to try to figure out who may have done it, but not so much to solve the crime as to understand Elizabeth\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n A series of falsehoods have persisted over time: Short was a sex worker. Short was a gangster\u2019s moll. Short wanted to become the new Lana Turner. \u201cBlack Dahlia\u201d reveals the truth is far more unremarkable. Short may have flirted with men but rarely practiced casual sex. There may have been some male suitors but never any who were gangsters. Movies may have been on her mind \u2014 but close friends say she never actively pursued acting.<\/p>\n Each fact is backed by thorough fact-checking and new archival searches. This is paired with interviews Mann had with surviving relatives and friends of those who once knew Short or investigated her murder.<\/p>\n Experiencing the liberties L.A. offered women after World War II \u2014 such as the ability to date different men and find ongoing employment \u2014 is what is truer to Short\u2019s story than any talk of gangsters or sex work. \u201cElizabeth Short was not a proto-feminist, but she was part of that new generation that said, \u2018I don\u2019t have to stay home,\u2019 \u201d Mann says.<\/p>\n Women who resisted marriage or monogamy faced judgment and misogyny for enjoying these new-found freedoms. One sex crime study of the time, Mann reports, even claims that \u201cseductive\u201d women were \u201cparticipating victims\u201d in their assaults.<\/p>\n Both the original news reporting and police investigation would be tainted by these sexist views.<\/p>\n The first reports of the crime were mostly objective \u2014 one newspaper described Short as a \u201cbeauteous 22-year-old\u201d \u2014 but these soon devolved into salacious gutter journalism. In a nod to 1946 film, \u201cThe Blue Dahlia<\/a>,\u201d the 22-year-old quickly became branded by this moniker: a sexualized seductress and flirt who wore \u201cblack lacy things\u201d and \u201cblack sheer clothing.\u201d (Neither was much true, Mann says.)<\/p>\n Decades on, the reports mostly reveal how journalists and editors exploited this tragedy to sell newspapers and trade in familiar victim-blaming. \u201cThis is just an ongoing trope in society that women are blamed for their abuse, their murders,\u201d Mann explains. \u201cIt was painful to go through and see how Elizabeth was done \u2026 she went from this kind of innocent victim in the first reporting to this sinister, slinky woman, somehow responsible for her murder.\u201d<\/p>\n The police would prove no better. The lead detective on the case, Harry Hansen, once told journalists: \u201cShort liked to tease men. She probably just went too far this time and set some guy off into a blind, berserk rage.\u201d<\/p>\n A photo of Elizabeth Short on a flyer from an original Los Angeles Police Department Police Bulletin, 1947. <\/p>\n (Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Restoring dignity to Short\u2019s legacy was paramount to Mann; to solve her crime was never his aim. \u201cIt has always been the focus of all the books that have come out about Elizabeth Short. She appears in the first two scenes to get slaughtered, and then it\u2019s about the killer,\u201d Mann says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The book does advance one theory of who the murderer is. Somewhat serendipitously, new independent analysis first reported in The Times by Chris Gofford <\/a>has identified the same person as the likely killer. But this individual joins a crowded field of suspects other writers have also conclusively identified: from a former police detective\u2019s late father (\u201cBlack Dahlia Avenger<\/a>\u201d) to a hotel bell-hop who co-conspired with the police (\u201cBlack Dahlia, Red Rose\u201d).<\/p>\n Author William J. Mann<\/p>\n (Simon & Schuster)<\/p>\n All attempts at solving it then remain somewhat speculative as the case is an open homicide. Mann, like so many others, didn\u2019t have access to the LAPD\u2019s own files but to other public records and archival material. \u201cWe do have quite a bit of a record from the district attorney and those records are available,\u201d Mann says. \u201cI\u2019ve become adept when I do my research into interpreting fragments.\u201d<\/p>\n What \u201cBlack Dahlia\u201d ultimately imprints on its readers is Short\u2019s vulnerability and desperation, someone more restless than \u201cman-crazy,\u201d more kindhearted than \u201ccold.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cElizabeth Short\u2019s death was notorious and grisly,\u201d Mann says. \u201cHer life was ordinary and unremarkable. And yet her life is still more important than her death.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the book\u2019s most poignant moments comes from a letter Short penned to her fianc\u00e9, Matt Gordon, an aviator who died before the two were married. In Short\u2019s own words, it shows a vitality and hopefulness that this 20-something woman had for her future.<\/p>\n \u201cShort said in the letter, Matt, \u2018I\u2019d like to fly too,\u2019 \u201d Mann says. \u201cTo me, that line really gave me an insight into her. She wanted to fly, metaphorically. She wanted to see the world. And that\u2019s what I wanted to do too. That\u2019s what I wanted to capture in the book.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith is a books and culture writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the Shelf Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood By William J. Mann Simon &…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[74331,24264,74334,74332,74335,8568,74333,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,74330,1331,1594,13036,315,1557,52692],"class_list":["post-150021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-black-dahlia","tag-book","tag-bustling-city","tag-elizabeth-short","tag-gangster","tag-image","tag-infamous-crime","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mann","tag-murder","tag-other","tag-short","tag-time","tag-woman","tag-young-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769438234_195_.jpeg\")
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