The Black Dahlia’s Anniversary
Today in 1947, the the body of Elizabeth Short was found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. Perhaps unpleasant to admit, the savagely disfigured corpse of the girl, better known as the "Black Dahlia," did indeed provide inspiration for the latest Hollywood storytellers, video game artists and even credible contemporary writers. Joyce Carole Oates used Short as a character in her novel, Blonde and the late John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion used the murder in their screenplay for the film, True Confessions.
Spoiler alert: Let’s not ignore the more obvious and well known inspired tale (can we really call it "inspired," though?), the recent flop, The Black Dahlia (starring Hillary Swank, Josh Hartnett and a hilariously creepy Fiona Shaw). Always bring in the trusty Brits to nail the quirky bad-guy role, right? But seriously, Hillary Swank as a noir vixen? That’s stretching any audience’s suspension of disbelief–yet I digress. Lastly, Black Dahlia was also the name of a video game in which the player had to solve the mysery of Short’s death, and then beat the Nazis. OK, sure. Hey at least Dennis Hopper was a featured voice.
And a novel by Ellroy (i think it was). And a reference (in "Lucifer's Hammer"? SOme post-apocalyptic novel by a famous writer[s], anyway), in which the never-caught serial killer responsible makes a brief appearance…