Why Black Dahlia?
• The name is believed to be a corruption of Blue Dahlia, a 1946 film noir written by Raymond Chandler and starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake • Elizabeth Short was christened the Black Dahlia by Los Angeles journalists, who later came up with the Red Chrysanthemum and Blue Orchid cases • Black Dahlia was a reference to Miss Short’s black hair or her habit of dressing in black It began when the hideously mutilated body of a young woman was discovered on wasteland in Los Angeles one morning in January 1947. She had been cut in half and her face slashed. Police identified her as an aspiring actress, 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, known to friends as Beth or Betty. Because of her raven hair and her preference for dark clothes, she was dubbed by one reporter as the Black Dahlia and the name stuck. Several factors combined to make the story gold dust for the 1940s Los Angeles press – the victim was beautiful (and white), was on the fringes of Hollywood and had been mutilated in the most unsp
