Was the noir-film, The Blue Dahlia the inspiration for naming Elizabeth Short, “The Black Dahlia”?
While we cannot be absolutely certain, based on my research and investigation, I’d say there is a strong probability that the answer is – YES. In my 2003 review of the secret DA Files, I found a 22-page LAPD entitled, “SUMMARY OF THE ELIZABETH (BETH) SHORT MURDER INVESTIGATION. That summary begins with this opening sentence: “This case is better known as the Black Dahlia Murder which pseudonym was bestowed upon the victim by the newspapers and was not ever an alias of the victim in life.” I believe that statement was written in ignorance. LAPD detectives, writing the summary some three years later, were simply unaware of the original facts as presented in several different newspapers, in the days following the January 15, 1947, discovery of Elizabeth Short’s body. The best evidence supports the fact that Elizabeth Short was in fact, called “The Black Dahlia” [though she herself and her close personal friends were most likely unaware of the pseudonym.]The name was not “invented by the p
