Sunday, April 26, 2009

Who is the black dahlia and what is her story?

ps:the real black dahlia?who killed her?who was she? details please best details will get best answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Who is the black dahlia and what is her story?
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924. She was the daughter of Phoebe and Cleo Short and was often called "Beth." Her father disappeared in 1929 and for years many thought he was dead. He sent a letter to Phoebe years later, apologizing for leaving. The two never reunited.





At 19, Beth went to live with her father in Vallejo, CA. The stay did not last long and ended with her father asking her to leave because he said she was lazy and stayed out too late.





Santa Barbara was Beth's next stop. While there, she was arrested for underage drinking. After her arrest and fingerprinting, police instructed the young woman to return home to Medford. Beth went home for a visit, but soon returned to Hollywood -- determined to be in the movies.





Beth was last seen alive at the Biltmore Hotel. It has been reported that she was to meet a gentleman. After leaving the hotel, she was never again seen alive. Her body was found, severed, in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Her body was bruised and beaten. Grass had reportedly been forced into her vagina, and she had reportedly been sodomized after death.





To date, according to the LAPD, the case goes unsolved.
Reply:Don't go see the movie, it didn't do justice to the story. I recommend reading the book or listening to the audio book.


She was murdered brutally near the hollywoodland sign, cut it half and slashed from ear to ear via the mouth. Her killer or killers have not been brought to justice. She was a kind person, with a flare for hooking. Mostly service men. I think she may have been told something that she wasn't suppose to know.
Reply:The Black Dahlia is actually named Elizabeth Short.She was born in Cunnecticut and moved to Los Angeles when she was in her late teens,early twenties.She was found murdered in California and her body was sliced in half.some speculate that a doctor had to have killed elizabeth because her body was sliced at the waist methodically that only a doctor would know how to do.


What is the black dahlia murder?

what is the black dahlia about and what is the bid deal about it

What is the black dahlia murder?
The Black Dahlia murder was the death of Elizabeth Short. She was born July 29, 1924 in Hyde Park, Mass. She was the daughter of Phoebe and Cleo Short. After she was born they shortly moved to Medford,Mass. In 1929 her father became missing. Officials believed he committed suicide. His empty car was found near a bridge. Later down the yrs. Phoebe, Elizabeth's mother received a letter from Cleo stating he was sorry for leaving but Phoebe wouldn't let him return to the family. When Elizabeth turned 19 she moved to Cali to live with her dad.This relationship didn't last long with her father since her father felt as if she was lazy and just stayed out all night at parties. After she left her dad's home she ventured to Santa Barbara where she was arrested for underage drinking.She returned home for a visit but Elizabeth was determined to become an actress so she left for Cali. once again.It was mid-January 1947 when she was last seen alive in Biltmore Hotel.It had been reported that she was going to meet a gentleman that evening. After leaving the Hotel, she was never seen again. Her body was discovered in the Crenshaw district, her body severed on January 15th, 1947. She was a "wanna be" actress. She loved to party and was frequently spotted at night clubs "hot spots" in Cali. Now for the rumors and speculations: 1. She knew Marilyn Monroe 2. She loved servicemen 3.Had an affair with George Knowlton, father of Janice Knowlton who wrote "Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer" 4.She frequently dressed in black to get her men. She was 22 when she died and her murder was intrigued, mystified and disgusted the city of Los Angeles for centuries. Her name became evolved because of her black hair and the black apparell she would wear to lure her men. On jnauary 15, 1947 a passerby had spotted her body in a vacant lot near Hollywood California.Her body literally cut in half, was bruised and beaten. She been sodomized after death and other gross evidence that I don't want to repeat. The case is still unsolved. Hope this has helped.
Reply:You are very welcome and thank you so very much for the rating. Report It

Reply:I'm assuming you're talking about the historical murder and not the movie or metal band. If this is the case you can check out the link for information from the Wikipedia, which includes; suspects, myths/misconceptions, and her biography.





It's really quite an interesting story considering the brutality of the crime and the fact that, despite the numerous suspects, there was never enough evidence to solidify who the murderer was let alone convict them. There wasn't even a trial.
Reply:The Black Dahlia murder was the brutal killing of Hollywood starlet wanna-be Elizabeth Short in 1947. It was a big deal due to the brutality of it (she was severed in half and left nude in a field) and the fact that it was never solved.
Reply:Elizabeth "Betty" Short (July 29, 1924 – January 15, 1947), was an aspiring actress, today better known as the Black Dahlia. She was the victim of a gruesome and unsolved murder at the age of 22.





The Black Dahlia murder investigation by the LAPD was the largest since the murder of Marian Parker in 1927, and involved hundreds of officers borrowed from other law enforcement agencies. Because of the complexity of the case, the original investigators treated every person who knew Elizabeth Short as a suspect who had to be eliminated. Hundreds of people were considered suspects and thousands were interviewed by police. Sensational and sometimes inaccurate press coverage, as well as the horrible nature of the crime, focused intense public attention on the case. About 60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men, as well as a few women. As the case continues to command public attention, many more people have been proposed as Short's killer, much like London's Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.

Rubber Slippers

What is the Black Dahlia?

the Black Dahlia...i know it's a movie but it's based on a true story... i know it was a murder but what else?what is it about? details plz!

What is the Black Dahlia?
I believe The Black Dahlia Murder is also a band.





Of course, I could be mistaken.
Reply:The Black Dahlia was an aspiring actress named Elizabeth Short who was found murdered in 1947. Her body was severed in half at the waste and dumped in a field. Although there were several suspects, her murder is still unsolved. Report It

Reply:The Black Dahlia was Elizabeth Short who was killed in Hollywood in 1947. In addition to being brutalized, she was sawed in half! I believe her nickname was from the contrast of her pale white skin and dark hair. Google her name but be forewarned, there is a photo of her corpse naked and in two pieces.





There's a movie coming out this year with Scarlette Johanssen.
Reply:The Black Dahlia was a girl who lived in Los Angeles in the '40 or '50s. She was very pretty and her body was found somewhere but no one knew what her name was.





I'm pretty sure I have several details wrong. Sorry.





There is a book by a former police officer who believes that his father, a doctor, was the one who killed her. I don't know the name of the author but your local library should be able to help you find it. It's a good read.
Reply:It is one of the most famous murders of a star. I believe it is unsolved.
Reply:about a murder
Reply:it was an upcoming actress that got cut half and put on the street, and the murder still hasn't been solved.
Reply:http://www.bethshort.com/dahhome.htm
Reply:THE BLACK DAHLIA WAS A BEAUTIFUL SMALL TOWN GIRL OF 22 NAMED ELIZABETH SHORT,SHE PARTIED WITH THE MORE WEALTHY MEN IN L.A. SHE WAS FOUND MURDERED AND CUT IN HALF AT THE TORSO,ONE OF THE MEN SHE DATED WAS A SURGEON WHO WAS VERY HIGH ON THE SUSPECT LIST BUT THEY COULD NOT PROVE IT!
Reply:Have you checked it out on the internet? It's about a young woman in the 1940s who went to Hollywood to be discovered. Ended up a party girl and was murdered and left on a vacant lot. Nobody was ever arrested. She liked to wear black.
Reply:About the murder of Elizabeth Short
Reply:The murder of Elizabeth Short remains unsolved. Her body was found in a vacant lot at 39th %26amp; Norton Streets in South Los Angeles, California on 15 January 1947. The torso was severed cleanly in two, and the body parts washed of blood. A fingerprint check with the F.B.I. soon determined the identity of the victim as Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old fashion model and aspiring actress, known as Betty to her family in Massachusetts, but as 'Beth' in California.





As mentioned above it is also a 1940's movie. Also two bands go by that name an emo/metalcore band, The Black Dahlia and the badass death metal band, The Black Dahlia Murder.
Reply:ITS ABOUT MURDER,,and mystery of a woman
Reply:Try here:





http://www.bethshort.com/
Reply:The murder of Elizabeth Short has intrigued, mystified, even disgusted the city of Los Angeles for more than half a centruy.





Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old wannabe actress, spent several years moving around, gaining odd jobs. Her passion for servicemen and aspiration to be famous made her a "different" woman of her time. She reportedly hooked up with a variety of men and women (one reported to having been Marilyn Monroe).





Her name evolved from her black hair and black attire. Some say she was named the Black Dahlia before her murder in January of 1947, others say the name was applied by journalists to sensationalize the crime.





On January 15, 1947, a passerby spotted her nude body in a vacant lot near Hollywood. Her body, cut in half, was bruised and beaten. Grass had reportedly been forced into her vagina, and she had reportedly been sodomized after death. Rumors of henna in her hair and BD carved into her body, as of yet to this outlet, have not been verified.





Upon the release of the murder in the press, several men and women admitted to the crime. But the police could not validate anyone's story. The case, notoriously, attracted several false confessions, and later surfaced more interest when James Ellroy wrote The Black Dahlia in 1987.





To date, according to the LAPD, the case goes unsolved. Though Janice Knowlton has authored a book naming her father as the killer, police have not reported Ms. Knowlton's statements or information as holding any water at all.
Reply:The Black Dahlia Murder


Discovered January 15, 1947





The murder of Elizabeth Short has intrigued, mystified, even disgusted the city of Los Angeles for more than half a centruy.





Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old wannabe actress, spent several years moving around, gaining odd jobs. Her passion for servicemen and aspiration to be famous made her a "different" woman of her time. She reportedly hooked up with a variety of men and women (one reported to having been Marilyn Monroe).





Her name evolved from her black hair and black attire. Some say she was named the Black Dahlia before her murder in January of 1947, others say the name was applied by journalists to sensationalize the crime.





On January 15, 1947, a passerby spotted her nude body in a vacant lot near Hollywood. Her body, cut in half, was bruised and beaten. Grass had reportedly been forced into her vagina, and she had reportedly been sodomized after death. Rumors of henna in her hair and BD carved into her body, as of yet to this outlet, have not been verified.





Upon the release of the murder in the press, several men and women admitted to the crime. But the police could not validate anyone's story. The case, notoriously, attracted several false confessions, and later surfaced more interest when James Ellroy wrote The Black Dahlia in 1987.





To date, according to the LAPD, the case goes unsolved. Though Janice Knowlton has authored a book naming her father as the killer, police have not reported Ms. Knowlton's statements or information as holding any water at all.


--------------------------------------...





ABOUT THE MOVIE





The Black Dahlia is set in 1940s Los Angeles. Two cops, Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and his partner, Lee Blanchard, investigate the death of Elizabeth Short, a young woman found brutally murdered. Bucky soon realizes that his girlfriend had ties to the deceased, and soon after that, he begins uncovering corruption and conspiracy within the police department.
Reply:she was killed on Jan 15, 1947. Her body was cut in two


Does anyone like dahlia's besides me?

Anyone like dahlia's so much to ask for them for Christmas? Or am I crazy. I love cut flowers and they are my favorite.

Does anyone like dahlia's besides me?
Sounds good to me. I love the viragated dinner plate dahlias. They are so beautiful! Give me flower bulbs anytime!
Reply:I planted them for the first time this summer and just love them. I learned that I have alot more to learn about pinching off growth for shorter,fuller plants, but with about 15 bulbs I can experiment this next year.
Reply:Well they're tall and majestic,and are lovely in a nice vase.Manyattrative colors too
Reply:it is a good flower, i like them because it is easy to grow,


About the Black Dahlia murder?..?

in light of the upcoming Hollywood movie, what do u think abt the whole Black Dahlia murder and mystery?your thoughts abt her tragic death,her life as an actress,her bisexual affairs at tht time-pre 1947 and d fact tht her killer may never b found...

About the Black Dahlia murder?..?
Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, was the victim of an infamous murder in 1947. She was born July 29, 1924 and died January 15, 1947.





Born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, Short was raised in Medford by her mother, Phoebe Mae. Her father, Cleo, abandoned her and her four sisters in October, 1930.





Troubled by asthma, she spent summers in Medford and winters in Florida. At the age of 19, she went to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, and they moved to Los Angeles in early 1943. She left almost immediately because of an argument with her father and got a job in one of the post exchanges at Camp Cooke, which is now Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc. She moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested September 23, 1943, for underage drinking and was sent back to Medford by juvenile authorities.





For the next few years she resided in various cities in Florida, with occasional trips back to Massachusetts, earning money mostly as a waitress.





In Florida she met Maj. Matthew M. Gordon Jr., who was part of the 2nd Air Commandos and training for deployment in the China Burma India theater of operations. Short told friends that Gordon -- who according to his obituary in the Pueblo, Colo., newspaper, was awarded a Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, the Air Medal with 15 oak leaf clusters, and Purple Heart -- wrote a letter from India proposing marriage while recovering from an airplane crash he suffered while trying to rescue a downed flier. She accepted his proposal, but he died in a crash on August 10, 1945, before he could return to the U.S. to marry her. Short later embellished this story to say that they were married and had a child that had died. Although Gordon's friends in the air commandos confirm Gordon and Short were engaged, his family subsequently denied any connection once Short was murdered.





She returned to Southern California in July 1946, to see an old boyfriend she met in Florida during the war, Lt. Gordon Fickling, who was stationed in Long Beach. For the six months that remained of her life, she stayed in Southern California, mainly in the Los Angeles area. During this time, she lived in at least a dozen hotels, apartment buildings, rooming houses, and private homes, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks.





Short was last seen alive on the evening of January 9, 1947, in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel at 5th Street and Olive in downtown Los Angeles. She was 22 years old.





On January 15, 1947, her body was discovered in a vacant lot of the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, cut in half at the waist and mutilated. She was interred in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland rather than Medford because her oldest sister lived in Berkeley and because she loved California.





This unsolved murder has been viewed as emblematic of the perception of Los Angeles as a dystopia.
Reply:It happen, it's over and done.
Reply:what about it? the movie isnt going to tell you who killed her. it will


always be unsolved. only two people know who killed her, one is dead %26amp; the killer...
Reply:I was just reading about that the other day, have you seen the crime scene photos, horrible......
Reply:A real life tragedy of a girl who finally made it in the movies: Elizabeth Short was last seen alive in January 1947 at the Biltmore Hotel. Her body was later found, severed. She had a genital defect that rendered her incapable of having standard intercourse and if she had lived longer, she may have been able to develop more fully as a woman. There are many rumors and speculations: 1) knew Marilyn Monroe; 2) loved servicemen; 3) had an affair with George Knowlton, father of Janice Knowlton, author of "Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer"; 4) dressed in black and attempted to court various types of men. Her name supposedly evolved from her black hair and all black attire. Some say she was named the Black Dahlia before her murder but others claim the name was applied by journalist to sensationalize the crime. Her body was cut in half, bruised and beaten, and grass had been forced into her vagina, and she had been sodomized after death. The case attracted several false confessions and later surfaced more interest when James Ellroy wrote "The Black Dahlia" in 1987. The case remains unsolved to this date and as the years pass, it may remain unsolved.
Reply:I have been intrigued by it for quite some time. I read a book about it and there have been movies made based on the case and also documentaries like on A%26amp;E. It is astounding that you brought this up. I was recently using blackdahlia as a screen name. I'm looking forward to the movie and will be sure to see it. As far as thoughts, they are no different than my thoughts about all the other true crime stories I have read; thousands of them in fact. I'm an avid reader and find them to be the most interesting. I know, most serial killers like these stories, but I assure you, I am far from that........
Reply:It is surreal that Elizabeth Short became famous in death, something that eluded her in life. She came from Medford, Massachusetts. Somewhere in that town they have a small plaque to commemorate a local girl's sad raise as a poster girl of sorts. Even though some people claimed they knew who killed the Black Dahlia, I doubt the case will ever be solved.





One more thing, Elizabeth lived in a boarding house that was behind the Florentine Gardens. Sadly, the Florentine Gardens may be torn down to make way for a new Fire House. That's progress, I guess.
Reply:I'm a James Ellroy fan so I'm glad it's being made into a movie. I hope it's as good as L.A. Confidential. Ellroy believes that his mother's killer was the same person who killed the Black Dahlia. I don't think we'll ever know who murdered her. Obviously she was an unconventional person with an uncoventional lifestyle. But LA had an "underground" scene for a long time before she came along. In the end she was a human being who came to a tragic end.
Reply:I've read about the story years ago. It's very tragic. The movie seems to be OVER sensationalizing it. There really isn't much info on her or what happened.


Why is the the movie Black Dahlia is named Black Dahlia if they are discussing other people's lives??

because they hardly discussed the young woman who was suppose to be the black dahlia, but the overrall movie was great, except the end when they showed how she might've died. Tell me what you think about it??

Why is the the movie Black Dahlia is named Black Dahlia if they are discussing other people's lives??
I didn't care for that movie.I've read alot about that case and I was very disappointed by the movie.
Reply:its hollywood
Reply:"Black Dahlia" was a metafor refering to something beautiful and yet toxic.

get well flowers

Why is the the movie Black Dahlia is named Black Dahlia if they are discussing other people's lives??

because they hardly discussed the young woman who was suppose to be the black dahlia, but the overrall movie was great, except the end when they showed how she might've died. Tell me what you think about it??

Why is the the movie Black Dahlia is named Black Dahlia if they are discussing other people's lives??
i havent seen it. but they were trying to pretty much trying to tell the story of what the black dahlia was like
Reply:I don't know...usually I am a big fan of all movies and honestly I disliked that movie ALOT! I couldn't even watch the whole thing
Reply:It was supposed to be an adaption of a novel by the same name by James Ellroy.


Can some one explain the Black Dahlia to me?

I think I understand it but I'm not 100 % sure. Why did they call the girl that died the dahlia? A dahlia is a flower , that resembles a daisy.

Can some one explain the Black Dahlia to me?
She was called the Black Dahlia when she was working in a drug store when the movie The Blue Dahlia was playing at the time. Newspaper reporters may have also made that up. She was a beautiful flower of a girl brutally murdered.





As far as the rest of the fictional account of the murder, I personally thought it was terrible film and adaptation. You can read the entire plot on Wikipedia for further info.
Reply:Her name was Elizabeth Ann Short. She always wore a fresh flower in her hair.


The Black Dahlia?

Has anyone seen The Black Dahlia?- the movie? What did you think??

The Black Dahlia?
it was kinda weird and definitely didn't explain all of the story. it was strictly fiction for the most part, but it was entertaining.
Reply:I saw the unrated version, it was kind of like an independant low budget film. It was TERRIBLE!!! I know that there is a version out there that has got real actors in it, and I cant find it anywhere. But the one I saw....10 billion thumbs down.
Reply:It puts the NO in Film Noir.


Planting a dahlia bulb?

i bought this single dahlia bulb recently and am wondering which way it is


planted...?? the thing looks like 7 or 8 tubours the one ends of which are


attached to a woody stem, the other ends are free and have loose sort of


strands coming from them.





so which way up does it go?? so that the free ends are facing down into the


soil or up??





thanks


jeremy watts

Planting a dahlia bulb?
If all danger of frost is past in your area, you can plant now. Do not plant deep ad dahlias do not want a deep planting..no more than 3 inches down. They are also delicate tubers and will rot if they get too wet or cold so the time of planting is critical. If you are in a winter climate, you will have to dig them up in the fall. Roots down, eyes up.
Reply:the loose strands are the roots.they go down, also unless you live in a climate that is warm all year (never below freezing) they will have to be dug up before the frost comes and stored in a cool dark place .
Reply:the end that has 'loose sort of strands' is the roots, so place them facing down to help the roots to establish





good luck !
Reply:free end down into the soil and the woody stem up.
Reply:Woody stem should be pointing upwards - strands are last years roots - point down. Good time to plant now in a good quality John Innes type medium -but only if kept in a greenhouse - frost will burn the young shoots.
Reply:Jeremy, plant the tubers with some good compost or good soil so they have room to grow.


Cheers


Tim
Reply:Dahlia is grown in summer right?...........you have to find the correct planting season.........and the strands are the roots i guess?...............place the tubers downwards.place a liltte bitof fertilizers..........in my place ,they grow around end of summer........let me know when those tubers start sprouting
Reply:the free part is down and the woody part is up then slightly put soil on it but not much make way for the woody part to grown in,.
Reply:Bulbs are great plants for long lasting blooms and come back year after year! Great choice!


As others have said, plant the "root" looking end down and the "stem" looking end facing up. Check out the website on my blog for more details on planting bulbs for your spring garden - they are experts in this field. Remember that plants are dormant above the ground during the winter but the roots are taking off and getting ready for what will take place in a month or so.


The Black Dahlia??? did you like it?

what do you think about the movie 'The Black Dahlia'? did you like the movie???

The Black Dahlia??? did you like it?
I gave it a 7/10. While it wasn't totally great. and kind of confusing, it was somewhat entertaining.
Reply:nothing like the real story!!
Reply:I haven't seen the movie The Black Dahlia but I don't think anyone will like it because it wasn't based on Elizabeth Short's life. I mean, they didn't really focus on her as they should have since the movie was supposed to be about her. There are these theories flying around the movie like how she might have lived. I am much more interested in the real-life case than the movie.
Reply:Haven't seen the movie, but I've seen the documentary on A%26amp;E several times so there's no need to watch the movie.
Reply:didn't see it ..but i wanted to ..the previews looked good..so how was it any good leads on who killed the ******.


The black dahlia??

With this new movie coming out, I started researching "The Black Dahlia", and I was wondering what kind of genital defect did Beth Short have that she couldn't have standard intercourse??

The black dahlia??
I seem to recall her vagina wasn't fully developed. This probably would have frustrated and even angered many potential partners, given her overall attractiveness. Very sad, strange story.
Reply:Whether her genitals were fully formed or not has never been confirmed officially, and since both those who argue "yes" and those who argue "no" BOTH claim to have seen the official autopsy report and that that report supports THEIR claim, it's impossible to say at this point. Report It

Reply:The movie that's coming out is based on a book by the guy who wrote L.A. Confidential. His mother was killed around the same time in what he feels is a similar way, so he thinks his mom and Elizabeth Short were killed by the same person.


If you've read a lot of non-fiction about the case, you'll likely be disappointed in the movie(I was disappointed by the book, and I like his writing).
Reply:(Man, I'm starting to HATE Yahoo Answers....haven't done this much looking up of stuff since I left school. Swear it's becoming an addiction...."just one more question!")





Pulled my copy of Michael Newton's _Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes_ (Checkmark Books/Facts on File, 2004) and looked up the case. He's got a copy of the autopsy report, done by Dr, Frederick Newbarr, in the text. NOT going to key in all that material, but my preliminary reading (as a generalist nurse, not an OB-gyn specialist) does not seem to indicate anything unusual in terms of Short's female anatomy; negative for pregnancy and examiner commented spermatazoa samples were taken.


Newton's comments, p. 39-40: "...only Short's head and facial wounds were inflicted while she lived, and those are listed as the cause of death. What followed afterward, as grisly as it was, did not amount to torture (as described in many popular amounts of the crime), since the victim was already dead. The autopsy also debunks a host of other myths about Short's death....Her genitals were not deformed or 'infantile', incapable of sexual intercourse, as later claimed in one 'solution' to the case."


Newton denies teeth punched out, skin burns of any type, sliced off breasts or earlobes missing, or anything carved into the skin. (The autopsy report would rather have reflected THAT finding!)


Haven't seen the movie, but suspect that somebody needed to get a lot of hype and scare in, and said "heck with the facts; what's going to sell at the box office?"

beaded necklace

The Black Dahlia Avenger: Can someone give me some info?

I am currently doing a research paper for my college class and I was wondering if anyone could give me some good info on where to go to look for information on the book called "The Black Dahlia Avenger". I am not allowed to use wikipedia as a source, so... I NEED HELP!

The Black Dahlia Avenger: Can someone give me some info?
I actually did a research paper on the murder of the Black Dahlia last year and although mine was mainly about the crime rather than focusing specifically on one book, I believe that you could probably just get a lot of your information from the sites below. You can also get more information about the crime from www.bethshort.com.


Can my Dahlia's be saved?

Can my Dahlia's be saved, I planted them in large flowerpots this summer and after they bloomed once the stems turned brown, and the plants died back. Will the Dahlilas come back next year or did I kill them? I watered them daily as it has been really hot here in Missouri.

Can my Dahlia's be saved?
I can't say if you killed them forever they should have bloomed all summer what a shame. They could have caught a disease. Verticillium wilt causes brown or black streaking in the tissue of stem plants wilt and die. Infected roots rot in storage. If you think they may have caught a disease ditch soil in flower pot bleach it and try again next year. Not to mention ditch the bulbs. Dahlia's must have well drained soil with a constant supply of moisture. But it is a bulb type plant. If you think it just died of thirst it has a tuber that you save over winter and can plant next year. IT IS A TENDER BULB plant. BULBS MUST BE BROUGHT IN FOR WINTER. If the plant is dead as a doornail ya might as well dig it up and check and see if the tuber is plump or shriveled up. If it looks good store in a dry place in a bag of peat moss or straw and moisten the moss or straw very lightly once or twice over winter and try again next year. Even if the tuber is dead retry dahlias because they are awesome the way you normally get flowers all summer! Good luck Hope that wasn't too much info!


Master Gardener MSUE
Reply:yes take them out of the pots and place them in a damp potting mix,they must not get to wet,they are tubelars and in the spring they will start to shoot again from the tubelar,then you can replant them.dahlias dont like to much water untill the green grouth relly gets going or they will rott once there going you must feed and water them regularly,de head the dead flowers and provided you feed and water regularly they will continue to flower for mounths,happy gardening
Reply:It sounds like your drowned them. Make sure the pot has a drainage hole. OR, if you watered lightly every day it was not enough. Unpot them. Check the tubers to see if they are okay. Firm like a potato is good. Of course mushy is very bad. If they are still firm, repot them in a well draining potting soil.





I read that Dahlias need a lot of water. Make sure the pot is large enough. I bought a dinner plate Dahlia last year. It wilted every day. I potted it into a 7 gallon container. Now, I water it every other day. It's beautiful :-)





Good luck :-)
Reply:Hopefully they'll be o.k. I have about 10 of them in my yard...5 of them are from last years planting. The sun hit them hard but they came back again. Put the remainer of the plant in the ground.


Not sure what kind of pots you have but terra cotta is the best. It's alot more solid so it prevents the sun from heating up the inside of the plant whereas a plastic pot heat up the plant like a teapot on the stove.





Good luck...


SmileyCat : )


Changing color Dahlia?

I bought a large Dahlia flower a couple of weeks ago, when I did, it had several flowers already on it, all of which were pale pink cactus with pale yellow centers, as were all of the blooms since then, at one point all of the older flowers died and there were only buds (for a few days) now it is blooming again exept that all the flowers are dark pink! a completely differant color. Any ideas as to what might cause this? Maybe a soil change. thank you!

Changing color Dahlia?
Many factors can cause flowers to change color





By Sherry Fuller





Your long-stemmed, red rose bush suddenly starts producing small, pink flowers. The spectacular bed of purple and pink columbines you planted five years ago now has only yellow and white flowers. The blue, yellow and rust iris you transplanted from a friend’s yard are all blooming white. What’s going on?





Plants’ flower colors can change. There are six easy reasons why this might happen and botanists may discover other reasons as they learn more about how plants work.





Rootstocks





Many plants including roses, fruit trees, shade trees and some shrubs are grafted onto the roots of hardier relatives. This technique can make plants grow faster, stay more dwarf or have other desirable characteristics. The problem arises when the top, grafted part dies, leaving the tougher rootstock alive and ready to grow.





This is especially common in our area with roses. The top dies during the winter and in the spring the rootstock starts to grow, producing few or no flowers and certainly not the long-stemmed beauties you expected from your rose.





If this has happened to your plants, there is no solution other than removing the offending rootstock and starting over. Mulch your grafted roses well over the graft during winter to keep some of the intended plant alive in case of severe weather. And water your roses monthly if we have a dry winter. Winter drought is the main reason roses die here.





Seedlings





Some perennials live longer than we do, others die out after 3 or 4 years. These short-lived varieties often produce lots of seed and the plants resulting from this seed are usually more vigorous than their older parents. If the parent plants were hybrids, as many common garden plants are these days, seedlings from their seed will often not have the same color flowers. Columbines are notorious for dying out after a few years, leaving behind white or yellow-flowered progeny in their place.





Stress





If iris are moved from one place to another and left out of the ground for too long, this stress can result in white flowers. Iris growers I consulted verified this phenomenon, but didn’t know exactly why it occurs. Sometimes the original flower color will return, sometimes the plants will bloom another color after a year or two. All the brightly colored iris I moved from one home to another had white flowers the first year, and mostly blue the second. I’m waiting to see what happens next year. Stress may alter the color of other flower varieties as well, but iris are the ones it happens to most frequently.





Iris are tough plants and are often available for sale from corms that look quite shriveled with brown leaves, but that grow with no apparent problem. Soak these starts in water for several hours for best results.





AGE





Tulip flowers tend to turn yellow or white as the bulbs get older. Gladioli tend to turn yellow. Again bulb growers confirm this occurrence, but don’t have a good explanation for why. This color-change phenomenon is one of the reasons older bulbs are discarded and younger ones replanted when bulbs are dug and divided.





SOIL





Many gardeners are familiar with hydrangeas that change flower color from pink to blue depending on their soil’s acidity or alkalinity. The variety that does this quick-change act is commonly grown in the east, but can be grown here only as a house plant. Acidic soil with aluminum turns these flowers blue, more alkaline soil with iron produces pink flowers. I’m not aware of other flowers affected to this extent by soil, but it is certainly possible.





SPORTS





We’re not talking football here. A sport in the horticulture world is a plant branch that has noticeably changed, whether it be flower color, leaf color or another feature. Again, no one is exactly sure why, and these are relatively rare in the plant world, but many new varieties come from spontaneous sports. If you discover one in your yard, it must be propagated by cuttings to keep its unique color or form.





We may not always appreciate Mother Nature tinkering with the color schemes in our yards, but it’s just a part of growing plants. My solution is just to love the white columbines and blue iris I’ve ended up with.
Reply:well all it was is a change o environment ..... they just happened to die out and come back.... stronger... and im pretty sure it was due to the soil.... u must have some good soil... or if u added any kind o plant food.... that would o helped... aswell..
Reply:Dahlia colors fade with age. You probably bought your dahlias when the flowers were already faded. So wait a couple weeks and you'll have the same color as when you bought them.





Horticulturalist


Growing a dahlia?

My husband got a dahlia (in a pot) as a thank you from his school. I would love to plant it outside, but I don't know where. Does it like full sun? Partial shade? Full shade? Does it need a lot of water? Thank you.

Growing a dahlia?
dahlias prefer sun. after you plant it it shuld be well watered and then keep an eye on it and ensure it is kept damp until you see new growth.


It is a good idea to pick the blooms or at least pick them off after they have flowered as this will encourage more flowers.


Depending where you live you may need to dig them up in the fall as they will die if the ground freezes.
Reply:Yes, they need full sun and good drainage. Put some rocks at the bottom of the hole. also, pinch the gowing tips a few times, so they become bushier. You will have to stake them if are the tubers are the kind that grow tall. They are not hardy in some zones, so if you want to save them for next year, dig them after the foliage dies back in fall. Store them in peat in your garage or basement. around forty degrees. I love dahlias!
Reply:Full sun. Dahlias are fair game to snails, so use a good snail bait. The bulbs multiply %26amp; can be separated every few years. Good luck.
Reply:dalia's need full sun and if you pick off the dead blooms they will eventually group together. they don't need a whole lot of water. good luck...

domain name registration

The Blach Dahlia movie Preview?

Does anyone know who the artist who's song they use in the black dahlia movie preview that has been showing in theatres???


It would be a great help if anyone knows, thanx.

The Blach Dahlia movie Preview?
I believe its called "Stay" by Michelle Featherstone


THE BLACK DaHLIA????

Has anybody seen The Black Dahlia?? If so, was it good???

THE BLACK DaHLIA????
yeah, i saw it.





i was SOOOO excited about it since i found out it was coming out.. i was so interested in the story..





so i saw the movie..





well its not all i thought it would be.. but it was still good.


i would say that they tried to fit sooo many stories into like two hours.. and it was a little bit confusing


but i would still recomend you to go see it.. just know that it isnt going to be the best movie youve ever seen.
Reply:It's good a good movie. Boring in the beginning and the scenes at the end gave me nightmares.
Reply:Yes it was. Don't expect it to be entirely about the Black Dahlia. However it is very entertaining. You'll hear from a few oblivious morons that it wasn't close to the true story. Well of couse it isn't. It's just and artistic twist on it. Come on, who the hell believes the Titanic really had a Jack and Rose.
Reply:I've seen the trailer and it looks good. However, since I've done a research on the real Black Dahlia herself, I've seen the scary images when she was murdered and was not able to sleep for days. I can't get her distorted image out of my mind. If you are prone to vivid imaginations especially at night, I advise you to prepare and think well before watching the movie.


Will my dahlia regrow?

i have a dahlia but it dryed out how plants sometimes do...i think its because its winter already im not sure if its a perennial or an annual....please help because i dont know if i should just take it out or leave it for next spring!

Will my dahlia regrow?
Depends on where you are. In my zone 6b garden I never have to dig my dahlias and they come up like clockwork every year, but if you are in zone 5 or north, I would say dig them., store them like sptfyr says. They are a tuberous rooted plant, a perennial where it is warm enough.
Reply:Depending on where you are you have the answers you need
Reply:Well, Dahlia bulbs need to be dug up and stored during the winter. I don't think it is too late so you can dig it up, shake off the soil and then you can place it in a paper bag with some wood shavings, shredded paper, vermiculite or dry sand and store it until last freeze of Spring has passed.


Good Luck


How to treat my damaged dahlia??

I just bought a Dahlia from the Home Depot 2 days ago and set it out on my porch over night. I looked it up in a flower book that I have and it said it was okay in zones 9-11. Zone 9 is 20 degrees, and it was only sopposed to get to 30 degrees that night (I live in Wisconsin), so I figured it would be ok. Now a few of the edges of the petals are all crumpled and discolored and stiff. I know it didn't frost that night, but I'm just wondering if the petals froze. I just want to know if there is anything I should be doing to help it out, like removing the damaged petals or anything, or if its going to crumple up completely and die.





I did see a few of the other Dahlias at the store that had the same sort of discoloration around the petals, so maybe I just bought one that was going to do that anyways?

How to treat my damaged dahlia??
I find the best thing to do with neglected plants is to treat them to some seaweed emulsion...they will love you for it ..just make sure you follow the instruction for dilution. I found that this natural product is a life saver for plants. Water this into the ground, it won't matter if it falls on the plant itself, do this every second day for a week and by then you plant should be doing well. Take off the old sorry looking leaves so the plant can concentrate on growing new leaves without the pressure of trying to restore the damaged leaves.
Reply:The cold weather bit it.. you can snip off the damage and keep it inside until after May 1... when it will be more safe to plant it.





The hardiness zones refer mostly to winter kill.. not how cold the plant can stand. Dahlias will freeze at 32 degrees.





Water it, give it a little water soluble fertilizer and snip off the totally dead leaves.. it might make it.
Reply:No your plant is not going to die!





One of the reasons why flowers/shrubs/bushes/ trees are like this in the stores is that they do not get enough water!





Water your plant everyother day until you plant it , then once a week if possible.





Don't worry about the crumpled up leaves, etc. - you can prune them off but they will fall off when they want to.





good luck!
Reply:Don't worry, it will probably love you for rescuing it. They dont take very good care of the plants there and it sound like it's probably just dehydrated. As for the climate, just fine. My Folks live in Southern Oregon and grow great Dahlias.

flowers anniversary

Explain Black Dahlia movie? Spoilers/details?

Ok, I saw the movie but didn't understand it. Who was the gardener? Was the guy with the ruined face the silent film actor? If not, who was the guy with the ruined face and who was the silent film actor? Who was Georgie and how did he fit into anything? Why did the one cop go off the deep end about the girl who got killed (the Black Dahlia) and how did he get the money?

Explain Black Dahlia movie? Spoilers/details?
AS far as Georgie and he was not the actual actor in the silent movie..he worked on it but did not star in it. Georgie (the guy with the ruined face) was friends with the rich guy and had an affair with the rich guys wife in which they had a child together(Hillary Swank's character) George and the rich guys wife supposedly did the actual killing....Georgie because he was driven crazy by the fact that the rich guy had disfigured him and the rich guys wife went crazy too and she thought that E.Short reminded her of her daughter (Swank) and she was jealous of her because Swanks character and the rich guy were "involved" ..if you know what I mean!





As for the one cop going off the deep end...maybe he felt sorry for E.Short for something that happened in his past..remember this is based on a James Ellroy novel and many of his male characters dont like people who abuse women...like "Bud" in LA Confidential!





The one cop got the money from a bank robbery he stopped...they didnt turn in the money to the police. The Bank robber was the guy- Bobby Dewitt
Reply:I didn't quite understand it all either i know one thing it realy sucked
Reply:***Major spoiler alert***

















Mr. Ice, the cop played by Aaron Eckhart, had been in cahoots with a bad guy who had pimped out and cut up Scarlett Johansson's character. They had some money from a bank robbery the bad guy got sent up for. Also, Ice had been tipped off by Hilary Swank's character's sister that the mother and George had been seen in the company of the Black Dahlia. George was Swank's father and both he and the mother (played by Fiona Shaw) were absolutely nuts. They were the ones responsible for the murder.
Reply:I just saw it too...I kinda got it but there was so much chaos going on...they shouldn't name it The Black Dahlia...It had really nothing to do with it...Hillary Swank looks nothing like the black dahlia...I want my money back
Reply:I haven't seen the new movie yet. It was a TV movie way back in the 80's, I think. Lucie Arnaz, Lucille Ball's daughter, played Elizabeth Short. It was a great movie, but I only remember highlights. It is a mystery that has intrigued me for years. I've got to see the new release!!


"the black dahlia murder" band?

does anyone no the font that is used for "the black dahlia murder" logo

"the black dahlia murder" band?
drawn out by an artist....not computer generated


The Black Dahlia - the 2006 movie.?

I was a kind of lost while watching The Black Dahlia... bits and pieces made sense, but I had a hard time getting the overall picture. I can't find a good plot summary online... can someone provide me with one? Thanks.

The Black Dahlia - the 2006 movie.?
Ditto. I'm still confused about what exactly happened and I couldn't concentrate on the movie to save my life.





http://www.themoviespoiler.com/Spoilers/...





I think this is about the only synopsis on the web. I think everyone just wanted to forget about this movie. :)
Reply:I was so looking forward to that movie, having read a lot on the case online and in the books. I felt the movie was a let-down and it should have been called anything but Black Dahlia.


I did understand what was going on, but I kept losing interest, since it was so very slow and dragged out.
Reply:Thankfully I picked it up as one of the MVP's at Hollywood Video a couple of weeks ago so it didn't cost me anything to find out I'm glad I didn't spend any money to see this mess.





I like Josh Hartnett's acting, and Scarlett Johansson...well, she's enough to want me to see any movie she's in...BUT not this one...


their talent went totally wasted in this nonsensical yawner.
Reply:go to this site http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387877/


they also have a message board where people give their opinions about the movie....helps me sometimes
Reply:what makes the black dahlia worthy of attention albeit slight, is the noirish thinking of our country and law enforcement at that time. here was a woman , relatively unknown , who moved to California and had a troubled early life. most of the infamous detail is in the way she was killed. she was mutilated and severed at the waist. after many claims and leads the crime went unsolved and the ugly death became a myth. that's when the stories got further amplified. every town has a ghost . Betty Short became California's ghost in january of 1947. i have included the sites for the many details.
Reply:That movie didn't make a lick of sense to me either.


Nora or Dahlia?

My sister's having a baby and she's contemplating between Nora Bliss and Dahlia Blythe, which, in your opinion, sounds better?


Her husband is Irish btw, so are there any better middle names of Irish origin?

Nora or Dahlia?
Those names basically suck.


Theodora Gene %26gt; Nora Bliss
Reply:I would choose Nora over Dahlia. Dahlia reminds me of the "black dahlia". I also think Cora is lovely. There are many beautiful Irish names to pick from. Maeve would make a beautiful middle name as it means "joyous". Maeve is after a legendary Irish Queen. Meghan, Keara, Erin, Ciara, Reagan and Alanna are all classic Irish names that would be lovely.
Reply:I'd say Nora... not that I like it much, but Dahlia reminds me of "Black Dahlia" the actress that was brutally murdered.... ugh...
Reply:I like Dahlia a little more than Nora. I think both names are wonderful choices. Not so fond of the middle names though. Blythe is better than Bliss.





Dahlia June or Dahlia Kathleen


Nora True or Nora Kathleen





I also love their other daughter's name. I was going to suggest Maeve as a middle name, but it's too similar to May.





I also love Amelia, but I like Dahlia a little better.
Reply:Nora Roisin (Ro-sheen)


Nora Niamh (nee-iv)


Nora Siobahn (shiv-awn)





Those are a few I like. I dont really care for Dahlia.
Reply:i like Nora Bliss although Bliss would make an adorable first name too :]
Reply:Have they considered Fiona?





Of the two names, I actually prefer Nora Blythe - quite nice.
Reply:Nora Bliss
Reply:Dahlia Blythe is a terrific name IMO. Nora is a bit old fashioned even though it is nice.
Reply:I like the name Nora but not the middle name Bliss. Not keen on Dahlia Blythe. If they don't think Amelia is original enough what about Emilia Rose or Eliza Rose.


Hope this helps.
Reply:Nora Bliss. =]
Reply:I like Nora Bliss much, much better.
Reply:Both of the first names are lovely, but I'm not too keen on the middle names. Out of the two I'd go with Bliss.


Nora Bliss or Dahlia Bliss would both be fine. I would go with Dahlia.





I'm not sure, but I think that Aisling (Ashlyn) is Irish. Don't quote me on that though.
Reply:erin.
Reply:I dont like either of them. Why not Delilah?That is similar to Dahlia but prettier
Reply:Nora Bliss is much better in my opinion although I don't like the middle name at all. Nora Catherine or Nora Kathleen would sound better.
Reply:I LOVE NORA





Nora Brianne


Nora Leigh


Nora Keely


Nora Shea


Nora Gael (Jay-El is how i would say it...)


Nora Cassidy


Nora Keera


Nora Keelyn


Nora Eibhlin ("eve + linn")


Nora Sinead ("shin + aid")


Nora Isolt ("ee + solt")
Reply:Dahlia is nice.


Bryana,Teagen,Sierra,Gracie,Siobhan,


Imogen,Caitlin,Brea(Bree),


Bridie(Briodie(irish spelling)


They are allirish names!





Best of Luck
Reply:We say Nora Bliss but they both suck
Reply:I like Nora. And, I really like Blythe. (It's my daughter's middle name!) Not so sure they sound good together.
Reply:Nora Bliss
Reply:defn Nora. Dahlia reminds me of the black dahlia murder. and dolly parton.
Reply:Nora is beautiful...short for Elinor. I like Noreen too.

art

Who do you think killed Elizabeth "Black Dahlia" Short?

1/15/1947 at 10:30AM, Betty Bersinger saw a body in a vacant lot on Norton between Coliseum %26amp; 39th in LA. It was cut in half at the waist, slashed from ear-to-ear, beaten on the head, etc. It was identified as Elizabeth Short, b. 7/29/24. The murder was never solved, but there are several theories. John Gilmore's "Severed" (1994) says Jack Anderson Wilson (alias Arnold Smith, etc.) did the murder. In "Daddy Was The Black Dahlia Killer"(1995), Janice Knowlton says her father George Frederick Knowlton (1912-1962) did it. In "Black Dahlia Avenger" (2004), Steve Hodel says his father George Hill Hodel (1907-1999) did it. In "The Black Dahlia Files" (2005), Donald H. Wolfe says Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel did it, Dr. Leslie C. Audrain severed the body, Maurice Clement transported it in his car (seen at the dump site twice) and Jack A. Wilson helped carry it to %26amp; from the car. John Douglas profiled several killers in "Cases That Haunt Us" (2000). I am checking his profile on listed suspects.

Who do you think killed Elizabeth "Black Dahlia" Short?
I think this will be like Jack the Ripper with many theories, but no hard proof. I found Steve Hodel's theory about his father a bit far fetched (imagine thinking your father is capable of that!), that his father murdered Elizabeth Short in an homage to Man Ray.


Incidentally, you should read the graphic novel Torso by Brain Michael Bendis. In it he posits the the never caught Torso Murderer of Cleveland who haunted Elliot Ness went on the commit the Short murder. A bit tangential, but good if you are into unsolved crime.
Reply:I have read alot of these theories and am leaning towards George Hodel. His son's book is very convincing.
Reply:This will remain among the more famous unsolved mysteries of all time, failing a written confession being found and authenticated.
Reply:I truly doubt that we'll ever know for sure. The evidence is muddied, too many witnesses and suspects are long dead, and standards of evidence custody analysis--much less the level of the actual science and technology involved--are nowhere today's standard. I think that it'll have to remain among the great unsolved mysteries.


How long for a Dahlia bulb to sprout?

Hi,





I planted 3 Dahlia bulbs 2 weeks ago and have been watering and watching them. Problem is I forgot to mark the area and now I think I would not know the difference between a weed and how a dahlia sprout would look like! Yes, I am new to gardening!





Anyways, how long would they take to sprout and what should I be looking for?





Thanks

How long for a Dahlia bulb to sprout?
When the ground gets warm enough, they will wake up and send out roots, then the tops appear pretty quickly after that. You should see something here shortly - they have big leaves, so they do not look like more annual weeds - they come straight up and have large leaves forming on them already when they first appear. You will know you are pulling the wrong thing if you get a big old tuber attached to your "weed" when you pull it, though! ;) Try not to disturb the area and just give them a little chance to present themselves, in the future, be sure not to cut the stem all the way to the ground and as long as you are not taking them up in the winter, you will see those stems and know what is there all year long.


Black dahlia?

There have been several books witten on theories on who killed the black dahlia but will the truth ever come out?

Black dahlia?
Considering it has been almost 60 years since Elizabeth Short was so brutally killed, the likelihood of the killer ever being absolutely and irrefutably identified is fairly slim, although not entirely impossible. Theories abounded in 1957, and still abound today, but no one has any real proof. So, like the murders committed by Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia case will probably remain one for the conspiracy theorists forever.
Reply:Who was the Black Dahlia?


Black dahlia?

Did anyone see the black dahlia over the weekend? i did and thought it was horriable. Wasnt even about her the previews were deseving. What did you think

Black dahlia?
Don't really understand why they would make ANOTHER movie about this woman when they STILL haven't solved her murder. (they made on in '75 with Lucy Arnaz)





But, OH MY GOSH, I found a website about the real Elizabeth Short and it had her REAL photos for her lying dead in that abandoned lot and her REAL autopsy photos. There's a disclaimer on it saying if you do not have a strong stomach, it's not advisable to look.





I can't remember the website address, but if the forum's still open when I find it, I will post it for anyone with a strong enuf stomach.





I gave the address to my cousin, and she clicked on it before I had a chance to walk away. (OH MY GOSH!!)
Reply:if you look up the black dahlia case on google the website will be one of the first to pop up i think its called betyshort.com or something Report It

Reply:omg, i watched it yesterday, and it's the worst movie i ever saw. it was complicated, and took too long to reach a point. omg, and it should've been rated r instead of 14a. at times, i was really disturbed. -.- the trailer looked promising too.
Reply:OMG I DID!!!!!!!!





Based on a true unsolved murder. In the 1940s, young and beautiful Elizabeth Short came to Hollywood, intending to become a famous actress. However, it would not be her career but her her brutal murder in 1947 that would bring her fame, as "The Black Dahlia". The investigation of her death became an obsession to millions and revealed a vast conspiracy throughout the police department.
Reply:That's for sure on the list of the top 5 worst movies I have ever seen. I hated it, you're right - the previews were deceiving. They made it seem like the movie was all about this girl getting murdered, but it wasn't, it was only partially about that and it was mostly about the partners. Ugh. So bad.





There was this lady leaving the theater when it was over, she walked past me and was saying to herself "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" lol. I was like "You're not alone." No one in the theater I was in liked it, several people even booed. It was pretty sad/funny.
Reply:Brian DePalma has made some good movies, but this was not one of them. Ok, it's got atmosphere and moodiness and all that but would somebody tell me what was supposed to have happened to that girl and why? (in the movie, I mean - the case wasn't solved in real life)





I have a question posted with some more details that may include spoilers, but if you can, throw me a frickin' bone here, please!

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Black Dahlia fact or fiction?

this new film called the black dahlia's tagline is "inspired by the most notorious unsolved murder in californian history", but if you look it up, it says its an adaptation of James Ellroys novel! So is it fact or fiction?

Black Dahlia fact or fiction?
It is fiction. The Black Dahlia murder really happened but most of the characters and events in the novel are fictional. The novel was based on the actual case but it is a fictional account. I'm a forensic science graduate student so I have read both the James Ellroy novel and several other books about the case and there are some elements of truth (for example some of the suspects in the novel were real people) but for the most part it is fictional.
Reply:I'm pretty sure its just based on the real story. I know its not supposed to be a biopic of her real life, so I'm sure they took a lot of liberties for dramatic effect.
Reply:The murder case is a fact. The woman who was murdered was Elizabeth Short. I'm sure the movie will take liberties with the truth.
Reply:It is fact
Reply:fact
Reply:James Ellroy's novel is a highly fictionalized work in the noir style written in the context of the Black Dahlia case. Someone I know said, "Ellroy uses the real-life incident as a touch point for the fictional story he wants to tell. I suspect the reason he chose that incident is because he wants to parallel the media frenzy/obsession the case caused at the time with the downward spiral of obsession and self-destruction the two main characters face." I think that explains it pretty well.





The case is real; it is one of the most notorious unsolved murder cases, unlikely to ever be solved, especially now. I suggest you look up Elizabeth Short on Wikipedia and CrimeLibrary.com if you don't know much about it and want to find out more. A lot of details about her are confused now (such as whether she was nicknamed the "Black Dahlia" before or after her death, whether she had a genital defect or not, etc.), but the basic story is always the same.
Reply:The Black Dahlia is an actual murder case from California history. I am guessing that the screenplay is an adaptation of James Ellroys novel. So the movie in inspired by the actual Black Dahlia, who was Elizabeth Smart, but is fictionalized by Hollywood to fill in the pieces that are still a mystery.
Reply:its a fact, 1940,s murder quoted in micheal connelly books
Reply:Well history can be written as a novel, im also not so sure so im sorry for not answering your question.
Reply:well , it's fiction based on facts ... ;)
Reply:both???
Reply:It is a real murder. Learned about it in forensics class but you can always assume movies will embellish what really happened to make it more interesting so it is possible that this James Elroy's book did just that so they made it into a movie.
Reply:I believe it is a true fact.
Reply:It was a true murder case. A really gruesome one. I don't know but I'm guessing James Ellroy wrote a story around it and the film has been adapted from that.
Reply:its supposed to be true. look it up. not the movie website.
Reply:Its based on a real person, here is some information about the real thing. There have been various books including Ellroys based on the infamous case.





Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – January 15, 1947), better known as the Black Dahlia, was the victim of a murder in 1947.





Born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, Short was raised in Medford, Massachusetts, by her mother, Phoebe Mae. Her father, Cleo, abandoned her and her four sisters in October, 1930.





Troubled by asthma, she spent summers in Medford, Massachusetts and winters in Florida. At the age of 19, she went to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, and they moved to Los Angeles in early 1943. She left almost immediately because of an argument with her father and got a job in one of the post exchanges at Camp Cooke, which is now Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Lompoc. She moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested September 23, 1943, for underage drinking and was sent back to Medford by juvenile authorities.





For the next few years she resided in various cities in Florida, with occasional trips back to Massachusetts, earning money mostly as a waitress.





In Florida she met Major Matthew M. Gordon Jr., who was part of the 2nd Air Commandos and training for deployment in the China Burma India theater of operations. Short told friends that Gordon—who, according to his obituary in the Pueblo, Colorado, newspaper, was awarded a Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, the Air Medal with 15 oak leaf clusters, and Purple Heart—wrote a letter from India proposing marriage while recovering from an airplane crash he suffered while trying to rescue a downed flier. She accepted his proposal, but he died in a crash on August 10, 1945, before he could return to the U.S. to marry her. Short later embellished this story to say that they were married and had a child who had died. Although Gordon's friends in the air commandos confirm Gordon and Short were engaged, his family subsequently denied any connection after Short's murder.





She returned to Southern California in July 1946, to see an old boyfriend she met in Florida during the war, Lt. Gordon Fickling, who was stationed in Long Beach. For the six months that remained of her life, she stayed in Southern California, mainly in the Los Angeles area. During this time, she lived in at least a dozen hotels, apartment buildings, rooming houses, and private homes, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks.





Short was last seen alive on the evening of January 9, 1947, in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel at 5th Street and Olive in downtown Los Angeles. She was 22 years old.





On January 15, 1947, her body was discovered in a vacant lot of the 3800 block of South Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, cut in half at the waist and mutilated.





Elizabeth Short was laid to rest in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California. She was interred there, rather than in a cemetery within Medford, because her oldest sister lived in nearby Berkeley and, reportedly, because she loved California.








Popular myths and misconceptions


According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Short received the nickname Black Dahlia at a Long Beach drugstore in the summer of 1946, as a play on the then-current movie The Blue Dahlia, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Los Angeles County district attorney investigators' reports state the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder. In either case, Short was not generally known as the "Black Dahlia" in life.





A number of people, none of whom knew Short in life, contacted police and the newspapers, claiming to have seen her during her so-called "missing week" between the time of her disappearance January 9 and the time her body was found on January 15. Police and district attorney investigators ruled out each of these alleged sightings, sometimes identifying other women that witnesses had mistaken for Short.





Many crime books and other allegedly factual accounts claim that Short lived in or visited Los Angeles at various times in the mid-1940s; but these claims have never been substantiated, and are refuted by the findings of law enforcement officers who investigated the case. A document in the Los Angeles County district attorney's files titled "Movements of Elizabeth Short Prior to June 1, 1946" states that Short was in Florida and Massachusetts from September 1943 through the early months of 1946, and gives a detailed account of her living and working arrangements during this period.





Although popular myth as well as many "true crime" books portrayed Short as a call girl, a report by the district attorney's office for the Los Angeles County grand jury states that she was not a prostitute.





Another widely circulated myth holds that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of some genetic defect that left her with "infantile genitalia." Los Angeles County district attorney's files states the investigators had questioned three men with whom Short had sexual intercourse, including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect in the case. The FBI files on the case also contain a statement from a man with whom Short had sexual intercourse. According to the LAPD summary of the case, in the district attorney's files, the autopsy describes Short's reproductive organs as anatomically normal. The autopsy also states that Short was not and had never been pregnant, contrary to what is sometimes claimed.








Suspects


The Black Dahlia murder investigation by the LAPD was the largest since the murder of Marian Parker in 1927, and involved hundreds of officers borrowed from other law enforcement agencies. Because of the complexity of the case, the original investigators treated every person who knew Elizabeth Short as a suspect who had to be eliminated. Hundreds of people were considered suspects and thousands were interviewed by police. Sensational and sometimes inaccurate press coverage, as well as the horrible nature of the crime, focused intense public attention on the case. About 60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men, as well as a few women. As the case continues to command public attention, many people have been proposed as possible killers of Elizabeth Short, much like the Jack the Ripper case.





22 District Attorney suspects


A summary of each of 22 suspects investigated by the Los Angeles district attorney's office, transcribed from the official document, can be found at this website.


Walter Bayley


Dr. Walter Alonzo Bayley was a Los Angeles surgeon who lived in a house one block south of the vacant lot in which Elizabeth Short’s body was found, until leaving his wife in October 1946. At the time of the murder, Bayley’s estranged wife still lived in the home. Bayley's daughter was a friend of Elizabeth Short's sister Virginia and brother-in-law Adrian, and had been the matron of honor at their wedding. When Bayley died in January 1948, his autopsy showed that he was suffering from degenerative brain disease. After his death, Bayley's widow alleged that his mistress knew a "terrible secret" about Bayley and claimed this was the reason the mistress was the main beneficiary upon his death. Bayley was never a suspect in the case, but many medical doctors and others with medical training were. In secret testimony, Detective Harry Hansen, one of the original investigators, told the 1949 Los Angeles County grand jury that in his opinion, the killer was a "top medical man" and "a fine surgeon." Bayley was 67 years old at the time of the murder, had no known history of violence or criminal activity of any kind, and is not known to have met Short.


When Larry Harnisch, a copy editor and writer for the Los Angeles Times, began studying the case in 1996, he eventually concluded that Bayley could be Elizabeth Short's killer.Although critics of Harnisch's theory question whether Bayley's mental and physical condition at the time of the murder would have been consistent with the commission of this type of crime, the original investigators' theory that the body was cut in half because the killer wasn't strong enough to move it intact partially answers this objection. Harnisch theorizes that Bayley’s neurological deterioration contributed to his alleged violence against Short. Some have suggested that the secret that Bayley’s mistress was blackmailing him with was that he had performed abortions, then a crime. However, there is no evidence that Bayley performed abortions or associated with anyone involved in performing abortions. Author James Ellroy endorsed Harnisch's theory in the 2001 film James Ellroy's Feast of Death.


Norman Chandler


Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, is accused of involvement in Elizabeth Short's murder, in Donald Wolfe's The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. In a complicated scenario involving multiple perpetrators, Wolfe claims that Chandler impregnated Short while she was working as a call girl for the notorious Hollywood "madam" Brenda Allen, which led to Short's murder at the hands of gangster Bugsy Siegel. Wolfe's claim that Short was a prostitute is at odds with the Los Angeles County district attorney's files, which plainly state that she was not.


Joseph A. Dumais


Joseph Dumais, a 29-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, confessed to the murder a few weeks after it occurred. Although this "breakthrough" was quickly dismissed by the original investigators, the Los Angeles press covered enthusiastically until it was revealed that Dumais had remained in Fort Dix at the time of the murder. Dumais was cleared of any involvement in the crime, although he continued to claim he killed Elizabeth Short each time he was arrested for various offenses, well into the 1950s.


Female suspects


Although the vast majority of suspects in the case were male, authorities did not rule out the possibility of a female killer. One theory held that, because Short had checked her baggage, including her clothing and cosmetics, a week before she died, she must have been staying with another woman (who presumably would have lent Short the essentials) during the intervening time. Another theory was that the assailant bisected Short's body because he or she was not strong enough to move it in one piece. One of the first people to confess to the murder was a WAC Sergeant stationed in San Diego. Authorities took the confession seriously enough to investigate and found it groundless. Another suspect is referred to simply as "Queer Woman Surgeon" in the Los Angeles district attorney's files on the case. Newspaper stories at the time implied that Short was homosexual or bisexual, but the district attorney files state bluntly that Short "had no use for queers."


Woody Guthrie


The folksinger was one of the many suspects in the murder, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's files and Ramblin' Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie written by Ed Cray and published in 2004 by W.W. Norton, Page 331. According to Cray, Guthrie drew police attention due to some sexually explicit letters and lurid tabloid clippings he sent to a northern California woman with whom he was smitten. The mailings disturbed their recipient so much that she showed them to her sister in Los Angeles, who contacted the police. Guthrie was quickly cleared of involvement in the murder, but various authorities attempted to prosecute him, with minor success, on charges related to sending prohibited materials through the mail.


Mark Hansen


Mark Hansen was a Hollywood nightclub and theater owner who knew Short while she was in Los Angeles. Short lived in Hansen's home, as a paying boarder or as a guest (accounts vary), on several occasions between May 1946 and October 1946. Hansen's girlfriend Ann Toth shared a room with Short in this house, which was located near Hansen's nightclub, the Florentine Gardens. Short called Hansen in Los Angeles from San Diego on January 8 or January 9, making him one of the last people known to have seen or spoken to her. Los Angeles district attorney files indicate that Hansen made contradictory statements to authorities about the nature of this conversation. An address book embossed with Hansen's name was among Short's belongings mailed to a newspaper after Short's murder by someone claiming to be her killer. The address book belonged to Hansen, but he had never used it. Short had been using it as her own. Los Angeles district attorney files indicate that Hansen had tried to seduce Short into having sex with him, but Short rebuffed his advances. Hansen was one of the first serious suspects in the case and he was still a prime suspect as late as the 1951 DA's investigation and grand jury inquest. Hansen was linked to three other suspects in the case, each of whom was a medical doctor: Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly, Dr. M. M. Schwartz, and Dr. Arthur McGinnis Faught.


Hansen died of natural causes in 1964. No charges were ever brought against him. He had no criminal record and no known history of violence. Popular accounts of the Black Dahlia case often portray Hansen as having connections to organized crime, but there is no evidence of this.


George Hodel


Dr. George Hodel came under police scrutiny in October 1949, when his 14-year-old daughter, Tamar, accused him of molesting her. Hodel was tried and acquitted of these charges in December 1949. The molestation case led the LAPD to include Hodel, a physician specializing in public health (not a surgeon), among its many suspects in the Dahlia case. Authorities put Hodel under surveillance from February 18 to March 27, 1950 to ascertain whether he was implicated in the murder. In the final report to the grand jury dated February 20, 1951, Lt. Frank Jemison of the Los Angeles County district attorney's office wrote:


Doctor George Hodel, M.D. 5121 Fountian [Franklin] Avenue, at the time of this murder had a clinic at East First Street near Alameda. Lillian DeNorak [Lenorak] who lived with this doctor said he spent some time around the Biltmore Hotel and identified the photo of victim Short as a photo of one of the doctor's girl friends. Tamar Hodel, fifteen year old daughter stated, that her mother, Dorothy Hodel, has told her that her father had been out all night on a party the night of the murder and said, "They’ll never be able to prove I did that murder." Two microphones were placed in this suspect's home (see the log and recordings made over approximately three weeks time which tend to prove his innocence. See statement of Dorothy Hodel, former wife). Informant Lillian DeNorak [Lenorak] has been committed to the State Mental Institution at Camarillo. Joe Barrett, a roomer at the Hodel residence cooperated as an informant. A photograph of the suspect in the nude with a nude identified colored model was secured from his personal effects. Undersigned identified this model as Mattie Comfort, 3423-1/2 South Arlington, Republic 4953. She said that she was with Doctor Hodel sometime prior to the murder and that she knew nothing about his being associated with the victim. Rudolph Walthers, known to have been acquainted with victim and also with suspect Hodel, claimed he had not seen victim in the presence of Hodel and did not believe that the doctor had ever met the victim. The following acquaintances of Hodel were questioned and none were able to connect the suspect with murder: Fred Sexton, 1020 White Knoll Drive; Nita Moladero, 1617-1/2 North Normandy [Normandie]; Ellen Taylor 5121 Fountain Avenue; Finlay Thomas, 616-1/2 South Normandy [Normandie]; Mildred B. Colby, 4029 Vista Del Monte Street, Sherman Oaks, this witness was a girl friend of Charles Smith, abortionist friend of Hodel, Turin Gilkey, 1025 North Wilcox; Irene Summerset, 1236-1/4 North Edgemont; Norman Beckett, 1025 North Wilcox; Ethel Kane, 1033 North Wilcox; Annette Chase, 1039 North Wilcox; Dorothy Royer, 1636 North Beverly Glenn. See supplemental reports, long sheets and hear recordings, all of which tend to eliminate this suspect.





This DA report, from which the above excerpt was taken, was submitted at the completion of the DA's investigation of George Hodel and at least 21 other suspects.


In 2003, George Hodel's son, former LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel, published a book claiming his father, who died in 1999, had in fact committed the Black Dahlia murder as well as a host of unsolved murders over the better part of two decades. Steve Hodel says he came up with the idea when he saw two pictures in his dead father's photo album that he claims resemble Short, although Short's family insists they are not of her and many other observers have failed to see the resemblance. Steve Hodel claims he was unaware at the time that his father had been a suspect in the case, although his sister Tamar was friends with Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer author Janice Knowlton and case documents make it clear that his parents and many of their associates knew the senior Hodel was a suspect. After reviewing the information presented in Steve Hodel's book, Head Deputy D.A. Stephen Kay (Manson Family prosecutor) proclaimed the case "solved," but others have noted that Kay, who has since retired, formed this conclusion by treating Steve Hodel's many disputed assertions as established fact. Detective Brian Carr, the LAPD officer currently in charge of the Black Dahlia case, said in a televised interview that he was baffled by Kay's response, adding that if he ever took a case as weak as Steve Hodel's to a prosecutor he would be "laughed out of the office." Author James Ellroy endorsed Steve Hodel's theory in the foreword to the paperback version of Hodel's book.


George Knowlton


Little reliable information is available on George Knowlton, except that he lived in the Los Angeles area at the time of the Black Dahlia murder and died in an automobile accident in 1962. In the early 1990s, George Knowlton's daughter, Janice Knowlton, began claiming that she had witnessed her father murdering Elizabeth Short, a claim she based largely on "recovered memories" that surfaced during psychological therapy. The Los Angeles Times said in 1991:


Los Angeles Police Detective John P. St. John, one of the investigators who had been assigned to the case, said he has talked to Knowlton and does not believe there is a connection between the Black Dahlia murder and her father. "We have a lot of people offering up their fathers and various relatives as the Black Dahlia killer," said St. John, better known as Jigsaw John. "The things that she is saying are not consistent with the facts of the case."





But the Westminster Police Department took her claims seriously enough to dig up the grounds around Ms. Knowlton's childhood home, looking for evidence. They found nothing to tie George Knowlton to the crime. In 1995, Ms. Knowlton created a sub-genre as the first person to publish a book claiming that his or her own father committed the Black Dahlia murder. The book was written with veteran crime writer Michael Newton. In the book Ms. Knowlton, a former professional singer and owner of a public relations company, alleged that her father had been having an affair with Elizabeth Short and that Short was staying in a makeshift bedroom in their garage, where she suffered a miscarriage. Ms. Knowlton said she was later forced to accompany her father when he disposed of the body. Ms. Knowlton claimed that a former member of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department told her that George Knowlton was considered a suspect in the case by that agency, but this claim is unsupported by public documents that have since been released in the case. She claimed the same source told her that future LAPD chief and California politician Ed Davis and Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts were suspects in the murder as well. Janice Knowlton died of an overdose of prescription drugs in 2004, in what was deemed a suicide by the Orange County, California, coroner's office.


In a curious side note to her accusations against her father, Ms. Knowlton, who was a frequent contributor as jgk61 to various online forums where the Black Dahlia case was discussed, posted this article to a Usenet group in August 1998, in which she names Dr. George Hodel as a suspect in the case. George Hodel was the father of Steve Hodel, who published a book in 2003 naming his father as the killer. Ms. Knowlton's sister has since stated on amazon.com's web page for her sister's book, Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer, that after publication of Ms. Knowlton's book, Tamar Hodel, daughter of George Hodel and sister of Steve Hodel, contacted Ms. Knowlton and the two women remained "email pals for several years".


Ms. Knowlton also made claims prefiguring those of Black Dahlia Files author Donald Wolfe. In 1999, she claimed in various public fora that Norman Chandler participated in a cover-up of the murder. Ms. Knowlton claimed that on Halloween 1946 she was sold as a child prostitute to a Pasadena devil-worshiping sex cult at the age of 9 (Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer, Page 128). She frequently alleged that she was sold as a child prostitute to a long list of dead movie stars and other notables, including Norman Chandler, Gene Autry (whose name she continually misspelled as Autrey), Arthur Freed and Walt Disney. Knowlton became so abusive in her Usenet posts that Pacbell canceled her account in 1999.


Robert M. "Red" Manley


The last person seen with Elizabeth Short before her disappearance, Manley was the LAPD's top suspect in the first few days after killing. After two polygraph tests and a sworn alibi, Manley was set free. He also identified Short's handbag purse and one of her shoes after they were discovered in a trashcan on January 25, 1947, several miles from the murder scene. Manley, who had been discharged from the army due to mental disability, subsequently suffered a series of mental breakdowns resulting in his being committed to Patton State Hospital by his wife in 1954 after claiming to be hearing voices. He died on January 9, 1986.


Patrick S. O'Reilly


According to Los Angeles district attorney files, Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly was a medical doctor who knew Short through nightclub owner Mark Hansen. According to the files, at the time of the murder, O’Reilly was a good friend of Hansen and frequented Hansen's nightclub. Files also state that O'Reilly "attended sex parties at Malibu" with Hansen. O'Reilly had a history of serious, sexually motivated violent crime. He had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for "taking his secretary to a motel and sadistically beating her almost to death apparently for no other reason than to satisfy his sexual desires without intercourse," the files state. The files indicate that O'Reilly's right pectoral had been surgically removed, which investigators found similar to the mutilation of Short’s body. The files indicate that O'Reilly had once been married to the daughter of an LAPD captain.


Orson Welles


In her 1999 book, Mary Pacios, a former neighbor of the Short family in Medford, MA, suggested filmmaker Orson Welles as a suspect. Pacios bases this theory on such factors as Welles' volatile temperament and his obsession with cutting-in-half as indicated by the visual clues Pacios claims can be found in the crazy house set he designed for scenes that were later deleted from The Lady From Shanghai, a film Welles was making around the time of the murder. Pacios also cites the magic act Welles performed to entertain soldiers during World War II. She believes that the bi-section of the body was part of the killer's signature and an acting out of the perpetrator's obsession. Welles applied for his passport on January 24, 1947, the same date the killer mailed a packet to Los Angeles newspapers. Welles left the country for an extended stay in Europe ten months after the murder. According to Pacios, witnesses she has interviewed say that both Welles and the victim frequented Brittingham's restaurant in Los Angeles during the same time period. Welles was never a suspect in the original investigation. Pacios now maintains a web site containing a great deal of information and official documents about the Black Dahlia case, but only a short section on Welles' supposed involvement.


Jack Anderson Wilson (a.k.a. Arnold Smith)


Wilson was a life-long petty criminal and alcoholic who was interviewed by author John Gilmore while Gilmore was researching his book Severed. After Wilson's death, Gilmore named Wilson as a suspect due to his alleged acquaintance with Short. Prior to Wilson's death, however, Gilmore made an entirely different claim to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in a story appearing Jan. 17, 1982. While Severed says that homicide Detective John St. John was about to "close in" on Wilson based on the material Gilmore provided, St. John told the Herald-Examiner in the same article that he was busy with other killings and would review Gilmore's claims when he got time. As reliable sources of information about the case, such as the FBI files and portions of the Los Angeles district attorney files, have become publicly available, statements about Short and the murder attributed to Wilson in Severed and supposedly tying him to the crime have not been borne out as accurate. Severed also claims Wilson was involved in the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf. Severed, and many other sources based on Severed, erroneously claim that Short and Bauerdorf knew each other in Los Angeles, supposedly because they were both hostesses at the same nightclub. In reality, by the time Short arrived in Los Angeles in 1946, Bauerdorf had been dead for two years and the nightclub had been closed for a year. Wilson was never a suspect until Gilmore brought him to the attention of authorities.





Possible related murders


Some crime authors have speculated on a link between the Short murder and the Cleveland Torso Murders, also known as the Kingsbury Run Murders, which took place in Cleveland between 1934 and 1938.The original LAPD investigators examined this case in 1947 and discounted any relationship between the two, as they did with a large number of killings that occurred before and afterward, well into the 1950s.





Other crime authors have suggested a linkage between the Short murder and the 1945 murder of 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, who was also dismembered (and Short's body was discovered near Degnan Boulevard in Los Angeles). However, the so-called "Lipstick Killer" William Heirens confessed to the Degnan murder and was in jail when Short's body was discovered, although some have contended that Heirens was innocent of the Degnan murder.








Books, films and other media


A 1975 TV movie about the case, Who Is the Black Dahlia by Robert Lenski and starring Lucie Arnaz is a highly fictionalized version of the murder. Many details were changed because several people, including Short's mother and Red Manley, who brought Short from San Diego to Los Angeles, refused to sign releases for the studio.


John Gregory Dunne used the murder as a point of departure in his 1977 novel True Confessions, which was made into the 1981 film True Confessions starring Robert Duvall and Robert De Niro with a screenplay by Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion.


Neo-noir author James Ellroy based his 1987 book, The Black Dahlia on the crime. A film by Brian De Palma, The Black Dahlia, based on the Ellroy novel, stars Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner as Elizabeth Short, and was released in September 2006.


A 1988 episode of the TV detective thriller Hunter depicts Rick Hunter and Dee Dee McCall discovering a case similar to the Black Dahlia murder when a skeleton that has been cut in half is found during demolition of a building constructed in 1947. Hunter and McCall are joined by a retired detective who worked on the Elizabeth Short case. The murderer in the recent case turns out to be Short's murderer as well. (A disclaimer at the end of the episode explains that the Black Dahlia case remains open and unsolved on the books of the Los Angeles Police Department.)


Take 2 Interactive published the computer game, Black Dahlia, in 1998. The puzzle-based adventure game tied Elizabeth Short's murder to Nazis and occult rituals which the player had to investigate. The game features Dennis Hopper, whose son-in-law was one of the company's owners, and Teri Garr. It also ties the murder to the infamous Cleveland Torso Murderer, though the torso murders' case was altered to fit into the storyline.


Max Allan Collins combined the Black Dahlia and Cleveland Torso Murder in his Shamus Award-winning 2002 novel, Angel in Black, featuring his character, private investigator Nathan Heller.


In 2002, rock star and artist Marilyn Manson created a series of water color paintings based upon the murder.


Bob Belden's 2001 CD Black Dahlia draws inspiration from the case for a moody, noir score divided into 12 sections depicting her life, on a par with Jerry Goldsmith's score for Chinatown and David Shire's music for the film Farewell, My Lovely.


Musician Lisa Marr also mentions the Black Dahlia in her song "In California" from the album 4 AM. This song was later covered by her former Cub bandmate Neko Case.


The band The Black Dahlia Murder take their name from this infamous murder.


Lamb of God has a song entitled "The Black Dahlia" on their album New American Gospel.


The lead singer of The Dwarves uses the stage name "Blag Dahlia," likely named for The Black Dahlia.


William Randolph Fowler, a reporter at the scene of the crime, included the Black Dahlia case in his 1991 autobiography, "Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman."


A blog, 1947project, explores this and other crimes occurring in Los Angeles during the calendar years 1947 and 1907; the bloggers also lead monthly Crime Bus tours, including one focusing on the Black Dahlia case.


The case inspired the 1953 noir film The Blue Gardenia, including a title song sung by Nat King Cole.


The band Hollywood Undead has a song called, "My Black Dahlia."


American Thrash metal band Anthrax has a song entitled "Black Dahlia" on their album We've Come for You All.
Reply:fiction me thinks
Reply:The movie is based upon the book, that's based upon real facts.
Reply:There was an unsolved murder in England at the turn of the last century nicknamed "the black dahlia" but I dont know if the film is based on this or not.