Author William J. Mann joins us for the launch of his book Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood, followed by a screening of Who Is the Black Dahlia? and an exclusive Q&A with Lucie Arnaz.
Step inside one of America’s most chilling unsolved mysteries with a rare film-and-book experience. The noir television classic Who Is the Black Dahlia?, starring Lucie Arnaz as Elizabeth Short, revisits the infamous 1947 murder that shocked Hollywood and the nation. Paired with launch of bestselling author William J. Mann’s Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood, which strips away decades of myth to reveal the real woman behind the legend, this immersive evening explores true crime, postwar America, and a mystery that still endures.
Who Is The Black Dahlia (1975)
Who Is the Black Dahlia? (1975) is a gripping television film that explores one of America’s most haunting true-crime mysteries: the unsolved murder of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short. Framed through the memories of the detectives who worked the case, the film blends noir atmosphere with investigative tension as it traces the discovery of Short’s brutally mutilated body in Los Angeles in 1947 and the media frenzy that followed. Leonard Maltin praised the film as “atmospheric… intriguingly written and well cast,” calling it an above-average crime drama.
Through a series of flashbacks, the film reconstructs Elizabeth Short’s life—her hopes of becoming an actress, her transient relationships, and the secrets that earned her the nickname “The Black Dahlia.” Starring Lucie Arnaz as Short and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Sergeant Harry Hansen, alongside Ronny Cox, Donna Mills, and Tom Bosley, this chilling dramatization captures both the human tragedy and the enduring mystery of a case that, decades later, still has no answers.
Black Dahlia (William J Mann)
Illuminating and captivating, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown and Bogart offers the first definitive account of the Black Dahlia murder—the most famous unsolved true crime case in American history—which humanizes the victim and situates the notorious case within an anxious, postwar country grappling with new ideas, demographics, and technologies.
The brutal murder of Elizabeth Short—better known as the Black Dahlia—in 1947 has been in the public consciousness for nearly eighty years, yet no serious study of the crime has ever been published.
Short has been mischaracterized as a wayward sex worker or vagabond, and—like the seductive femme fatales of film noir—responsible for and perhaps deserving of her fate. William J. Mann, however, is interested in the truth. His extensive research reveals her as a young woman with curiosity and drive, who leveraged what little agency postwar society gave her to explore the world, defying draconian postwar gender expectations to settle down, marry, and have children. It’s time to reexamine the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia.
Using a 21st-century lens, Mann connects Short’s story to the anxious era after World War II, when the nation was grappling with new ideas, new demographics, new technologies, and old fears dressed up as new ones. Only by situating the Black Dahlia case within this changing world can we understand the tragedy of this young woman, whose life and death offer surprising mirrors on today.
Mann has strong opinions on who might’ve killed her, and even stronger ones on who did not. He spent five years sifting through the evidence and has found unknown connections by cross-referencing police reports, District Attorney investigations, FBI files, court documents, military records, and more, using the deep, intense research skills that have become his trademark. He also spoke with the families of the original detectives, of Short’s friends, and even of suspects, and relied on advice from experienced physicians and homicide detectives.
Mann deftly sifts through the sensationalized journalism, preconceived notions, myths, and misunderstandings surrounding the case to uncover the truth about Elizabeth Short like no book before. The Black Dahlia promises to be the definitive study about the most famous unsolved case in American history.
