January 15, 1947: The Black Dahlia

January 15, 1947: Elizabeth Short is murdered in Los Angeles. A film titled The Blue Dahlia had recently been released, and, with her dark hair, she became posthumously known as "The Black Dahlia."

She was born in Boston on July 29, 1924, and grew up in nearby Medford, Massachusetts. She dropped out of high school and moved to Vallejo, California, in the East Bay region. She got in various forms of trouble, and moved around California frequently. World War II was on, and she got engaged to a U.S. Army Air Force officer, but he was shot down and killed before the wedding could be held.

By July 1946, she was living in Los Angeles, and had become that classic L.A. figure: A member of a restaurant's waitstaff, dreaming of making it as an actor. She was dating a married man, and on January 9, 1947, he dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel, where her sister was staying on a visit from Boston. She was never seen alive again.

Six days later, her body was found, on a vacant lot in an area that has since been considerably built up. The house now on the location has the address of 3831 South Norton Avenue. (It's a private residence, so, if you visit Los Angeles, leave them alone.) She was naked, and in two pieces, severed at the waist, with her mouth cut and widened, in what became known as a Chelsea grin or a Glasgow smile. And that's not even the most gruesome part, which I will spare you. The neighborhood woman who found her saw her in pieces, and first thought it was a discarded mannequin, before realizing to her horror what had happened, and calling the police.

She was only 22 years old, and, despite 150 people, including the married man she'd been dating, being interviewed as suspects, her murder has never been solved.

 

Not that novels and movies haven't tried: She was played by Lucie Arnaz in Who is the Black Dahlia? in 1975, Jessica Nelson in a 1988 episode of the NBC police drama Hunter, Mia Kirschner in The Black Dahlia in 2006, and Mena Suvari in American Horror Story in 2011.

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January 15, 1947 was a Wednesday. Comedian and actress Andrea Martin was born on this day.

Baseball and football were out of season. The Basketball Association of America was in its 1st season, and it would merged with the National Basketball League in 1949 to form the NBA. It scheduled 3 games for this day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Washington Capitols, 65-63 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Pittsburgh Ironmen beat the Providence Steamrollers, 65-53 at the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh. The Ironmen folded after this 1st season, and the most interesting thing about them is their best player was Press Maravich, later the father and college coach of Pistol Pete. The Steamrollers lasted until 1949, and remain the last major league sports team to play home games in Rhode Island, in any sport.

* And the Detroit Falcons beat the Chicago Stags, 68-59 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Falcons folded after this season, while the Stags lasted until 1950.

And the entire NHL, all of the "Original Six," were in action:

* The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden. That's right, the old Garden hosted basketball and hockey on the same day, a common occurrence from this season until it was replaced by the new Garden in 1968, which has often done it ever since.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-3 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. This would be a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals, which the Leafs also won.