Regardless of the truth, the upcoming TNT limited series I Am the Night has stoked the legend even further. “You can’t read anything about this case without someone throwing out that lazy line, ‘Oh, a Hollywood wannabe, a would-be actress, failed startlet.’ And she, as far as we’ve been able to determine, never expressed any interest in acting.
“The biggest myth is that she’s a starlet who failed to make it in Hollywood,” says Kim Cooper, who runs the popular, long-running Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour with husband and Esotouric business partner Richard Schave. There is also little to no evidence that the Massachusetts native vied for Hollywood stardom, as has been popularized in multiple accounts. The landscape Elizabeth Short navigated in the postwar city was desperate, crude, and precarious. Contrary to popular belief, the Black Dahlia’s Los Angeles was far from glamorous.
