Blogging the Wolfe Book, Pleas and Thank-Yous

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. Wolfe is using the “Laura” format in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.

In response to my decision to stop page-by-page coverage once I reach Elizabeth Short’s funeral, several people, including Mary Pacios and Regular Anonymous Correspondent, have urged me to continue this blog. Given the demands on my time—this blog takes several hours every day—it’s impossible for me to do the entire book, so I will take requests. Mary has already filed a long list of pages she’d like me to cover, including:

Pages 119, 121-122, 131, 167, 197-198, 218, 277, 278-281, 284, 296, 311

Fair enough.

Anybody else have specific pages? Send ’em in.

Page 90

You know, poor old Wolfe can’t get anything right. He publishes a photo of Phoebe Short on an airplane captioned “Phoebe Short arrives in Los Angeles,” when she has clearly boarded a plane for the trip to Oakland.

Hm. No source for the photo. That’s odd.

Now this is peculiar. Note that the photo is tacked to the wall in the picture of John Gilmore on the back cover of “Severed” and the page facing Page 139 of “Severed.”

I guess it’ll just be Wolfe’s little secret as to where he got that picture. It was published in the Los Angeles Herald-Express, Jan. 18, 1947, Page A-4, and is credited as a Herald-Express photo.

But if you want a copy, it’s in the Gilmore archives at UCLA, Box 15, Folder 1.

Time for another botched quote from Phoebe:

“Betty always wanted to be an actress. She was ambitious and beautiful and full of life, but she had her moments of despondency. She was gay and carefree one minute then blue and in the depth of despair the next…. She was a good girl. She wrote often—at least once a week. It was only two weeks ago that I received a letter from San Diego. I can’t imagine who did this dreadful thing. I’m anxious to do anything to help in tracking down the fiend.”

But wait! Hasn’t Wolfe been claiming all along that Elizabeth Short wrote to her mother that she was coming back to Los Angeles with Red Manley? That couldn’t have happened if the last letter arrived two weeks ago, could it?

Hm. The end notes, Holmes?

To be sure, Watson!

Los Angeles Examiner, Jan. 20, 1947.

Hum. Not there.

Well here’s the exact quote, from the Herald-Express of Jan. 18, 1947.

“Elizabeth always wanted to be an actress. She was ambitious and beautiful and full of life, but she had her moments of despondency. Sometimes she would be gay and carefree one moment—then in the depths of despair another.

“She has suffered from asthma since she was 10 and during the winters back home, she usually went south. She was a good girl. She wrote often; at least once a week. It was only 10 days ago when she wrote me from San Diego telling me she had a job in the naval hospital there. I never dreamed she was having financial difficulties. Her letters were always so cheerful.”

OK, so what about this:

“I can’t imagine who did this dreadful thing. I’m anxious to do anything to help in tracking down the fiend.”

That’s from the Examiner, Jan. 19, 1947:

“ The mother, Mrs. Phoebe May [Mae] Short, said she was anxious to do ‘anything to help in tracing down this fiend.’ ”

And finally, the Herald, Jan. 18, 1947:

“I can’t imagine who did this dreadful thing. If only I could get my hands on him….”

Whew! How’s that for a tortured ancestry for one quote?

Never shy about inserting himself into the Black Dahlia story, Will Fowler always claimed that the Examiner photo of Phoebe Short on Jan. 19, showed the back of his head. I don’t happen to have a reference photo of the back of Will’s head, but I’m skeptical.

Page 91

Now for the coroner’s office. I can already see this is going to be a doozy.

“Upon their [Phoebe, Adrian and Virginia West] arrival, Harry Hansen and Finis Brown escorted them to the morgue-viewing window [why on Earth is this hyphenated? It would more properly be “the morgue’s viewing window.” ReganBooks, the publishing house without proofreaders or fact-checkers], where they would have to identify the body that was lying on a gurney behind the glass.

“Phoebe gasped as the coroner’s aide pulled back the sheet and revealed her daughter’s mutilated face. There was a moment of stunned silence before Ginnie said, ‘I can’t tell, Momma, I don’t know.’

“Phoebe told Hansen that her daughter had a birthmark on her right shoulder that she could recognize. When the sheet was lowered, Phoebe and Ginnie started sobbing. No question—it was ‘Betty.’

“While Phoebe had been brave and resolute from the day she received the call from Richardson’s office, the sight of her daughter’s mutilated remains broke her heart, and she sobbed uncontrollably. Hansen escorted her to a chair and sat down beside her while trying to reassure her that he would do everything in his power to find the person who so brutally murdered Elizabeth. Phoebe wondered aloud why the newspapers and the police had painted such a bad picture of her daughter. ‘She was a good girl,’ Phoebe kept repeating over and over through her tears—‘She was a good girl!’ ”

Now isn’t this just so terribly maudlin?

Think any of it’s true?

Want to bet?

Source, please.

“Severed,” of course, Page 146.

“On the morning of January 22nd, she [Phoebe] returned to L.A. with Ginnie and her son-in-law. They were met at the airport and brought downtown to the Hall of Justice entrance to the morgue. Harry Hansen and [Finis] Brown were waiting.

“ ‘Harry wanted to talk to Mrs. Short personally,’ Brown says. They went to one side of the room, where Mrs. Short sat in a chair, and Harry pulled up another one and sat facing her, his back to the others, blocking their view of Mrs. Short.’

“She had been telling the detectives she objected to the newspaper stories, and was disappointed that the Examiner reporters—who had been so helpful at first—were saying that Betty seemed to be ‘not a very nice person.’

Snippage

“Hansen was notified by a deputy coroner, and he told Phoebe it was time for her to make the identification—it had to be done for the record. He escorted Phoebe to a waist-high window where venetian blinds were pulled up. The sheet-covered body was on a gurney directly behind the glass.

“Ginnie and her husband joined Phoebe at the glass as the attendant behind the window pulled down the sheet revealing the face.

“Phoebe and Ginnie stared at the face, which in death was still puffed and battered. Ginnie said, ‘I can’t tell, Mama. I don’t know….’ She turned to Hansen and asked if they could lower the sheet a little beneath the left shoulder.

“ ‘She had a beauty mark there,’ Phoebe said. Her voice was distant. The shoulder was bared and Ginnie made a sound. It was Betty.

“The family members were then escorted upstairs to a hearing room on the first floor of the Hall of Justice.”

But my dear Holmes! What about:

“While Phoebe had been brave and resolute from the day she received the call from Richardson’s office, the sight of her daughter’s mutilated remains broke her heart, and she sobbed uncontrollably. Hansen escorted her to a chair and sat down beside her while trying to reassure her that he would do everything in his power to find the person who so brutally murdered Elizabeth. Phoebe wondered aloud why the newspapers and the police had painted such a bad picture of her daughter. ‘She was a good girl,’ Phoebe kept repeating over and over through her tears—‘She was a good girl!’ ”

Not there, is it, Watson? Not a word of it.

Just for fun, Watson, old boy, let’s check the Examiner, shall we? Jan. 21, 1947.

Holmes! What’s this!

“Meantime after refusing to look at her daughter, Mrs. Phoebe Mae Short, who flew here from her home in Medford, Mass., finally asked morgue attendants to remove the sheet from the body.

“With Mrs. Short at the time was the slain girl’s sister, Virginia, now Mrs. Adrian West of Berkeley.

“Both mother and sister stoically contained their grief and emotions as they looked at the body. Said the mother, as she closed her eyes, “It looks like my daughter but I can’t be sure.”

“Mrs. West also ‘couldn’t be sure.’ ”

But what about:

‘She was a good girl,’ Phoebe kept repeating over and over through her tears—‘She was a good girl!’ ”

Offhand, Watson, I’d say that’s not how it happened.

And what about this birthmark stuff? Wolfe says the birthmark was on her right shoulder while “Severed” says it was on her left? I never knew birthmarks were migratory.

Now here’s the actual description of Jane Doe from the Herald, Jan. 16, 1947:

“One large wart center of back of neck and about even with shoulder line, two small warts one inch to the right of this, one small wart to right of the above about one-half inch higher. Two warts to left of midline of neck about on shoulder. One wart on back about one inch to the right of medial line. One large mole on left shoulder.”

But we’re not through, Watson. What’s in the district attorney’s files that Wolfe isn’t telling us? Remember that this book is called “The Black Dahlia Files” although it’s mostly a rehash of “Severed” and Will Fowler’s “Reporters.”

Ready? This is from the LAPD summary of the case, Page 8.

“Mrs. Short, in company with Adrian West and Mrs. West (sister and brother-in-law of the deceased) arrived in Los Angeles and they were requested to make the personal identification of the body. They went to the coroner’s office but returned shortly, stating they could not make the identification because the newspapers had insisted upon taking pictures of them while identifying the girl in the identification room of the coroner’s office. Later in the evening they were accompanied by Sgt. [Finis] Brown to the rear of the coroner’s office and they did make the identification without the presence of the newspaper photographers or reporters.”

In other words, Harry Hansen not only didn’t make a personal vow to Phoebe Short to find the killer, he wasn’t even there. Does that mean the scene in “Severed” is fictitious? That’s my call. As I keep saying, “Severed” is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction. It’s full of people who don’t exist and things that never happened.

Now look at the picture on Page 92 of Wolfe’s book of Phoebe, Virginia and Adrian West at the coroner’s office. That is a portrait of grief. Again, Wolfe doesn’t give a source for this picture. And just to prove that ReganBooks has no proofreaders, Adrian West is identified as “Charles.”

Remind me again how well-researched this book is. I keep forgetting.

That’s it for today.

Shout out to:

Microsoft Corp. (65.54.154.114)

Hurry back. And send in those requests.

Blogging the Wolfe Book, The Countdown Begins

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We are at the point in the story when police and reporters have discovered Elizabeth Short’s trunk and suitcases, events that occurred on separate days.

Note: I am now on Page 86 and will conclude this exercise whenever we get to Elizabeth Short’s funeral. I am roughly 25% through the book and have made whatever points I am going to make—and believe me, this tome is not going to suddenly mend its ways and become scholarly.

Thereafter, if someone wants to query about specific points in the book, I’ll entertain them.

OK, now get this:

Page 85

“To this day, the contents of Elizabeth Short’s luggage, checked at the Greyhound bus station on January 9, have never been disclosed to the press or the public.”

Page 86

“When the luggage was opened in the newspaper’s conference room, detectives and reporters scrutinized the memory books, which were found to contain dozens of photographs of Elizabeth in Miami, posing with a number of servicemen—including a four-star general.”

Now apparently statements like this do not cause intellectual whiplash to Wolfe’s editors, Cal Morgan and Anna Bliss. I have no idea what Morgan and Bliss did on Wolfe’s book, but I can tell you absolutely what they didn’t do.

Now where did Wolfe get this nonsense about the four-star general? That’s a new one on me.

Let’s check the end notes.

Ha. Nowhere. Completely unattributed. Tell me you’re surprised.

Aha. Wolfe puts some interesting material in a footnote.

“Some of the material found in Elizabeth Short’s lost luggage by the Examiner was returned to Phoebe Short, but many of the photos of Elizabeth ended up in the Examiner archive, which was donated to the Special Collections Department of the University of Southern California in 1988. Most of these photos vanished from the USC Library in the early 1990s and were eventually auctioned off on eBay in 2002.”

Some of Elizabeth Short’s photos were indeed auctioned off on eBay, but in 2003. The final price, which Wolfe does not disclose, was $7,611.11 paid by Steve Hodel, who published them in “Black Dahlia Avenger,” Page 515.

The eBay photos’ provenance is murky. The seller is a well-known enthusiast of antique motorcycles and says he found them in going through a massive collection of photos searching for pictures of old motorcycles. The seller claims that whoever had the photos didn’t know what they were. Presumably these photos were in the possession of an Examiner employee at some point, but it is unclear whether they were ever part of the USC archives, which holds much of the Examiner material, but has many holes in its collection.

For example, when the Examiner ceased publication in 1962, some material was transferred to the new Herald Examiner. When that ceased publication, the material was transferred to the Los Angeles Public Library, including some Black Dahlia photos now on library’s online database.

However, a large stack of Herald Examiner photos from the Black Dahlia case are in the John Gilmore collection at UCLA. I will leave it to others to explore their provenance. But look at the photo of Gilmore in the section of photos following Page 210 in Wolfe’s book to get an idea of the vast number in the Gilmore material at UCLA. Gilmore is sitting at a desk with the wall behind him plastered with Dahlia pictures. You can even see the news editors’ crop marks on the photos from where they were prepared for publication.

Did I mention that Gilmore dismisses this book as “crap” even though his book jacket blurb calls it “destined to become a true-crime classic. A must-read!”

I still don’t get that one.

Wolfe has several pages of Elizabeth Short’s love letters lifted from the newspapers. He makes an elementary mistake when he says Matt Gordon died in November 1945. It was in August 1945.

Page 89

Now this is interesting. After wallowing in the image of Elizabeth Short as a lazy tramp in San Diego, Wolfe uses Jim Richardson’s quote, which I cited earlier:

“She had been a pitiful wanderer, ricocheting from one cheap job to another and from one cheap man to another in a sad search for a good husband and a home and happiness. Not bad. Not good. Just lost and trying to find a way out. Every big city has hundreds just like her.”

Page 90

Wolfe claims that Richardson arranged Phoebe’s plane trip from Boston to Los Angeles. This has to be from Will Fowler. In reality, First Baptist Church of Medford paid the tab. Yep, Will Fowler’s “Reporters,” Page 84-85.

Let’s check his homework:

“Reporters,” Page 84-85

“Wrapping the story, the last paragraph said Mrs. Phoebe May [note: Mae] Short was expected to arrive in Los Angeles from Berkeley and that no date had been set for the coroner’s inquest.

“Footnote: The Examiner had already met Phoebe in Los Angeles earlier, before she flew up to Berkeley to be with her sister, Mrs. Adrian West. [Of course that’s Elizabeth Short’s sister, not Phoebe’s sister.]”

Nothing about the Examiner arranging Phoebe’s flight to Los Angeles, although that was one of Will’s many claims—he also said the Examiner hid Phoebe from other reporters when in fact she was in Berkeley with her oldest daughter. As I keep saying three of the most frightening words in the English language are: “Will Fowler remembers.”

Page 91

Oh you must be kidding!

“When Phoebe returned to Los Angeles, accompanied by Virginia and her husband, Adrian, they were met at the airport by Examiner reporters, who drove them to the coroner’s office at the Hall of Justice.”

Where on Earth did Wolfe get that? Will?

To the end notes, Watson! And hurry!

Why my dear Holmes! John Gilmore’s “Severed,” Page 146.

To the haz-mat pile of Dahlia books, Watson.

Hum. As we’re switching books, do you wonder why Wolfe would use “Severed” over someone who actually worked for the Examiner—granted Will Fowler is not exactly the soul of veracity but I don’t think that’s a major issue for this opus.

Now before I tell you, guess what “Severed” says.

Go ahead.

I’ll wait.

Think it’s all about how the Examiner reporters took Phoebe, Virginia and Adrian to the coroner’s office? I mean that is what Wolfe says, right?

“Severed,” Page 146.

“On the morning of January 22nd, she [Phoebe] returned to L.A. with Ginnie and her son-in-law. They were met at the airport and brought downtown to the Hall of Justice entrance to the morgue. Harry Hansen and Brown were waiting.”

But Holmes! There’s not a word about Examiner reporters!

Not a word, Watson.

Time for a walk.

Remember, we’re counting down to Elizabeth Short’s funeral. That’s when I stop.

Shout out to:

Ljubljana, Slovenia (193.77.78.234)

Caltech (131.215.192.127)

Pittsylvania County, Va., Public Schools (216.146.50.3)

Spotsylvania County, Va., School Board (205.174.123.52)

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Lines of History

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We’re at the point in the story when police have questioned Robert M. “ Red” Manley, the last person known to have been with Elizabeth Short.

I took another vacation from the Dahlia to attend a lecture at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens by Terrence Roberts, one of the “Little Rock Nine.”

During his presentation, Roberts noted that there is no concrete dividing line between what is the present and what is history; it’s continuous. A lo-fi version of his lecture is here.

Page 84

This chapter is titled “Inquest,” so presumably Wolfe will be dealing with the public hearing on Elizabeth Short’s murder.

Well this is interesting:

“Although Capt. Donahoe expressed confidence that the LAPD had apprehended the Black Dahlia killer, Harry Hansen became convinced that Robert “Red” Manley had not attended the ‘sacred setting.’ ” [This is a reference to some malarkey in John Gilmore’s “Severed” attributed to Hansen about the murder scene being a “sacred setting” between killer and victim. As I have noted, although Wolfe’s book is called “The Black Dahlia Files,” it relies mostly on Will Fowler’s “Reporters,” “Severed” and the Los Angeles Examiner. A statistical study shows that 50% of the book is drawn from those sources. The district attorney’s files account for a mere 8% of the book.]

Now I don’t recall Donahoe ever saying that he was sure Manley was the killer; Donahoe was a smart, experienced investigator, although he was more at home handling robbers rather than homicides.

Attribution? Are you kidding? Zero.

Page 84-85

Oh boy, this is going to be fun!

One of the more confusing aspects of the Dahlia case involves Elizabeth Short’s luggage and a steamer trunk. Although these are frequently fused into one entity, there were actually two sets of luggage. The first was a large steamer trunk that got misplaced after she sent it from Indianapolis, Ind., to Chicago. The trunk ultimately ended up at the Railway Express office in Los Angeles. There was also a set of suitcases that she had with her and which Red checked at the Greyhound bus station.

Remember that three of the most frightening words in the English language are: “Will Fowler remembers.” So who is Wolfe’s source for this section of the “Black Dahlia Files?” Will Fowler, of course.

“After an exhaustive search, police investigators and Examiner reporters succeeded in finding the luggage that Red Manley insisted Elizabeth Short had checked at the Greyhound bus station on January 9. However, it was quickly confiscated by Capt. Donahoe. Up to that time, newspaper coverage of the Dahlia case had been pictorially weak. There was only the one police mugshot of Elizabeth Short and the press had to resort to artist renderings, along with the usual X marks the spot diagrams to illustrate the crime. Richardson implored Donahoe to allow photographs to be taken of the contents of the murder victim’s luggage, but Donahoe refused, stating that the contents were ‘dynamite’ and were being held in evidence. To this day, the contents of Elizabeth Short’s luggage, checked at the Greyhound bus station on January 9, have never been disclosed to the press or the public.”

If you aren’t up on the Dahlia case, you won’t realize precisely how badly this is done. But to anybody who knows the story, this is hilarious. Without looking, I’m going to guess this is more of Will’s nonsense. Let’s see.

Oh, worse than I thought. Jim Richardson’s “For the Life of Me.” Allegedly Page 305.

To the haz-mat pile, Watson!

Proving once again that Wolfe isn’t the least bit shy about citing a source and then completely contradicting it, we have Richardson’s account (too long to quote here) of finding the trunk and dictating terms to Donahoe.

Here’s a snip:

“We got the trunk but I had to call in the police to get it. The company wouldn’t turn it over to the reporter. I called Jack Donahue [Donahoe’s name is quite a challenge for many writers], chief of the homicide squad.

“ ‘If I tell you where you can find the Dahlia’s trunk, will you agree to bring it to the Examiner and open it here?’ I asked.

“ ‘Look, Jim’ he said. ‘If I do that every other paper in town will be after my scalp. Don’t put me on the spot like that. You’ve caused me enough goddam trouble the way it is with all those stories you’ve been breaking.’

“ ‘You want the trunk, don’t you?’ I said. ‘No deal, no trunk.’

“Jack actually moaned. I could hear it.”
Notice that this is, correctly, her trunk, which was found by Jan. 17, when the first photos from it were published in the Herald-Express. Recall that Elizabeth Short hadn’t been identified until that morning’s Examiner and Los Angeles Times, so rather than being “pictorially weak,” the newspapers got photos immediately.

The luggage from the bus station, meanwhile, wasn’t recovered until Jan. 19, 1947.

This is my favorite part:

To this day, the contents of Elizabeth Short’s luggage, checked at the Greyhound bus station on January 9, have never been disclosed to the press or the public.”

Please note the three-column photo on Part 1, Page 2, of the Los Angeles Examiner in which fingerprint technician George Wheeler, left, and Lt. William Cummings are going through Elizabeth Short’s suitcases.

Did I mention there’s a story with the photo?

The headline?

Examiner Scores Third Break in Case

“Discovery last night of missing luggage belonging to Elizabeth Short, mutilation murder victim, was the third important break in the case resulting from investigation by Examiner reporters.”

Or even better, look at the photo in Wolfe’s own book, in the section of photos following Page 114, of Ray Giese going through one of Elizabeth Short’s scrapbooks. Obviously Wolfe is incapable of seeing what’s in front of him.

Oops.

This is even funnier:

“Fowler remembers searching a number of Railway Express offices, freight depots and train and bus stations before finding Elizabeth Short’s lost luggage in the storeroom of a Railway Express agency in downtown Los Angeles. ‘The luggage turned out to be a suitcase and some bags—not a trunk,’ Fowler recalled, ‘but sure enough the memory books were inside. After that the Black Dahlia case became the best-illustrated crime story in newspaper history. And it all emanated from the Examiner.’ ”

As I said, three of the most frightening words in the English language are: “Will Fowler remembers.”

How does Wolfe handle this?

“Before this new cache of information hit the headlines, Richardson gleefully called Capt. Donahoe and said, ‘You’re welcome to the luggage we found, Donahoe, but I want it understood that the story is ours exclusively.’ And Richardson laid down the conditions that the LAPD detectives would have to come to the Examiner offices, where the luggage was to be opened and examined. ‘Donahoe blew a fuse,’ Fowler recalled. ‘But what could he do? If Donahoe refused to cooperate, Richardson told him he’d just have to damn well read about the contents of Beth Short’s luggage and the progress of the case in the Examiner.’ ”

Now recall that Will claimed he was present when Red was arrested in Eagle Rock. Also recall that the luggage was found at the same. How on earth Will could be looking for luggage, witnessing the arrest of Red Manley in Eagle Rock and be at the Examiner office to observe the opening of the suitcases is beyond me.

Now just for fun, let’s check in with the haz-mat pile. Where’s “Severed?” Aha. Note the picture of Detective Sam Flowers examining Elizabeth Short’s scrapbooks in the section of photos following Page 138.

“Severed,” Page 138

“Beth’s trunk was opened officially, revealing clothes, photo albums and dozens of letters going back over the past few years.” Unfortunately, “Severed” isn’t indexed and it’s torture to leaf through all this nonsense, so I’ll pass on finding the passage on the suitcases.

Time for my walk

Shout out to:

Fema (71.252.64.8)

State of Alaska (146.63.141.61)

General Electric (3.209.129.190)

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, The Lady in Red

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is discovered and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We’re at the point in the story when police are questioning Robert M. “Red” Manley, the last person known to have been seen with Elizabeth Short.

I took a holiday from the Dahlia last night to attend a lecture at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens by Elliott Gorn on John Dillinger. Given the pouring rain, it was a fairly small crowd, but we were rewarded with an interesting portrait of the famous Depression-era bank robber. Gorn’s lecture was quite a change of pace from the Huntington’s usual fare, especially the long discourse on the myths about what precisely is (and is not) in the Dillinger archives at the Smithsonian.

For those who are interested, here’s a lo-fi version of Gorn’s presentation.

Page 81-82

Wolfe is in the middle of lifting Aggie Underwood’s jailhouse interview with Red. Recall that Wolfe offered a snippet from the material in the district attorney’s files, merging a quote from Page 3 with a quote from Page 6 without warning.

Oh, that confusing California geography.

“The Greyhound bus station was on Sixth and Los Angeles Street—just four blocks from the stately Biltmore, a fashionable luxury hotel on Olive between Fifth and Sixth Streets that had been built in 1929 by Harry Chandler and a group of wealthy Los Angeles businessmen.”

Here’s the Google map (note that Google takes account of the one-way streets in planning the route).

Now maybe it’s the aging process, but I don’t recall hearing anything about Harry Chandler when I took the L.A. Conservancy’s tour of the Biltmore. (A fine tour it is, and I highly recommend it. I’m a member of the L.A. Conservancy and a big fan of its “Last Remaining Seats” movie series).

The end notes, Holmes?

Lead on, Watson.

But my dear Holmes!

Yes, yes, Watson, I know. No attribution.

Just for fun let’s see if Harry Chandler had anything to do with the Biltmore.

Of course, Wolfe is entirely wrong in saying that the Biltmore opened in 1929. It actually opened in 1923 (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 1923). Even the simplest of facts seem to be very slippery things for Wolfe. Remind me again how well-researched this book is, will you?

Now what about the Harry Chandler connection? I mean I really don’t want to get derailed into the complicated financing behind construction of the Biltmore. Ah. Apparently Harry Chandler was among a raft of people involved in the Biltmore.

Next, another straight lift from the Underwood interview.

Hm. What’s this?

“As Manley walked toward the Olive Street door, he glanced back to wave at Elizabeth, but she had already turned and was talking to the clerk at the tobacco stand and getting telephone change. She was still standing there when Robert ‘Red’ Manley exited the hotel at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 9, 1947.”

Now isn’t that just too, too interesting. Red turned to wave but she was getting “telephone change.” That, presumably, would be change for the pay phone. I’ve never read a word about Red turning to wave and I’ve been through the original material fairly closely. It’s certainly not in Underwood’s jailhouse interview with Red, nor in any other original source. So where does Wolfe get it?

My dear Holmes! Why, there’s no attribution whatsoever!

It appears, Watson, that our friend Mr. Wolfe has an extremely active imagination.

Let’s compare:

Page 82


“ ‘That is the last time I ever saw Miss Short,’ Manley told Aggie Underwood. ‘I’ll take truth serum or anything they want to give me. And I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, and tell my minister, too—that was the last time I saw Beth Short. I did not kill her!’”





Herald-Express, Jan. 20, 1947

“That is the last time I ever saw Betty Short. I’ll take the truth serum or anything they want to give me. And I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles and tell my minister too that was the last time I ever saw Betty Short. I did not kill her.
“But brother I’ll never cheat on my wife again!”

Note that Wolfe drops the important last line of the interview and note the discrepancy between “Miss Short” and “Betty Short”; and “Beth Short” and “Betty Short.” Now whom do we know who refers to Elizabeth Short as Beth?

Hm. Wolfe attributes this to the Herald interview. Let’s check John Gilmore’s “Severed,” which is unique in referring to Elizabeth Short as Beth.

Well isn’t this just too interesting:

“Severed,” Page 117

“She [Elizabeth Short] was just looking at him—smiling at him. Her eyes looked very clear and blue and they seemed to be shining. He [Red Manley] said, ‘Well…all right,’ and told her she could send him a letter at the business address and let him know where she was going to be. She said she would do that and he turned around and headed for the Olive Street door. He glanced back to wave to her, but she was talking to the cashier at the cigar stand. She handed him a dollar and he returned some change. She was still standing there when Red left the hotel.”

It is a continuing mystery how Gilmore can call this book “crap” when so much of it is based on his own work. Of course he also called it a “destined to become true crime classic.” I guess he’s got all the bases covered that way.

Hm. “Severed” isn’t indexed and I can’t find Underwood’s jailhouse interview with Red. I don’t want to spend more time poking through the nonsense in “Severed,” so let’s press on. I want to finish this chapter today. Maybe the “Miss Short” and “Beth” thing is simply Wolfe’s error. Lord knows they wouldn’t be his first.

“Biltmore Hotel employees recalled noticing Elizabeth Short in the lobby and the ladies room attendant remembered seeing her at the ladies’ room mirror, where she had lit a paraffin candle and applied the melted paraffin to her teeth.”

This has to be pure Wolfe. Nobody else is quite so wordy (“a ladies room attendant remembered seeing her at the ladies’ room mirror”? “she had lit a paraffin candle and applied the melted paraffin”? Cal Morgan, Anna Bliss or some other editor at ReganBooks was taking a nap to let that get through).

As I recall, there was speculation that Elizabeth Short might have put wax on her teeth in a Biltmore restroom, but nobody saw her do it.

“Bellboy Captain Harold Studholme told the police that he saw her make several telephone calls and wait in a chair near the Bell Station for some time before crossing the lobby and walking out of the Olive Street door at about 10:00 p.m.—approximately three-and-a-half hours after her arrival. The doorman remembered greeting her as she exited the hotel and walked toward Sixth Street before vanishing into the night.”

Now this is what’s actually in the district attorney’s files, from the LAPD summary of the case:

“She was observed alone by employees of the Biltmore until approximately 10 p.m. Jan. 9. Mr. Studholme of the Biltmore Hotel stated that he observed the girl get up from the lobby as if she had been signaled by someone on the outside and walk out of the Olive Street entrance. He last saw her walking south toward 6th Street on Olive, on the west side of the street. Investigators were unable to determine whether she made a phone call while there or not, but witnesses state they observed her on several occasions go toward the telephone booths.”

And there’s nothing in the district attorney’s files about the fictitious noble doorman tipping his hat as Elizabeth Short went out into the night. In fact, the noble doorman was concocted by Jack Webb in “The Badge” as a way to write the Black Dahlia out of the picture.

Time for my walk.

Shout out to:

Nebraska State College Board (198.133.245.253)

Tennessee Board of Regents (198.146.213.139)

Rutgers University (204.52.215.12)

University of Windsor (137.207.132.38)

France (193.47.80.87) What’s this? Using Linux and a browser called Konqueror 3.4?? Tiens!

Princess Rajah

I don't want to say anything to spoil the surprise. Another snip of film from Edison, c. 1904.

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Evil Genius

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We are at the point in the story when police have detained Robert M. “Red” Manley, the last person known to have been with Elizabeth Short.

Regular Anonymous Correspondent submitted a comment yesterday about an appearance at the Pompidou Centre by Steve Hodel, author of “Black Dahlia Avenger.” Now really, can’t we all just try to be happy for Steve Hodel? Obviously, his book is junk, but if the French want to spend money to bring him over and listen to his mumbo-jumbo about “flashing red lights” and “thought prints,” more power to him. What do you expect from a nation that considers Jerry Lewis a comic genius?

In truth, I would be far more indulgent of the ridiculous claims of “Black Dahlia Avenger,” “Mogul” and “Severed” to name but a few, if they didn’t inflict uncountable grief on the loved ones of Elizabeth Short—as well as the rest of the Hodel family (“Avenger” was written in total secrecy, remember. Even relatives didn’t know), along with the survivors of George Hodel’s alleged co-conspirators.

In reality, George Hodel’s worst crime was to bring children into the world and abandon them to his ex-wife, a hopeless alcoholic who went to jail for neglecting her kids, instead of gaining custody and ensuring that they had a safe and nurturing home. And that, in my book, is not a trivial offense.

Page 76

Wolfe is in the middle of fabricating a little romantic interlude between Elizabeth Short and Red Manley at the Mecca Motel. Attributed to nobody. This is more or less a lift from Aggie Underwood’s well-published jailhouse interview with Red, so I’m going to press on.

Page 78

A couple of major and minor errors. Wolfe says that Elizabeth Short wrote her mother that she was driving back to Los Angeles with Red. Recall that Phoebe Short told Wain Sutton of the Examiner that as far as she knew Elizabeth Short was still in San Diego. Source: None.

“As observed by Forrest Faith, the Frenches’ neighbor across the street, Manley parked his tan Studebaker coupe in front of the Frenches’ residence in the late afternoon of January 8.”

1. Faith lived next door. 2) The Studebaker was black, as shown in the Los Angeles Times photographs.

OK, more of a lift from the Underwood interview and Red’s interrogation by Frank Jemison of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office—which Wolfe continues to call the Los Angeles district attorney. I wish he could sort out the difference between city and county agencies, it isn’t brain surgery.

Ah-ha. Finally, Wolfe is going to quote something from the district attorney’s files. You think you’re going to get it straight without lots of snipping and deletions?

Nope.

Wolfe ruthlessly trims Red’s statement. It’s too long to quote here, but this is a sample:

Page 80

Jemison: During the course of your conversation with her, during that five or six hours when you were driving to Los Angeles … what did you talk about?

Manley: Things we talked about were so unimportant, I don’t even remember them. In fact, she talked very little on the way to Los Angeles. I don’t know what was the matter with her. I don’t know if she was worried about something or what.

Note the telltale ellipses. That’s your warning sign.

Here’s the actual interchange, from Page 3 of the interrogation:

Jemison: During the course of your conversations with her, during that five or six hours when you were coming to Los Angeles, did she speak about how she liked to go dancing or that she liked to go dancing?

Manley: Oh yes, she liked to dance, alright. Things we talked about were so unimportant I don’t even remember them. She didn’t talk much on the way in. I don’t know if she was worried about something or what.

And what does Wolfe do without warning? He jumps to Page 6 of the interview for the next paragraph without telling the reader.

And that’s it for the Manley’s entire interrogation, which last 12 pages.

Oops.

Page 81

“In his Herald Express interview with Aggie Underwood, Manley said it was in Laguna that Elizabeth told him that she had to make a phone call to somebody in Los Angeles. He waited in the car until she returned. Manley stated he didn’t know who [note to ReganBooks, the publishing house without proofreaders or fact-checkers, that should be “whom”] the call was to, but thought it may have been to her sister, Mrs. Adrian West (Ginnie), who [ReganBooks: whom] Elizabeth said she was supposed to meet in L.A.”

Holmes, shall we check some end notes?

Yes, Watson, lets.

District attorney’s files and Underwood’s interview.

Let’s pull Underwood’s interview, shall we?

“Then we drove to Laguna Beach. There we stopped and got gas. En route she asked whether she could write to me. She said she was going to meet her sister from Berkeley, Mrs. Adrian West.”

My dear Holmes! There’s nothing about a telephone call from Laguna Beach!

Precisely, Watson. This is bad business all around. Very bad business indeed.

Want to see some more fabrication in action? Here we go:

Page 81

“I asked where she [Elizabeth] was going to meet her [Virginia West] and she said, ‘The Biltmore Hotel.’ …. When we got into Los Angeles, she wanted me to take her to the Greyhound bus station so she could check her bags before she met her sister. I drove her to the bus station and carried her bags in. I had to go out to move my car, but told her I would drive around and pick her up and take her to the Biltmore.”

Note the telltale ellipses. That should be your warning. Here’s the actual interview:

“I asked where she was going to meet her, and without waiting for her to answer I said ‘the Biltmore’? and she answered yes.

“She wrote my name and business address in her notebook so she could write to me.

“When we got in to Los Angeles she wanted me to take her to the Greyhound Bus Station so she could check her bags before she met her sister. I drove her to the Greyhound Bus Station and carried her bags in. I had to go out to move my car, but told her I would drive around and pick her up and take her to the Biltmore. I didn’t want to leave her in that neighborhood.”

I swear, the man is absolutely incapable of reading what’s in front of him.

Shout out to:

Istanbul, Turkey (85.97.33.46)

TV Guide (144.198.2.240)

Regular reader in Kerkira, Greece (213.80.115.71)

My pals at Dark Horse Comics (70.96.128.8)

Regular reader at Cambrex Corp. (216.83.185.164)

OS breakdown:

Some flavor of Windows 87%

Mac OS X 11%

Unknown 2%

66% are using some flavor of Firefox.

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Tell It to the Marines

I’m blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is discovered and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. We are at the point in the story when police are questioning Robert M. “Red” Manley, a traveling salesman who gave Elizabeth Short a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles in January 1947.

The two-minute executive summary:

We have seen that although this book is titled “The Black Dahlia Files” half of it is taken from Will Fowler’s “Reporters,” John Gilmore’s “Severed” and the Los Angeles Examiner. The district attorney’s files account for 8% of the book so far. In relying on “Severed,” Wolfe picks up and embellishes Gilmore’s ruthless smear of Elizabeth Short as a lazy tramp. Wolfe also reduces the vast number of detectives working the case to three: Homicide Capt. Jack Donahoe and Detectives Harry Hansen and Finis Brown, forcing them to be supposedly be in San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Lompoc at the same time. A neat trick, you must agree.

In addition, “Mogul” shows once again that Wolfe isn’t shy about citing a source and then contradicting it completely, in this case the account of retired Officer Vincent A. Carter. Wolfe states that according to Carter, Red admitted having an affair with Elizabeth Short, while Carter’s own book states the exact opposite.

A regular correspondent writes to share a news release on an upcoming appearance by “Black Dahlia Avenger” author Steve Hodel at the Centre Pompidou. I don’t think anyone has ever accused the French of lacking a sense of humor.

Page 75

Wolfe is doing what Raymond Chandler used to call “passage work” in covering Red’s background and Elizabeth Short’s fairytales to the people who befriended her that Red was a Marine pilot. Then he picks up more of Aggie Underwood’s jailhouse interview with Red.

But not so fast. Wolfe attributes the Red Manley material to the district attorney’s files. Here’s his exact citation: “Manley’s service record and the notations regarding his ‘Section Eight’ are included in the Black Dahlia Case files at the office of the Los Angeles District Attorney.”

I really wish Wolfe could sort out the various agencies in play here. The district attorney is an elected officer for Los Angeles County and Wolfe keeps treating the job as if it were part of the city of Los Angeles bureaucracy. That would be the city attorney, another elective office.

But the real humor, of course, is that Wolfe’s citation leads to two boxes of jumbled paper. Somewhere in there, supposedly, is Red’s service record and material about his discharge from the Army for being mentally unfit.

Let’s go pull the box of district attorney’s files in the Dahlia case and see what we’ve got, eh?

Now I can tell you before I even look, that Red’s Army records (when he enlisted, when he was discharged, evaluations, etc.) are not there. There is a transcript of his interrogation by Frank Jemsion of the district attorney’s office, conducted Feb. 1, 1950, but there’s nothing about his service record in it.

Hm. Nothing about Red’s Army record in the LAPD summary of the case.

Let’s keep looking. Well, how about the list of 22 suspects?

Nope.

Let me check my index of the district attorney’s files.

Guess what.

Nada.

The truth is I could spend an entire day digging through these files and might still come up empty-handed. The point being that the material on Red’s service record isn’t in the main places you’d look: His interview, the LAPD summary and the list of suspects (in fact, in the interrogation, Jemison goes out of his way to emphasize that Red was not a suspect).

Now let me skip over some of the Underwood interview to get to:

Page 76

Because Wolfe is going to fabricate out of thin air, a tryst between Red and Elizabeth Short at the Mecca Motel.

OK, folks, watch a master fabricator at work. If you ever want to know how to make up some bogus material, this is how it’s done:

“At this point Manley hesitated in his story. Correcting himself, he said, ‘No—we started to drive to the Club, and it took us two and a half or three hours to find it… Boy it’s sure easy to get lost in San Diego!’ ”

That’s verbatim from Underwood’s interview, except that she didn’t capitalize “club.” A point apparently lost on ReganBooks, the publishing house without proofreaders or fact-checkers.

Ready? Here we go!

“Before correcting himself, Manley may have been about to say that they left and tried to find a motel. Though Manley told Aggie that he had left Elizabeth Short at the Frenches, and then found a ‘room’ up the coast, and registered ‘for myself,’ the Examiner reporters had discovered that both Manley and Elizabeth Short had registered at the Mecca Motel on the day in question—December 16. The ‘two and a half or three hours’ supposedly spent trying to find the Hacienda Club were more than likely spent at the motel where they had both registered before going to the club, which was only a fifteen-minute drive from the French residence in Pacific Beach and only ten minutes from the Hacienda Club. Manley continued: ‘When we got to the Hacienda Club, we had a few drinks and danced a few times. Then it was twelve o’clock. We went to a drive-in, had a sandwich, and I took her home.’ ”

Notice that this makes no sense. Let’s run that again:

The ‘two and a half or three hours’ supposedly spent trying to find the Hacienda Club were more than likely spent at the motel where they had both registered before going to the club, which was only a fifteen-minute drive from the French residence in Pacific Beach and only ten minutes from the Hacienda Club.

In other words, the nightclub is only 10 minutes from itself. OK California geography can be complex, but not that complex. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume (or “speculate with confidence” as Hodel is so fond of saying) that Wolfe means the motel was 15 minutes from the Frenches’ home and 10 minutes from the Hacienda Club.

Of course, for this to work, Wolfe must have found the Hacienda Club. Think so? Let’s dig through the book and see if he says where it is. I’ll bet he doesn’t know.

Nope. Wolfe hasn’t a clue where the club was. In truth, the reason Red had such a hard time finding the club is because it wasn’t anywhere near Mission Valley.

Oops.

But there’s more.

Red didn’t stay at the Mecca Motel on the December trip, but on his second trip in January.

Excuse me? What’s my source? It’s an unidentified newspaper clipping in the Gilmore archives at UCLA. Box 16, Folder 3.

Here’s the headline:

‘Red’ Here Night Girl Slain. L.A. Police Checking His Alibi.

Tell them I sent you.

And here’s something really peculiar. Gilmore doesn’t even use his own material (“Severed,” Page 106).

Time for my walk.

Shout out to:

Riverdale, Ill. (12.100.216.67)

Salem, Ore. (67.166.94.152)

France (80.124.192.14) (Tiens! Going to the Hodel appearance?)

Windows 98 user in Portland, Ore. (24.21.137.251) Upgrade!

Hurry back!