Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – January 15, 1947) was born in Boston's Hyde Park neighborhood, the third of five daughters of Cleo Alvin Short Jr. and Phoebe May Sawyer.[1] Her sisters were Virginia, Dorothea, Elnora, and Muriel. Her father, a Navy sailor from Virginia, built miniature golf courses until losing his savings in the 1929 stock market crash.[1]
In 1930, Cleo's abandoned car was found on the Charlestown Bridge, and the family assumed he had jumped into the Charles River. Elizabeth grew up believing her father was dead.[1]
As a child, she suffered from severe bronchitis and asthma. At age 15, she underwent lung surgery, and doctors recommended she spend winters in milder climates.
Her mother arranged for her to stay with family friends in Miami, Florida, for three consecutive winters.
Elizabeth dropped out of Medford High School during her sophomore year.[1] In late 1942, at age 18, she received a letter from her father — alive and living in California. She moved to Vallejo to live with him, but their reunion was short-lived; arguments led her to move out within weeks.[1] She briefly worked at Camp Cooke's Base Exchange near Lompoc before moving to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested in September 1943 for underage drinking.[1]
In Florida, Elizabeth met Major Matthew Michael Gordon Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer who proposed to her via letter while recovering from a plane crash in India.[1] Gordon was killed in a second crash on August 10, 1945, before they could marry.[1]
In July 1946, Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as a waitress and rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard.[1][2] She has been variously described as an aspiring actress, though she had no known acting jobs or credits.[1] During her last six months, she lived primarily in the Los Angeles area, moving between hotels, rooming houses, and the homes of acquaintances.
Elizabeth Short was 22 years old when her body was discovered on January 15, 1947, in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.[1] Her case, known as the "Black Dahlia" murder, remains one of the most infamous unsolved cases in American history. The nickname was attributed to local newspapers, possibly inspired by the 1946 film "The Blue Dahlia."[1]
