Van Doren reveals why she kept her close friendship with the tragic Short for “seventy-plus years” in her new memoir, “You Thought I Was Dead.”

Mamie Van Doren recalls ‘thrashing and crying’ after realizing friend Elizabeth Short was victim of Black Dahlia murder

Van Doren reveals why she kept her close friendship with the tragic Short for "seventy-plus years" in her new memoir, "You Thought I Was Dead."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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June 19, 2026 7:00 p.m. ET

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Mamie Van Doren and Elizabeth Short. Credit:

John Springer Collection/Corbis via getty; INTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO/Getty

- Mamie Van Doren is breaking her silence on her friendship with Elizabeth Short, the victim of the Black Dahlia murder.

- The classic Hollywood star details her close friendship with Short during her early years in Hollywood in her new memoir, *You Thought I Was Dead*.

- "Keep your mouth shut about all this. Don't mention to anyone that Elizabeth was your friend," Van Doren recalls her mother saying. "And for the next seventy-plus years I did not."

Mamie Van Doren, an icon of the end of Hollywood's Golden Age and its last living blonde bombshell, drops a bomb of her own in her new memoir, *You Thought I Was Dead*.

Amid scandalous tales of revolutionary love affairs and near-fatal oceanic voyages, Van Doren opens up about a heartbreaking loss she kept private for over 70 years — that of Elizabeth Short, the victim of the Black Dahlia murder.

After Van Doren and her mother, Lucille Harriet Bennett, learned their close confidante and Van Doren's co-worker at the Florentine Gardens nightclub in Los Angeles was the victim plastered across newspapers on Jan. 15, 1947, Bennett swore her daughter to a pact: "'Keep your mouth shut about all this. Don't mention to anyone that Elizabeth was your friend or that you even knew her. Someone might mention it to the police. They'd call you in for questioning, then maybe me, and the next thing you know our faces will be plastered all over the front pages.'"

Van Doren "promised that I wouldn't. And for the next seventy-plus years I did not." But now, she's ready to tell the full, tragic story.

A portrait of Elizabeth Short from the 1940s.

NTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO/Getty

Van Doren recalls meeting Short at the Florentine Gardens, a historic Hollywood nightclub that employed influential producer and director Nils Thor Granlund to oversee entertainment. NTG, as he called himself, scouted Van Doren at only 14 to appear in his Victory Girls Revue.

She writes in *You Thought I Was Dead*, "A pretty dark-haired waitress showed us to a small table in the back of the room. When we were seated, we got a good look at her and my jaw dropped. It was like looking at a copy of my mother. They both had hair piled on their heads in a high pompadour, set off with a white flower, and both wore bright red lipstick. Mom's hair was dyed coal black. The waitress' hair was a dark brown, and she was blessed with flawless, snowy white skin and eyes of ultramarine blue."

Van Doren's mother felt it was "like looking at myself," the actress writes. She then introduces herself to the waitress as the newest cast member of NTG's show. "'Oh, that's wonderful,' the dark-haired girl answered. 'My name's Elizabeth Short.'"

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"Elizabeth confided in her that she was trying to get into movies, but it was difficult to get noticed by an agent without new clothes. And getting new clothes was impossible without enough money. Her wages and tips from the Florentine Gardens were barely enough to keep her afloat," Van Doren writes.

The two became fast friends, seeing each other almost every night when they both clocked in for shifts at the Gardens. Van Doren confided in Short about distressing encounters with Granlund and a famous director friend of his that she only refers to as "Henry," while Short told Van Doren of her fiancé, Matthew Gordon, who was killed in WWII.

After a number of years passed, Short informed Van Doren of her intention to move to Hawaii. "'I've finally decided to be realistic about becoming a movie star... it ain’t gonna happen for me,'" Van Doren recalls Short explaining. "'We'll always be friends, Joanie. We'll write letters. And I'll come back to visit. And when you get to be a big movie star, you'll come visit me, and we'll paint the town.'"

The pair would never see each other again.

Mamie Van Doren in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2012.

Brian To/FilmMagic

"I heard the loud FLOP! as the *Los Angeles Daily News* hit our front doorstep. It was a cold morning, January 15, 1947," Van Doren writes. "The headline screamed: 'Young LA Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two'... Police described it as a 'sex fiend butcher murder [the] worst in the history of Los Angeles.'"

The *Untamed Youth* star remembers "the whole city was reeling. The murder was the only subject of conversation in barber shops and beauty salons, in diners and bars. The grisly details were the stuff of nightmares. I couldn't get them out of my mind. The next morning, I felt a sense of dread when the paper arrived, knowing that the murder would still be front page news. But when I unfolded the paper, I wasn't prepared for what I read."

It was Short's picture she saw before her name. "Dark hair, icy blue eyes, a flower tucked into her pompadour. She was smiling at the camera. Elizabeth Short. At first, I couldn't make sense of it. I wadded up the paper and threw it on the floor. I screamed, 'No! No!'" Van Doren recalls. "I couldn't talk. I could only scream. 'Elizabeth! Elizabeth was murdered! That picture of the girl cut in pieces — it was Elizabeth!' I collapsed on the floor sobbing uncontrollably. Somehow my mother got me into my bed. I was thrashing and crying, and I couldn't stop. Mother was trying to soothe me, but I was so deeply in hysterics, I couldn't hear her voice."

The gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short captivated not just Los Angeles, but the entire nation. Despite years that stretched into decades of investigative work, Short's killer was never identified, and her case has never been solved. The story has been adapted into books, series, and films numerous times, though never featuring her friend Mamie Van Doren. That secret was kept safe and sound, until now.

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