A successful doctor living in an affluent area of 1940's Los Angeles, George Hodel became heavily involved with the emerging Hollywood scene, and would go on to develop a fascination for the darker side of Surrealism. He was known to enjoy the decadence surrounding that art scene, sharing a fondness for drinking, partying and womanising with others of the L.A social elite. Sinister rumours of corruption soon began to emerge, and Hodel was suspected of involvement in the death of his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, who was found dead in May 1945. With little evidence, he was never charged and her death would be one of many left unsolved in the City of Sin.
In 1949, he was accused of incestuous sexual abuse by his daughter Tamar, but after a widely publicized trial Hodel was acquitted of the charges. But the well-to-do doctor would gain lasting infamy for his suspected involvement in one of the most disturbing and high profile unsolved murders in American history, that of Elizabeth Short, who became known after her gruesome death in 1947, as the Black Dahlia. The brutal series of murders of numerous young women around the same time are strongly believed to have been linked in some way to the Black Dahlia slaying, which could point to George Hodel's involvement as one of the most prolific and elusive of serial murderers.
One of the chief suspects in the Black Dahlia murder case, George Hodel's candidature has been put forward by his own son, who believes him responsible for the death's of numerous people. Although he was strongly suspected of involvement in several murders during the 1940's, the Los Angeles Police Department had no evidence linking him to any of the many unsolved murders of women during that time. Steven Hodel believes his father responsible for many crimes and murders, including that of the Black Dahlia, the Lipstick Murders of Chicago, as well as being the infamous Zodiac Killer of San Francisco.
While there is mostly circumstantial evidence that connects him with some crimes, there is little that proves his guilt. In the sinister world of Los Angeles corruption, Dr. Hodel had many friends and acquaintances amongst the officers of the police department, local authority and Hollywood celebrities, who were both his friends and clients. Although he exuded an air of respectability, he undoubtedly harboured a dark side that was hinted at through his many alleged misdeeds.
Born on October 10, 1907, George Hill Hodel Jr. was raised in Los Angeles, California by his parents, George Sr. and Esther Hodel, who were of Russian Jewish ancestry. An only child, George was well educated and highly intelligent, becoming a musical prodigy and playing solo piano concerts at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium. He was an exceptional pianist, and Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff traveled to his parents' house to hear the boy play.
As a child he attended South Pasadena High School, where he graduated at age 15 and entered the prestigious California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. However, he was forced to leave the Caltech university after one year, owing to a sex scandal involving a professor's wife, though this is not the only account. It was revealed he had impregnated the woman and wanted to raise their child together, but she steadfastly refused. The woman's marriage collapsed as a result of her affair with Hodel. He entered into a common-law marriage with a woman named Emilia around 1928, and together they had a son, Duncan. This marriage did not last, and by the 1930's, he was legally married to Dorothy Anthony, a model from San Francisco, and had a daughter by her, named Tamar. In June 1932, Hodel graduated from Berkeley pre-med and immediately afterward enrolled in medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, from where he received his medical degree in June 1936. Once he established his medical practice, and garnered some success with his new business, Hodel became head of the county's Social Hygiene Bureau, and was soon moving in the more affluent circles of Los Angeles society during the 1940's.
He soon developed a fascination for the darker side of Surrealism and the decadence surrounding that art scene. He became friends with artists such as photographer Man Ray and film director John Huston, along with those who associated with them. With Ray and the other Surrealists, Hodel began to share an interest and explore aspects of sadomasochism, as well as the darker side of philosophy and art. Ray's photography had previously appeared in the Surrealist art magazine Documents, published in Paris from 1929 to 1930. These photographs had been sent to Michel Leiris who published them in Documents along with an essay article entitled 'Caput Mortuum' or the Alchemist's Wife. They depicted women in various scenarios involving bondage, with one wearing a leather mask and another of the American photographer Lee Miller, wearing a metal collar alongside another man. This was William Buehler Seabrook, an Occultist, explorer and journalist who sent the material to Leiris, and was known to engage with his wives and lovers in sadistic sexual practices. Along with Man Ray, Seabrook photographed these models in bondage predicaments in line with him sadomasochistic fantasies. This influence was later shared by Man Ray with his friends in Los Angeles, notably George Hodel and the artist Fred Sexton.
