The Real Story of Tamar Hodel from 'I Am the Night' Is Harrowing
In the event that you're looking for something (anything!!) that'll make Monday slightly more bearable, hello and welcome to I Am the Night. Not only does TNT's new thriller star your favorite Chris (Chris Pine, duh), it delves into one of Hollywood's most notorious crimes: the Black Dahlia murder.
You can procrastinate with a full run-down of the show over here, but in the meantime, here's a lil recap: I Am the Night centers on the true story of Fauna Hodel, a young woman who goes on a mission to find her birth family and discovers that her grandfather George Hodel might be the Black Dahlia killer. But we can't talk about Fauna Hodel without talking about Tamar Hodel-that's where this story truly begins.
Okay, So Who Was Tamar Hodel?
Tamar Hodel was Fauna Hodel's mother. She gave birth to Fauna in 1951 when she was 16 years old, but immediately gave her up for adoption. Two years before Fauna was even born, Tamar accused her father (George Hodel-the man who was later suspected of being the Black Dahlia killer) of molesting her. Because of Tamar's accusations, George was arrested and brought to court, but Tamar didn't get any justice. Per a Los Angeles Times article from 2003:
George Hodel's lawyer ran an all-out smear campaign against Tamar, calling her a promiscuous, incorrigible, pathological liar, and the physician was acquitted.
George was acquitted and, according to a book by Tamar's brother Steve, Tamar was sent to juvenile hall after the trial.
What Happened to Tamar?
There isn't a ton out there about Tamar's life, but a lot can be gleaned from a 2007 Vanity Fair article about her friend, the Mamas & the Papas band member Michelle Phillips.
Tamar spoke with Vanity Fair for the piece, which is how we know that she went on to have a child named Debbie, and that she married a folksinger named Stan Wilson. Here's how Michelle describes her:
Tamar was the epitome of glamour. She was someone who never got out of bed until two p.m., and she looked it. It was late afternoon, and she was dressed in a beautiful lavender suit with her hair in a beehive. I took one look and said, 'new best friend!'
Apparently, Tamar unofficially "adopted" Michelle as a teen, and they had a close, if somewhat strange, friendship. The article claims that Tamar provided Michelle with fake IDs and amphetamines ("so I could make it through a day of eighth grade after staying up all night with her," explained Michelle), introduced her to music, and even slept with Michelle's father. What's more, Tamar allegedly left her husband Stan Wilson when, as Vanity Fair put it, he "made the mistake of crawling into Michelle’s bed."
Note: The Vanity Fair piece does mention Tamar's accusations against her father, quoting her as saying, "When I was 11, my father taught me to perform oral sex on him. I was terrified, I was gagging, and I was embarrassed that I had 'failed' him." The piece also reveals that Tamar became pregnant with her dad's child (quote: "my father wanted me to have his baby") and that he hit her on the head with his pistol when she got an abortion. All of which is upsetting, to say the least.
Tamar Kept in Touch with Her Dad...Even After the Trial
This shocking update is also revealed in Vanity Fair, which reported that Tamar brought her father George to see Michelle perform with the Mamas & the Papas on the Ed Sullivan Show.
"If you’re abused, you stay emotionally a little girl until someone helps," explained Tamar. Michelle added, "He knew that I knew so much that he didn’t want me to know about, yet he stared at me without a flicker of guilt. He looked like he wanted to kill me-I was also his type!"
There Are Claims Tamar's Story Inspired 'Chinatown'
According to an extensive and fascinating article in DuJour's summer 2015 issue, actor Jack Nicholson dated Michelle, and she apparently told him Tamar's story. It allegedly made its way into the script for Chinatown, and get this-George's friend John Huston played the part of a father who rapes his daughter and makes her keep the baby.
The same DuJour article disturbingly claims Tamar exposed her own daughter Debbie to George's predatory ways. Read more about that here.
How Did Tamar's Story End?
DuJour reports that Tamar eventually moved to Hawaii with Debbie (who changed her name to Fauna-Elizabeth), and had three sons. Again, there's not too much information out there, but at the time of DuJour's article in 2015, she was 80 and in hospice care in Hawaii.
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