CRIME novelist James Ellroy is hosting a new television show that goes up Wednesday night. He’s both perfect for this — who’s written about crime in the Southland better than Ellroy? (All due respect to Ross Macdonald, Robert Crais, and a few others.) But his manic intensity also makes him a strange fit for television — he can be a bit too much onscreen.
The show looks at both classic LA murders — the Black Dahlia, Ellroy’s mother’s slaying — as well as more recent stuff. Much of it it familiar to Angelenos. The busload of TV journalists I rode through town with on a chartered bus — Ellroy ranted and raved up front — were mostly spellbound by the mad dog. Here is my full story.
Some highlights from the tour:
“I am nothing if not a right-wing, LAPD apologist.”
“The twin influences on my childhood were Confidential and the Lutheran church.”
Finally, on the Ronnie Chasen murder:
“Somebody will rat somebody out for it… It will be an astonishingly prosaic revelation. It will be a head-scratcher until then…. And life will go on.”