After the establishment and success of his medical practice and becoming head of the county's Social Hygiene Bureau, Hodel was moving in affluent
Los Angeles society by the 1940s. He was enamored of the darker side of
Surrealism and the decadence surrounding that art scene and was friends with such artists as a photographer
Man Ray and film director
John Huston, and those who associated with them.
[1] With Ray and some other Surrealists, he shared an interest in
sadomasochism and the darker side of art and philosophy; with the young men of the Hollywood scene, he shared a fondness for partying, drinking, and womanizing
Hodel purchased the
Sowden House in 1945 and lived in that Hollywood property from 1945 until 1950. The structure, built-in 1926 by
Lloyd Wright (son of the noted American architect
Frank Lloyd Wright), has since been registered as a Los Angeles historic landmark. Hodel was effectively a
polygamist in this large household: In the late 1940s, during the period of the deaths of Spaulding and Short (the Black Dahlia), Hodel was living with "Dorero" and their three children (including Steven, who would later write books outlining a case to prove George Hodel a murderer); with his first legal wife Dorothy Anthony and their daughter Tamar; and, at times, with his original common-law wife, Emilia, mother of Hodel's eldest child (by that time an adult). He was also prone to taking a series of temporary lovers; multiple witnesses later suggested such a relationship between Hodel and Short.
In late 1949, Hodel's teenage daughter Tamar accused him of
incestuous sexual abuse and impregnating her (after which she was given a back alley abortion). He was acquitted after a widely publicized
trial.
[4] There had been three witnesses present during and who participated in the sex acts. Two testified at the trial, and the third recanted her earlier testimony and refused to come forward, the theory being that George Hodel had threatened her into silence. The trial had caused Tamar to look like a liar, that she had made up the entire abuse allegation for attention.