Tamar Hodel

**Tamar Hodel** is the mysterious and elusive daughter of Dr. George Hodel, whisked away when she gave birth to a child when she was a teenager.

She is a character in ‘I Am the Night’ primarily portrayed by Jamie Anne Allman.

## Character Overview

Tamar Hodel was a girl with a difficult life despite being born in the upper class. Depravity and lawlessness exuded from the walls of her home, where her father George Hodel entertained guests with orgies and treated unwanted pregnancies with illegal abortions.

According to her version of events, Tamar became the object of her father's attentions, resulting in an incestuous relationship in which she was repeatedly raped and gave birth to a baby girl. However, these accusations were dismissed in court. Her stepmother, Corinna paints her like a pathological liar but the evidence provided by Tamar to reporter Jay Singletary casts doubt on this assertion.

Once freed from the clutches of her father, Tamar became a free and restless spirit, moving to Hawaii to live outside the rigid social rules imposed on women, especially those of wealthy families.

## Biography

The George Hodel Trial

Los Angeles, 1945. George Hodel hosts an orgy at Sowden House. Together with four guests he sexually abuses a group of masked women wearing only negligees. His young daughter Tamar spies on them hidden behind a wall, but George is so aware of her presence that he catches his daughter's attention by playing peek-a-boo. George then has sexual intercourse with one of the masked women - so that they are anonymous sex objects - while maintaining eye contact with his daughter. The situation worsens and the men become violent. One of the women is hooded and her clothing is cut off. George then puts on a bull mask and rapes her.

Los Angeles, 1949. The George Hodel Trial is taking place. A psychiatrist is called to the stand to dismiss Tamar Hodel's charges against her father. He believes the girl is in the grip of delusions of grandeur and youthful rebellion prone to unfounded fantasies. Diagnosing her as a 'hysterical nymphomaniac' despite her tender age of fourteen, the psychiatrist states that these mental disorders go back much further when she was eleven years old, as testified by George Hodel himself. He goes on, bringing in a 'psychosexual competition' with her stepmother in what is called the Electra complex.

With all this medical evidence on the defense side, the judge closes the case in George Hodel's favor. Despite this, reporters like Jay Singletary believe Tamar's rape allegations against her father and also George Hodel's guilt in unsolved cases like the infamous Black Dahlia case.

Disappearance

After becoming pregnant, Tamar escapes from the mental institution where she was interned. With the help of her stepmother she entrusts her baby girl to a speakeasy singer, Jimmy Lee. Corinna assures the black singer that she can raise the baby without much trouble. "One Day She'll Darken", said the woman, alluding to the fact that the illicit girl's father is a black man instead of George Hodel. Tamar then disappears from the scene and runs away to leave the past behind and put as much distance as possible between her and her biological family.

In 1965, she's living in Hawaii. She is tracked down by a reporter, Jay Singletary, who introduces her to a young woman: her long-lost daughter Fauna Hodel. After revealing the truth about her origins to Fauna, Tamar shows portraits of her father's victims. He is not only responsible for the murder of Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, but many others.

## Trivia

* Contrary to the limited series, in 2018, DNA analysis positively eliminated Dr. George Hodel as the biological father of Fauna Hodel.

## Episode Appearance

I Am the Night

* Ep. 3: "Dark Flower"
* Ep. 5: "Aloha"

## References

1. ↑  Kourtney Devinny is credited as “Young Tamar” in the third episode, “Dark Flower”.
2. ↑  Kassidy Slaughter is credited as “Young Tamar (14)” in the sixth episode, “Aloha”.
3. ↑ Sam Sheridan (writer); Patty Jenkins (director); (February 11, 2019); "Dark Flower". Episode 3. *I Am the Night*. TNT.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Sam Sheridan (writer); Carl Franklin (director); (February 25, 2019); "Aloha". Episode 5. *I Am the Night*. TNT.
5. ↑ Anatomy of a Podcast: Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia- DNA Test Answers Question of Fauna Hodel’s Paternity — Steve Hodel