John Gilmore

Born in Los Angeles on July 5, 1935, John "Jonathan" Gilmore grew up in Hollywood and was surrounded by the film world from an early age. Before becoming known as a writer, he worked as a child actor and later appeared in television, film, and stage productions in Los Angeles and New York.

Gilmore eventually moved into writing and journalism, building a reputation for iconoclastic Hollywood memoirs, true crime books, and fiction. He was associated with the Beat Generation, influenced by Jack Kerouac, and was said to have been a friend of William S. Burroughs. His book Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia helped earn him a devoted cult following.

He also wrote about his own experiences around classic Hollywood and the people who moved through it, giving his work a personal, lived-in quality. Gilmore died in Los Angeles on October 13, 2016, and his manuscripts and original writings are held in the special collections of the UCLA Research Library.