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Paul Bern

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Paul Bern (December 3, 1889 – September 5, 1932) was a German-American film director and writer.

Bern was born to a Jewish family in Hamburg, Germany, as Paul Levy and came to the United States when he was a child. He worked as a director, scriptwriter and producer for MGM.

The all-star film Grand Hotel won the Best Picture Academy Award for 1931–32. Bern and Irving Thalberg produced the film, although neither was credited (in the early 1930s MGM did not list their films' producers in their credits). However the award was presented to Thalberg only, not Bern. He married film star Jean Harlow on July 2, 1932. On September 5, 1932, Paul Bern was found naked, shot in the head, in their home on Easton Drive, off Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills, California. The coroner's jury came to the conclusion that his death was a suicide. To avoid scandal, the MGM management had fabricated an explanation, and evidence for it, that Bern had shot himself in the head because he was impotent. A strange note was left near his body that raised more questions than it answered, stating that "last night was only a comedy." All America, it seemed, wanted to know what Bern meant. If Jean Harlow knew, she wasn't telling. Until her death five years later, Harlow never spoke of the matter, only to the police and before a grand jury she stated that she knew nothing.

In 1960, it was suggested by screenwriter Ben Hecht that Bern was murdered by his mentally deranged former common-law wife, Dorothy Millette. The investigation into Paul Bern's death was reopened by the Los Angeles District Attorney. However, the verdict of suicide was not changed. Many people were questioned, including two gardeners. One claimed he heard a car driving away in the early morning. There was no conclusive evidence Bern argued with his wife before his death and handwriting analysts claimed the suicide note was not in his handwriting. Eddie Mannix, MGM's studio manager, was believed to be the prime suspect, but he was never charged with the crime.

In 1990, Samuel Marx and Joyce Vanderveen published Deadly Illusions. Marx was MGM's Story Editor and a friend of both Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg at the time of Bern's death. Back in 1932, he had actually gone to Bern's house before the police was informed of the discovery of a dead man and saw Thalberg tampering with the evidence. Next day he was among the studio executives who were told by Louis B. Mayer what the case would have to be to avoid scandal: "Suicide Because of Impotence!" In the 1980s he investigated the case, and for the first time scrutinized the whole still available evidence. He concludes that Bern was murdered by Dorothy Millette who then committed suicide: 2 days after Bern's death she jumped from the ferryboat Delta King, traveling from San Francisco to Sacramento. Her body was found a few days later by men fishing on the Sacramento River. Her shoes and her jacket were found on the boat: typical for suicides, she took them off before jumping into the water. The "suicide note" that actually wasn't one, had in fact been written by Bern, but some weeks earlier to apologize for a minor quarrel with Jean about the secluded location of their home. Jean wanted to live in a livelier place. Bern had bought a bunch of roses and presented them to Jean with the note that became a "suicide note" in the eyes of Los Angeles D. A. Buron Fitts who was bribed by MGM to keep the lid on the case. There were some who pointed out that the note wasn't even addressed to Harlow, but to "Dearest Dear," which friends and associates of Bern knew was his manner of writing to all women. Examination of the note also shows that the last thing written, which approached the end of the paper, was ['only a comedy] with an open quote, but without a close quote. This led some to speculate that another page, now missing, would logically follow.

Selected filmography

Reference

  • Samuel Marx and Joyce Vanderveen: Deadly Illusions (Random House, New York, 1990), re-published as Murder Hollywood Style - Who Killed Jean Harlow's Husband? (Arrow, 1994, ISBN 0 09 961060 4)
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