The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (17 page)

However, despite what anyone else thought, actress Jean Harlow definitely saw him as someone she could rely on as a husband. Married once before to a man who was rumoured to be abusive and a heavy drinker, the gentle Bern was a welcome change, and they spent much time together before getting married on 2 July 1932 and moving into Bern’s home on Easton Drive. At the time, the producer described his wife as the most upright and honest girl he had ever had the privilege of knowing, and friends noted that when they were spotted out together, he always seemed completely besotted and in love.

But despite the happy exterior, there were dark undercurrents in the marriage, and neighbours later reported that while Bern had always happily worked in his garden and talked to neighbours before the wedding, since Jean had moved in, he was distant, shy and almost reclusive. He seemed worried, they told police, as if something was “occupying his mind”.

The comments were somewhat concerning, though it should be noted that these neighbours did not come forward until after his untimely death. Perhaps they were inclined to speak in order to enhance the stories surrounding his demise, and certainly it would seem that if people were worried for Bern’s welfare in the weeks before his death, they most certainly did not make a big deal of it at the time.

On Saturday, 3 September, Bern was at the studio until 7.10 p.m., and then dined with friends at the Ambassador Hotel before being driven home by Harold Allen Garrison. Quite bizarrely, according to the driver, it was Bern’s custom to keep a gun in the dashboard of the car, but on this particular occasion, when Garrison reached in to retrieve it, it wasn’t there.

“You haven’t got your gun, Mr Bern?” asked the driver, to which he replied, “No, I didn’t take my revolver with me today.”

Garrison thought it was odd that the gun was not in the car, given Bern’s custom for taking it, but said nothing. Instead, they arranged for the driver to come back to the house at 9.30 the next morning, ready to take Paul Bern out for the day.

That evening, Bern was in good spirits and read scripts in bed until 2 a.m., while his servants entertained friends in their quarters. Jean Harlow was not at home, so his butler, John Carmichael, checked on his boss before he went to bed, and then retired himself. The next morning, Sunday, 4 September, Garrison showed up at Easton Drive as instructed, but Bern did not come out of the house. Instead, the driver ended up waiting for most of the day, until finally at 4.30 he was told that the producer would not require him after all, and he was instructed to return the next morning.

After this time, the story of Paul Bern becomes a hazy mess that is still being debated some eighty-plus years later. After the body of the producer was found shot dead on Monday, 5 September 1932, his butler, Carmichael, told police that Bern was alone in the house on the night of 4 September, as Jean Harlow had stayed with her mother at 1353 Club View Drive. She had gone with her servants to prepare dinner that evening, but while Bern was supposed to have gone with her, he had apparently decided against it at the last minute, telling his wife that he would come along shortly. He never arrived, however, and Jean Harlow telephoned him later in the evening to advise him to stay at home, that it was late and she would remain for the night at her mother’s.

According to Carmichael, “Goodbye dear, I’ll be seeing you” were the last words Jean said to her husband as she left for dinner that night, but gardener George Davis disagreed. According to him, there were cross words between the pair; the result, it would seem, of a difference of opinion concerning various financial plans he had with her stepfather Marino Bello and the deeds to their Benedict Canyon home.

Nevertheless, regardless of what was said the night before, by the time the butler opened the shades in Bern’s bedroom at 11.30 a.m. the following morning, the producer was dead. As the light from the window fell on to his naked body slumped on the floor of the closet, the shocked butler promptly fainted, bringing the gardener running into the house to discover his boss’s body too.

Shockingly, instead of calling the police, the staff decided to call MGM and almost immediately Production Executive Irving Thalberg, Business Executive M. E. Greenwood and RKO Executive David O. Selznick all sped to the home in order to decipher what had gone on and, inevitably, to tidy things up. Jean Harlow was their biggest star and the last thing they wanted or needed was her being tied into a suspicious death mystery. Something needed to be done – and fast.

It would seem that once in the bedroom, the men looked around for a suicide note but, disappointingly for them, could find no such thing. For the whole thing to be wrapped up as a self-inflicted shooting would be simple, quick and would gain sympathy for their star, so the lack of a note was disappointing. However, nearby lay Bern’s notebook – a diary of sorts – and that seemed to be the answer to their prayers.

It is believed that studio bosses saw this journal as a way of presenting the death as a definite suicide, and flicked through the entries to see if there was something appropriate they could use. They were in luck, as a cryptic, undated entry had been scrawled in Bern’s handwriting. They took the note, arranged it accordingly on the table next to the closet and left. The note read: “Dearest dear; unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation. Paul.” And then underneath: “You understand that last night was only a comedy.”

Meanwhile, at her mother’s house, Jean was told of the tragedy and was in great shock. Newspapers later reported that on hearing the news, the actress became hysterical and cried, “Isn’t this too horrible? Isn’t this too terrible?” over and over again.

Police were finally called to the Bern house, and after examining the body and its surroundings, they headed over to the house of Harlow’s mother in an attempt to speak to the actress herself. Although initially turned away because she was close to collapse, officers finally interviewed her, though they were disappointed to find they were unable to get much out of her due to the shock of the news. Harlow was accompanied by stepfather Marino Bello, MGM boss Louis B. Mayer, publicity chief Howard Strickland, her doctor and her attorney; the interview was short, with Harlow assuring officers that she knew nothing about the tragedy.

“I can’t understand why this terrible thing should have happened,” she said. When asked about the note, she replied, “I have no idea what it means. This frightful wrong he apparently believed he had done me is all a mystery. I can’t imagine what it means.”

The police then asked if Bern had ever mentioned killing himself, to which she said, “Paul often talked to me of suicide as a general topic, but never once did he intimate that he himself contemplated such an act.” Would there be any reason why he would kill himself? “There was nothing between us that I can think of that would have caused him to do this.”

It was then stepfather Marino Bello’s turn to be questioned, and police officers were keen to know about the rumoured financial discussions between himself and Bern. However, whatever was going on between the pair, Bello had no intention of discussing it and instead assured police, “I have more money than Bern ever had and there was no occasion for any financial dealings between us.” This seems a rather far-fetched statement considering Bello was something of a playboy who lived off Harlow’s money, while Bern was a very successful and rich producer. However, this was Bello’s story and he was sticking to it.

The whole episode was beginning to take on the feel of a 1930s detective novel, and was made all the more confusing when neighbours reported hearing a “powerful car” driving away from Easton Drive at 3 a.m. Even more confusion came when Bern’s doctor, Ed B. Jones, sent a telegram to Louis B. Mayer, telling him that he understood the motive for the death and would come home from vacation immediately.

On his return he gave a statement to the hungry press: “Bern was suffering from acute melancholia, which brought on a terrific mental depression which developed into a suicide mania.” He went on to describe his patient as an unusually sensitive man who was nervous and highly strung. “He was subject to fits of depression which often drive victims to suicide or other hopeless and desperate measures.”

This was an intriguing statement on many levels, but the biggest question was why would Bern’s personal doctor return from holiday and discuss private matters with a very public press pack? Decorum would have assured his patient confidentiality even after death, with a statement only being made to the police, but instead the doctor quite happily bandied about his patient’s innermost problems to the world. It would later be wondered if his comments were made on the orders of MGM, who were desperate for the public to see the death as a suicide and ultimately to sweep the whole thing under the carpet.

Back at her mother’s home, Jean Harlow was reportedly still so upset that she ran to the nearest balcony and shockingly tried to throw herself off. Saved by friends and relatives, the delirious actress was then sedated, returning her to a moment of calm.

Still wishing for the police quickly to wrap up their investigation, and the coroner to provide a verdict of suicide, Louis B. Mayer began telling everyone stories of Bern’s depression, which of course tied in rather nicely with the doctor’s recent revelations. Mayer detailed that Bern was so depressed in the week before his death that Irving Thalberg believed he needed to take a holiday. “I thought this strange,” said Mayer, “for he had only returned some days before from a short vacation.” He then went on to say that Bern had acted strange and had “the queerest look about his eyes” during the week prior to his death. “If you knew Mr Bern you would realize this was unusual for him,” he said.

Whether or not any of these stories were correct is another matter, and it is interesting to note that the same executives who claimed Bern was acting strange and depressed were also the ones who had entered the property before his death was announced, desperate to find a reason to pass the death off as suicide. To further support their suicide theories, the executives quickly gathered up various employees, unnamed sources and so-called friends to give statements to the press, during which they declared over and over that Paul was a melancholy man who discussed suicide many times. In reality, however, it all did not make much sense, since Paul had been known to be a happy person who everyone relied on in times of crisis.

Bern’s MGM driver got in on the act when he later told the coroner that the producer just happened to mention to him that several of his family had committed suicide. “He said his mother had and that it ran in his family, but he hoped he never would,” Garrison later told the inquest. This was later disputed by Bern’s brother Henry, though on this occasion the story was actually the truth: Mrs Bern had indeed committed suicide by drowning herself, but it is understandable that in the midst of his brother’s death, it was the very last thing Henry Bern wanted people to know about.

The arrival of Henry Bern in Los Angeles brought more headlines and questions. “Brother to Ban Death Secrecy” screamed the
Los Angeles Times
, and while Henry Bern boldly stated that he did not want to give a statement about Paul, he did manage to say a few words to waiting reporters. “I am simply a man come to the funeral of his brother,” he told them. “I want no secrecy veiling the matter of my brother’s death. He would not have had it that way in life; I wish to do as he would have done. He never had secrets from anyone.”

This was tantalizing for reporters, who noted down every little detail in their spiral notebooks, but not so much for MGM, as having the brother of their “suicide” victim sniffing around was not a welcome addition to proceedings. And so it was that when Henry Bern headed off to meet with his sister-in-law, Jean’s attorney was called to the house, while Louis B. Mayer rushed over with his secretary in tow, instructing her to take down full and detailed notes on her typewriter.

Several days after this tense meeting, Henry Bern was asked to reveal what went on at the house that evening.

“Imagine the condition of Miss Harlow and myself on that night,” he told reporters. “I can’t remember, under the circumstances, what we talked about. What the note he left means, I don’t know. That girl has had a terrible shock, just as we all have had. When I was in the room with her I felt it would be cruel of me to ask about such things.” He then went on to assure reporters that he fully believed the death was a suicide, “but as to the motive that prompted it that’s all hypothetical”.

Meanwhile, while Mayer may have been relieved by the comments of Henry Bern, his worst fears were beginning to come true when gossip columnists declared that Jean Harlow’s career was about to implode. The snide comments in the press predicted that the actress was finished, that her career was through and she would never recover from the scandal. When asked about the stories by reporters, Mayer tried to laugh it off. The comments were simply not true, he told them, though what he really thought in the privacy of his office was definitely up for debate.

And then came another disaster.

The worst possible situation, a bolt out of the blue and a huge catastrophe occurred when it was revealed that a woman calling herself Mrs Paul Bern had lived in New York for the past ten years, and was known by friends as the producer’s wife. The woman’s name was Dorothy Millette, and since Bern had always been known as a bachelor, this came as a huge shock to almost everyone, particularly when it was revealed that he not only sent her cheques every fortnight, but also visited her once a year.

Then another story appeared which came from Bern’s brother Henry, lawyer Henry Uttal and insurance man George G. Clarken. Clarken described how Bern held insurance policies, payable to a trust in New York, for care of a woman who was now in a sanatorium. Uttal backed this up by describing how he had drawn up a will for Paul which named a “wife” called Dorothy. Paul’s brother Henry was asked about the woman and intriguingly told reporters in Kansas that, “His only secret was his last one. He was never married before he wedded the screen star, Miss Harlow, but he lived with a woman once a long time ago. Miss Harlow knew of it because Paul told her.” Henry said, “He concealed nothing, but lived openly. Nothing was misrepresented when he married Miss Harlow; this I know.”