Ep. 35 - The Death of Paul Bern

Jean Harlow was known as the "Original Blonde Bombshell." In 1932, she married Paul Bern, a screenwriter, director and assistant at MGM Studios. It was an odd match and would end when Bern apparently committed suicide. Or did he? Could he have been murdered? And by who? Could this be why his spirit is at unrest? Come with us as we explore the mysterious death of Paul Bern!

Paul Bern was born as Paul Levy in Germany in 1889. The family moved to New York in 1898. Paul's father died in 1908 and his mother drowned herself to death in 1920. Paul studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and got started acting on the stage in New York. He decided to take a stage name and changed Levy to Bern. The acting was not going very well, so Bern decided to jump into stage managing and then in the early 1920s he moved to Hollywood. He got involved with film editing and then started working on writing and directing films for United Artists and Paramount Pictures. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the biggest studio at the time and Bern knew that was the place to be if he really wanted to be successful. He got into production at MGM Studios and eventually he became the production assistant of Irving Thalberg. Thalberg was an amazing producer known as "The Boy Wonder." He had a penchant for picking good scripts. He eventually joined Louis B. Mayer at MGM and became the head of production. Much of MGM Studio's success at this time was thanks to Thalberg who produced 400 films for the company before his early death.

Before moving to Hollywood, Bern lived with Dorothy Millette, who was his common law wife. Dorothy was a struggling actress who had been born in France when Bern met her in Toronto, Canada in 1911. She took to calling herself "Mrs. Paul Bern. In 1922, Dorothy entered the Blythewood Sanatorium in New York. Much of the information out there claims that she was mentally ill, but Blythewood was a place with unlocked doors and where the rich went to rehab or recover. So any mental illness would have been mild. No one can be sure why she went there, but Bern paid for all of her expenses. Bern ended the love affair and he moved to Hollywood at that time, but he continued to pay for Dorothy's care. It's important to note here that Dorothy was sole heir to Bern's estate in his will and that their common law marriage was considered legal in most states, including California. So when Bern moved to California, he was considered married to Dorothy. Eventually, Dorothy left Blythwood and she moved into the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.

Long before Marilyn Monroe captured America's imagination, there was Jean Harlow. She was born as Harlean Carpenter in 1911. Harlow's mom decided she wanted to be an actress, so she divorced her husband and moved to Hollywood with Jean. That career never took off and so she married Marino Bello and they all moved to Chicago. Harlow was a sickly child suffering from both meningitis and Scarlet Fever. Harlow left home at 16 to marry 23-year-old Charles McGrew. The two moved to Beverly Hills and Harlow's mother started pushing Jean to get into acting. Harlow just wanted to stay home and raise kids, but she got her first role and she was off and running. Two years after marrying, McGrew and Harlow were divorced. In 1930, Howard Hughes discovered Harlow.

Hughes had been working on his epic movie "Hell's Angels" when the film industry started movine to talking motion pictures, known simply as talkies. If he wanted his prized film to make it in this new climate, he needed it to be a talkie and this meant he needed a new female star. He chose Harlow and this burst her onto the scene and she became the top female sex symbol. She had another hit film after that and then starred in several pictures with Clark Gable. She was really good and could do both drama and comedy. She would make 36 pictures before her untimely death at 26 from kidney failure. Her earlier bout with Scarlet Fever took its toll. She is a part of this story because Paul Bern became her second husband.

The two were not a match for each other. Many wondered what the appeal was because they were such different people. Bern was twenty-two years older than Harlow and considered highly intellectual. Bern was a slight man and not attractive, while Harlow had the perfect body and was gorgeous. Bern was a homebody while Harlow enjoyed going to clubs. Nobody thought it would last, but the couple got married with some hastily prepared nuptials. Harlow didn't even have time to get a proper wedding dress. She just bought a white dress off the rack. They married on July 2, 1932. Two months later, Bern would be dead.

Jean Harlow and Paul Bern lived in a 1930 Craftsman-style house high in the hills above Los Angeles in Benedict Canyon at 9820 Easton Drive. Although there relationship didn't seem to be much of a fairytale, their home looked like it should be in one with its towering turret and honeycomb glass windows. Paul Bern had four of his Hollywood friends' likenesses carved into wood and they adorn the outside of the house: Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Barbara Lamar. There is a lot of decorative art on the exterior of the house and the doors are carved wood. There are several gargoyles on the outside as well. Some have wondered if the house were perhaps cursed.

Bern would visit New York on occasion and visit the woman who was his real legal wife according to California law, Dorothy Millette. Some would argue that he was still in love with Millette. He continued to take care of her financially. Harlow certainly could not be happy with this arrangement, especially since she and Bern seemed to be having some money problems. Bern was going broke. Harlow hated their house and wanted to sell it, while Bern refused. Four months before the Bern-Harlow marriage, Millette wrote Bern to tell him she was moving to San Francisco and he told her he would put her up at the Plaza Hotel. Since he was broke and owed people all over town, we're not sure how he planned to that, but again, Harlow was probably not happy with the arrangement.

On Sunday, September 4th, 1932, Bern sent Harlow off to spend the day with her mother and he told her that he would join her later after he got finished reading a script. He never showed and Harlow assumed he fell asleep reading the script. The next morning, Bern's butler found his naked body in the bedroom. He had a gunshot to the head and the .38 caliber gun that had done the deed was lying next to him. The butler called MGM Studios before the police. During the studio system, it was customary for studios to clean up messes. This was going to be a mess for Harlow. There are stories that she called Howard Hughes on Sunday night and asked him for help. Louis B. Mayer showed up at the house and found a suicide note that supposedly Bern had written. It read, “Dearest Dear... Unfortunately, this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and wipe out by abject humility. I love you.... Paul” A postscript had been added at the bottom of the note that said: “You understand that last night was only a comedy.”

The cops didn't show up until 2pm. Mayer had taken the suicide note, but gave it to the police when the Studio's Publicity Chief told him that would be the right thing to do. Harlow was apparently hysterical and could not handle being questioned by the police. She did eventually talk to the police, but never appeared as a witness at the inquest. As to why Bern would kill himself, no one had an answer. He had not talked of killing himself and there was a little complication in that Bern was not alone on the evening of his death. Things got even more complicated when Dorothy Millette died on September 6th. She had apparently boarded the Sacramento River Steamer and jumped to her death over the ship. Fishermen found her body two weeks later.

Evidence has made this apparent suicide a murder mystery. Bern's gardener claimed that his employer never talked of suicide and that he didn't think the handwriting on the suicide note was his employer's. Bern's secretary agreed that the handwriting was not her employer's. Bern's cook claimed that she had heard a woman's voice in the house and she knew that Ms. Harlow was not there. She also found a woman's wet bathing suit by the pool. There were two empty glasses there as well. A small puddle of blood was found near a lounge chair. This suicide is not looking so much like a suicide. But if Bern was murdered, who was responsible? There are a number of scenarios.

Was it the mysterious woman who had visited Bern that night? Who was she? Did Bern have a rendezvous with his real wife, Dorothy Millette? Did she kill him and then later kill herself? Most murder-suicides happen at the same location. Was the mystery woman Bern's secretary Irene Harrison? She and Bern were rumored to be having an affair. Was she jealous of his marriage to Harlow? Did Harlow come home and find Bern with another woman? Did she fly into a rage and shoot Bern? There were two people in that home that knew where Bern kept his gun: Bern and Harlow. It seems strange that either Irene or Dorothy would have found the gun. And the house staff heard a woman scream. Did the mystery woman see Harlow kill Bern and then scream? And if this woman was Dorothy, did someone take her out by throwing her off the steamer?

Harlow had mob connections through her stepfather and she had dated a mobster before marrying Bern. Had she called in a favor to him? There are those that claim the suicide note was not even a suicide note, but an entry in a guest book at a party. Friends of Bern claimed they had read the note long before his death. Did Harlow have motive to kill Bern? She sure did. He had been going broke and signed the house over to her after mortgaging it almost completely. He was saddling her with debt. But even worse was the fact that her marriage to Bern was bigamy. Her career would be ruined with this revelation. And if Bern was having an affair, was he going to leave Harlow? That would be embarrassing for her.

As one can see, this case is not solved and it is not certain that Bern committed suicide. Is that why his spirit still roams this side of the curtain? Jay Sebring, who was one of the Manson family's murder victims, moved into the Harlow/Bern House in 1963. Jay thought the house might be cursed, not only because Bern had died here, but two people had drowned in the pool as well. He was good friends with Sharon Tate and he invited her to stay the night at his house one night when he was away. She slept in Jay's room and she left all the lights on because she had a very uncomfortable feeling. She jumped at every creak the house made. Then suddenly, a little man came into the bedroom. She knew he was Paul Bern. He ignored her and started wandering about the room looking for something. Tate jumped out of bed and grabbed her robe as she fled out of the room. As she bounded down the stairs, she stopped in shock because she saw a figure hanging at the base of the stairs. The figure's throat had been cut. Then it disappeared. Did she see a premonition of her death? Had Bern given that to her? Interestingly, Jean Harlow died at the age of 26 as did Sharon Tate.

Is it possible that the house had a curse? The current owner bought the house from Jay Sebring's parents in 1970 and claims to have never experienced anything of the paranormal. Other people who have been to the house claim that both Bern and Harlow haunt the house. The disembodied sounds of sobbing have been heard throughout the house and in the bedroom the sounds of a struggle are sometimes heard. There have been cold spots and flickering lights. There are uneasy feelings and once someone heard a voice softly say, "Please help me."

Will the case of Paul Bern's death ever be opened and then solved once and for all? Can Bern find peace if that happened? Is the ghost of Paul Bern still here in the afterlife? That is for you to decide!