Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the MGM Director and Husband of Harlow

Paul Bern was second only to Irving Thalberg at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1930s. Known throughout the movies as ‘Hollywood’s Father Confessor’, Bern had earned a reputation for being a loyal and supportive friend and for becoming one of MGM’s most respected and creative directors. In short, it was nearly impossible to find anyone who would say anything negative about Paul Bern. Until he died. Then he would be accused of becoming so depressed and despondent over his own impotence that he had no choice but to commit suicide, and he would be denounced for attempting to rape his new bride, Jean Harlow, and of beating her bloody with a cane on their wedding night just two months earlier.But MGM publicity people and studio police knew how Paul Bern really died. They knew a long-ago common-law wife had recently emerged from the fog of mental illness believing she was still married to Paul, and they knew she had visited him the night before he was found dead. They knew she had killed him, but they also knew that publicly revealing Bern’s first marriage would mark his current marriage - a marriage to MGM’s now fastest rising star - as bigamous. So, they staged a suicide and embarked on a very public tarnishing of Bern’s memory and legacy, leaving the world to believe he was impotent and suicide-obsessed and killed himself out of frustration with his marriage to a sex symbol. This biography rights that wrong by uncovering startling facts about Bern and MGM’s tarnishing of his memory. It features almost 100 rare photos, many never before seen, along with three appendices examining the handwriting on the alleged suicide note and Bern’s will and estate.