The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals Page 14

  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.”

  Then, to add more fuel to the fire, the possible existence of yet another woman was brought to everyone’s attention when it was rumoured that, at one point, Paul Bern had lived in Canada with a woman he called his wife. People began to wonder – were all of these women Dorothy Millette or three separate “wives”? For a time it looked as though it could be the latter, especially when Henry Bern’s attorney Ralph Blum told reporters that, “We’ll be able to announce something definite concerning Paul Bern’s previous marital status within twenty-four hours. We are beginning to investigate the reports of the attorney in the East and the insurance man that said Paul Bern had provided for women said to have been his wives.”

  Reporters were intrigued by all this talk of mysterious death and countless wives, and determined to find out exactly how many women Paul Bern had in his life. MGM on the other hand were mortified and their plans to sweep the “suicide” quietly under the carpet were fast disappearing. The whole sorry episode was spinning out of control and, unfortunately for them, it was about to get worse – much, much worse.

  After revealing the existence of “Mrs Bern”, Paul’s brother Henry suddenly went very quiet. He had unintentionally whipped the press into a frenzy, and then frustrated them to the point of fury by refusing to answer any more questions about the mysterious woman. Added to that, his planned statement was suddenly cancelled, and he announced “certain complications” which made it impossible for him to release any more information. “Please don’t ask me what these complications are,” he told the world’s press. “Let’s just say that when they have been straightened out I will tell all.”

  The coroner’s verdict on Paul Bern’s death came through very quickly – as MGM had hoped – concluding that the producer had “died from a gunshot wound which was self-inflicted with suicidal intent; motive undetermined”. However, despite the quick wrap-up of events, next came a quizzical comment, released by county autopsy assistant Dr Frank Webb.

  In the statement he reported that Bern may have had a problem with his nerves, judging by pills that were found in the house. This was not a surprise considering it had just been announced he had committed suicide, but the next part of the statement raised a great many eyebrows. Apparently, while examining Bern’s corpse, Dr Webb had discovered characteristics of the body which he considered to be “subnormal”. What these abnormalities consisted of was not immediately reported in the press though it was later revealed by various sources that Paul Bern’s genitals were not the size of those of a normal man.

  One ex-girlfriend declared that his penis was the size of her pinkie finger and then blatantly announced that Barbara La Marr had once turned down a marriage proposal from him because of this. The “secret” of his small appendage was apparently well known around gossip circles in Hollywood, though any sympathies for Harlow in this area were quickly thwarted when it was said that she actually knew about the abnormality before she married him and, what’s more, told him she did not mind about it at all.

  Spurred on by this, Bern reportedly convinced his bride that respect was much more important than sex, and having been pawed by overexcited film producers on more than one occasion, Harlow was happy to go along with it. However, the idea of not being able to have sex with his sex-symbol wife did seem to bother Paul Bern, despite his assurances to the contrary, and rumours later spread that he had committed suicide because he was impotent and unable to consummate the marriage.

  Asked about his physical condition by the press several days after the first announcement, Bern’s doctor, Ed Jones gruffly replied, “It is a matter between the patient and his doctor and professional ethics forbid me from discussing the matter. I intend to have a talk with Miss Harlow, however, and should she deem it wise I may have a statement to make at a later date.”

  Talking about her husband’s lack of libido in the bedroom was most likely not something Jean Harlow relished, and the conversation between her and Dr Jones will forever be a mystery. Chances are she quickly put an end to the talk before it had even began, as Harlow had more pressing things on her mind – the mystery woman for one thing, and Paul Bern’s funeral for another.

  The memorial for the MGM producer was conducted on Friday, 9 September, at the Grace Chapel at Inglewood Park Cemetery. It was a private affair, with a specially invited congregation which included a devastated Jean Harlow, her mother and stepfather. Dressed from head to toe in black, Jean was visibly distraught and escorted down the steps of her mother’s home by Marino Bello and her friend Willis Goldbeck. Once at the chapel, the actress wept openly at the sight of her husband’s casket, and when it was all over, she left quietly to carry out her mourning in private.

  However, 2,000 fans did not want her to go quietly and bizarrely begrudged her request for privacy. They surged forward, demanding autographs and photographs from the grieving widow, seemingly completely oblivious that at this point in time, she was not the sex symbol they had seen on the screen, but a frail, vulnerable young woman, trying to mourn her recently lost husband. Describing the sad day, Harlow later exclaimed, “To them I was not a person. I had no more personality than a corporation.”

  Meanwhile, Bern’s sister, Mrs Friederike Marcus, caused a commotion when she was heard screaming hysterically in the chapel, shouting “He’s gone, he’s gone!” at the top of her voice. She was not on the best of terms with Harlow, having tried and failed to press her on the subject of why Paul would have committed suicide. Harlow assured her that she had no idea what had prompted him to do it, but his sister was not convinced, releasing a statement later that day which expressed her determination to find out exactly what had happened to her dead brother: “The dearest soul on earth is laid to rest today. He did not want to rest yet, he wanted to live. Life had everything for him to enjoy it to the utmost capacity.” The statement then made a swipe at Jean Harlow by declaring that Paul was so madly in love with his wife that, if possible, he would have “snatched the stars from heaven for her, he would have done it to make her smile . . . What great grief, what great pain has torn his heart to pieces to make him take his own life?”

  The frustrated Mrs Marcus also hinted that she was convinced Jean Harlow was withholding information from the family: “Why did he do it? What drove him to do it? What does it mean? Last night was only a comedy? We were not there to see it. But why don’t the ones that know tell us about it? Aren’t we entitled to know?”

  But while friends and family mourned Paul Bern and tried to determine what really happened that fateful night, another scandal was rumbling all the way from San Francisco. Dorothy Millette, the mysterious woman rumoured to be Bern’s first wife, was believed to have committed suicide, throwing herself from the Delta King steamboat on route from San Francisco to Sacramento.

  Quite disturbingly, it seemed that the woman had boarded the boat just a day after the death of Paul Bern. However, this was no ordinary journey, and instead of watching the world go by from the privacy of her cabin or table, she had instead decided to discard her outer clothes and shoes, place them neatly on deck, and then quietly throw herself overboard into the murky depths below.

  When the story first broke, no body had been found, so the story of Dorothy Millette and her possible suicide came with a huge amount of press s
peculation and discussion. It was still not apparent exactly who this woman was and how she was related to Paul Bern, and yet here she was making headlines around the world by throwing herself overboard on the very day after the producer’s death. Questions needed to be answered, and finally it was left to brother Henry Bern to answer at least some of the queries. He called a press conference and, from the offices of MGM, he sat down with the world’s reporters and finally revealed all.

  According to Bern, Dorothy Millette and his brother had met each other while living in Canada. She had been a budding actress, he was involved in a new production company, and together they fell in love and decided to move to New York to continue their romance. Unfortunately, shortly after their arrival, Millette became mentally ill and there was nothing that could be done to rectify this. The decision was made to place the woman in an institution, and while Paul Bern was not her husband by law, nor the cause of her illness, he took the decision to look after her all the same. Always a caring and loving person, the producer told friends that he would care about the woman “as though she was his wife”, and in this regard he kept his word.

  Eighteen months later it was decided that Dorothy was well enough to be released from the institution, and while her condition was not entirely cured, she was certainly not considered to be a danger to the community. The romance between her and Paul was over, but sticking to his word he continued to provide for her, paying for her to live in the New York Algonquin Hotel, where she stayed for many years after her release from the institution.

  During the press conference, an upset Henry Bern also revealed that up to the very last day before his death, Paul had continued to provide for Dorothy by writing cheques and visiting the woman in New York once a year. She had obviously struck a chord with other family members, too, it was revealed, as Henry described how he himself had kept in touch with Millette, though rarely went to visit her.

  Quite revealingly, he declared that the last time he had heard from the woman was when she contacted him in early 1932. During the conversation she had told him of a plan she had to move to San Francisco. “What do you think about that?” she had asked.

  “Not to disturb her mentality I did not oppose her suggestion,” Henry Bern told reporters. “I told her that if she felt it would do her good, to go ahead.” Millette had then moved to the West Coast in April, though Bern made it clear that his brother had never visited her while she lived there. When asked if she ever spoke of Paul, Henry replied, “She always said she had the profoundest respect for Paul, but never spoke of love.”

  These revelations finally tied up the three possible romances in Bern’s life – the woman in Canada, the one in the institution and the woman he had lived with in New York. They were all one and the same: Dorothy Millette, the woman who had reportedly jumped to her death from the deck of a steamboat just a day after the producer’s death.

  When he had first heard about the death of his brother, Henry Bern had been understandably distraught, but found himself also concerned for the wellbeing of Dorothy Millette. She was a fragile woman and he knew the news would greatly upset her, so he had tried unsuccessfully to contact her in San Francisco. “I wanted to reach her and tell her of Paul’s death,” he explained. “I wanted to tell her to keep calm and not to worry about anything. That if Paul’s will didn’t provide for her it would have been his wish that she be taken care of in the future. I intended taking it on myself to provide for her.”

  While Henry Bern was trying to get his head around the disappearance of Dorothy Millette, a search for her body resulted in the dramatic decision to drag the Sacramento River. Everyone watched expectantly, though quite bizarrely, while no woman’s body was discovered in the water, the body of a man was found wearing a suit which contained the key to a stateroom on the same boat from which it was believed that Dorothy Millette had jumped. It was all incredibly confusing.

  Everyone wondered where Dorothy Millette could possibly have gone. If she had committed suicide, where was her body? Had she really thrown herself overboard, or had she sneaked off the ship incognito when it docked in Sacramento? Nobody had any idea but that did not stop false information flooding into the police department, with dozens of calls from people saying they had seen the mysterious woman walking around every part of California.

  While everything seemed so muddy and distorted, the Bern family were becoming particularly outspoken and adamant that Paul had told Jean Harlow everything she needed to know about Dorothy Millette. The actress, however, denied that to be true. Returning to work on Red Dust with Clark Gable, Harlow had a few words to say to the press about a trip she had conducted to San Francisco, just a few weeks before Bern’s death.

  “I made no effort to see Miss Millette while in San Francisco,” she said, “for the simple reason that at that time I had no idea that a Miss Dorothy Millette existed. I knew absolutely nothing of Paul’s asserted interest in her until I read of it in the newspapers.” She then went on to assure everyone that the only reason she had gone north to San Francisco was to buy clothes, though in the end she had only managed to stay for less than twenty-four hours, due to being called back to the studio on urgent business.

  On 14 September, the search for Dorothy Millette was concluded when her body was found in the Sacramento River by a farmhand and his son. The two had been fishing on the banks of Georgiana Slough, and spotted the body underneath some brush, much to their horror. This grim discovery caused huge ripples in the Bern family, with Paul’s brother Henry becoming so upset that he too went missing for several days.

  Meanwhile, his sister, Mrs Marcus, released a short statement about Dorothy, stating, “The poor thing. I feel terribly about it and am sorry for her.” But not everyone was so concerned about the discovery of the body, and Jean Harlow’s lawyer actually saw the death as a good opportunity for some positive publicity. With that in mind he took it upon himself to make the spectacular announcement that his client would be taking care of all funeral arrangements for Ms Millette. The press went wild at this generosity, though eyebrows were raised when the statement was quickly followed by another declaring that Jean Harlow did not actually know anything about the prior announcement. “But I’m sure it will be fine,” announced the forthright lawyer.

  Several days later, the mysterious Dorothy Millette was buried, and as no proof was found by lawyers that Bern had been legally married to the woman, both estates were wrapped up quickly and Jean Harlow got on with her life. However, despite all attempts to convince everyone that the death was a straightforward suicide, the scandalous episode would rumble on for decades, with whole books being written in order to try and solve the case once and for all.

  So was Paul Bern’s death really a suicide as they said at the studio and in the newspapers? Did Jean Harlow know nothing as she had claimed, or did she know more than she ever cared to say? Certainly Bern’s family seemed to think so, though the actress herself always maintained she was completely in the dark. And what about Dorothy Millette? Did she commit suicide because of her grief on hearing the news of Paul’s death, or did she throw herself overboard after murdering him as revenge for marrying Jean Harlow?

  This seems to be a likely scenario. After all, he had been there for her through thick and thin, and now this blonde interloper had appeared, threatening everything Millette held dear: her stability; her financial security; and the support of ex-partner Paul Bern. Certainly she had cause in her mind to be furious that her faithful friend had moved on, and over the years there have been many claims that she was most certainly not an innocent victim in the ghastly episode. But despite claims to the contrary, the mystery of Paul Bern’s death has never been fully resolved or proved, and after eighty-plus years it is likely to remain that way. The case is now well and truly closed, and though it was briefly reopened in the 1960s, there is little hope that the matter will ever be fully wrapped up.

  Perhaps the final word in this chapter should be from Jean Harlow herself, who just
a month after the death of her husband, spoke to columnist Elza Schallert on what she had learnt from the experience of Bern’s death.

  “The best any of us can do in life is to try to build a strong foundation on which to stand,” she said. “And then meet life as it comes, as courageously and honestly as possible. If we fall, well it is fate. It is destiny!”

  12

  The Tragic Death of Russ Columbo

  Before Clark Gable whisked actress Carole Lombard off her feet, she had been exceptionally close to crooner Russ Columbo, but the romance ended in tragedy one dark day in September 1934 . . .

  Born on 14 January 1908, Russ Columbo was famous to millions of moviegoers and radio listeners as the man whose beautiful voice brought them the likes of “You Call it Madness, But I Call it Love” and “Too Beautiful for Words”. Not only that, but the hugely talented man was also a composer, violinist and actor; his film career saw him work with the likes of Gary Cooper and Lupe Vélez, to name but two.

  Good-looking and charming, Russ was linked to various actresses over the years, including Dorothy Dell, who was tragically killed in a car accident just months before Russ’s own death. However, it was his romance with Carole Lombard that caught the media’s attention, and at people began to wonder if, at the age of twenty-six, the velvet-voiced crooner was about to settle down with the “Profane Angel”, as Carole has often been called.

  However, neither Carole nor the public would ever find out if the romance would become anything more serious, as their relationship ended under extremely tragic circumstances on 2 September 1934. While his rumoured fiancée was away on a short break to Lake Arrowhead, Russ popped in to visit an old school friend, Lansing V. Brown Jr, at his parents’ home, 584 North Lillian Way.