WAS HE MURDERED?

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19462, 29 December 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

WAS HE MURDERED?

DEATH OF FILM DIRECTOR. JEAN HARLOW'S FORMER HUSBAND (From a Correspondent.) NEW YORK, November 26. Jean Harlow, the famous platinum blonde film star, who three days ago explained at length her plans for "securing a friendly divorce" from Hal Rosson, her third husband, refuses to-day to offer any comment on the publication, two years after the event, of testimony suggesting that her second husband, Paul Bern, did not oommlt suicide, but was murdered. "If It would do any good, or If any new Information oould be obtained," she says, “It would be different. But I did not talk about the case before, and I see no reason for discussing It now.

“My personal wish is that some day the matter will be dropped for all time."

Mr Bern was one -of the most popular of Hollywood’s directors. The grand jury is now examining the expenditures of the Public Prosecutor, Buron Fitts, in connection with the inquest, at which a verdict of suicide was returned. “Palatial Home.” Fitts, who is also under Indictment for perjury In another case, has replied to the grand Jury’s action by Issuing to the public portions of the testimony given after Bern had been found shot in a bedroom of the palatial home he built, for Miss Harlow. This testimony contains some remarkable omissions. The grand jury, for instanoe, has been unable to find aiiy record of a statement made to the authorities by Jean Harlow’ relative to a note found beside Bern’s body, In this the dead man was alleged •to have written to her—

"Dearest dear, unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abjeot humiliation. I love you.—Paul" "P.S. —You understand that last night was only a comedy." Fitts deolares that he never, himself, saw the transcript, and other ofllolals assert that no one oould have had any reason for stealing it, as It was "valueless.”

Gardener’* Suggestion. The suggestion that Bern was murdered, It is revealed, oame from his gardener, Earl Davis, who In replyto a question, "Do you think Bern committed suicide?” said, “I do not think so; I knew him too well. He had no reason to commit suicide. I’ve thought It murder from the very first.”

Asked If he knew anything about a quarrel in Bern’s house, Davis answered that Carmichael, Bern's butler, had told him that Mr and Mrs Bern had had a “big l'uss," but that in giving evidence Carmichael had said “they were hugging and kissing’’ all the* time, and that Bern was talking about oqmmltting suicide. Davis added that Carmichael had admitted to him that if he had to give evjdenoe again he would “tell the truth instead of lying about, it."

Sensational Sequel.

The death of Bern had a sensational sequel in the sudden appearance at Hollywood of Dorothy Alillette, who claimed (hat he had married her many years before his marriage to Miss Harlow, and that she was still his legal wife. Did Miss Mlllette visit Bern shortly before his death? The question arises from evidence of one of the servants, who spoke of a mysterious tete-a-4ete between him and a woman on the edge of the private, swimming pool, and of hearing a woman’s scream. The grand duty, it is stated to-day, have no intention of reopening the inquiry into the mystery of Bern’s death.

Katharine Hepburn has been hiding her light 'under a bushel. She sings and, according to those who heard her audition, she has got a really nice voice. Pan Berman was so pleased over her voice that he promptly had a folk song written into ''Little .Minister" for his star.