Haunted California: Jean Harlow and the Ghost of Paul Bern

When Jean Harlow started acting in Hollywood, she had no idea that she'd be connected to the mysterious death of a man and his ghost for all of eternity.

Harlow was well known in Hollywood and around the world for her sexpot look: lots of cleavage, bright red full lips, and of course her platinum blonde hair. She was wanted by hundreds of men, but was fairly picky about the men she dated. After dating a string of Hollywood bigwigs, she settled on Paul Bern. Bern was much older than Harlow and not very attractive, but somehow she fell for him anyway.

Despite the fact that they had little in common, the two quickly became close. Eventually they even decided to get married. The wedding was a private and quite affair with a lot of Hollywood guests in attendance. People couldn't seem to get over how happy they looked together and how much in love they looked.

Bern didn't seem quite as happy as Harlow and as time went by he became even less happy with the situation. He had bought his new bridge a home in the Hollywood hills, but Harlow hated it and decided to sell it. Bern put his foot down, claiming the house was where they would grow old together and the place where they would live.

When the body of Paul Bern was found in the home just a few months later, people were shocked and word spread. The man was dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Witnesses noted that he smelled of Harlow's fragrance and was found without a stitch of clothing on. The butler of the house was the one to find the body first and that was when things got strange.

The butler's first call was to MGM and they called in Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. Those two men rushed immediately to the body and waited another couple of hours before calling the police. Bern had wrote out a suicide note, but for some reason Mayer stole it only to turn it in later.

Police hoped to find some meaning from either the note or Jean Harlow, but neither was much help. The note seemed cryptic and odd, written directly to Harlow. The actress herself was too upset to be much help and never once testified about the incident. They would later learn that on the night Bern died, Harlow was at her mother's house and that Bern had actually requested she leave for the evening.

Later it was discovered that Bern was impotent and unable to be with his wife in the one way she wanted. Those close to him claimed that he was so distraught over the problem that he had been upset and depressed. It was also found that one of his old lovers had died that same day. The woman suffered from mental illness and Bern took care of her. The day he died, she threw herself off a ship in California.

At the official inquest, people came forward to claim that it wasn't such a clear cut case of suicide. These people claimed that the couple were always arguing and fighting over different things and that Bern never seemed or looked suicidal.

There was also talk that the suicide note had been faked and that Bern was never happy in the relationship, nor did he even want to be with Harlow in the first place, but was merely putting on airs. Another worker in the house testified that once Harlow left the house on the night Bern died, there was another woman there. The same person said there was evidence in the past that the man was carrying on an affair. There was also someone who found blood outside of the house, which shouldn't have been found if Bern killed himself inside.

Despite the mounting evidence, no one ever believed that it was anything more than suicide. Years later word came out that perhaps Harlow wasn't as squeaky clean as she seemed. The actress had been dead for a number of years by then, but people still talked. The rumor was that Harlow had herself or perhaps his mistress had killed the man and MGM covered it up.

Supposedly the ghost of Paul Bern still lives on and he in fact made himself known to actress Sharon Tate. Jay Sebring was a close friend of the actress and invited her over to his home, which just happened to be the same house where Bern and Harlow once lived. By that point over thirty years had passed and Sebring supposedly experienced nothing. Oddly enough though, two people had drowned since the death of Bern.

The night Tate stayed there she felt strange and couldn't sleep even when all the lights were on in her room. According to legend, she saw the ghost of a man come into her room and she knew as soon as she saw him that it was Paul Bern. She wandered into the hallway as if looking for Bern again and saw a dead person tied to the stairway. Then suddenly it disappeared.

Adding to the strangeness of the night she later managed to uncover a hidden bar in the home, one that was unknown even to Sebring. She claimed that she just felt the room was there, but didn't know who or what told her. The night had a strange feeling to it and some claimed Bern came out only to show Tate what her future held.

Some also claim that Harlow herself haunts the home where they once lived. People living there have sometimes seen a shadowy figure of a woman with platinum blonde hair walking through the living room and bedroom. Oddly enough, Harlow actually attempted suicide in the bedroom after Bern's death. Strange that the two ghosts are never seen together...

Officially Bern died of a suicide, but that hasn't stopped people from talking. Whatever actually did happen, it looks like Bern is still roaming around.

Sources:

http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/deliverances/hollywood.htmlhttp://www.prairieghosts.com/hollywood9.html