The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-09-06

The body of Bern was dis
covered by John Carmichael,
his butler, at approximately
II :45 a. m. Authorities were
not notified until approx
mately two and one-half
hours later.
Attendants at the Price-Daniel
mortuary, in announcing an autopsy
over Bern's body for this morning,
reported that the film producer had
been dead at least twenty hours
before his body was received at the
funeral parlors.
Complete Probe Ordered
A preliminary examination, NOR
tuary officials declared, indicated
that Bern had ended his life late
Sunday evening.
Detective Chief Joseph F. Taylor
announced that he had assigned
members of the police homicide
squad to make a complete investi-
cation. He said he felt that dis
crepancies existed in versions of the
apparent suicide. He also wanted
to know why police were not called
sooner.
Irving Thalberg, Norma Shearer's
husband and Bern's immediate~su-
perior at the Metro Goodwin Mayer
studios, was at the Bern home with
David Q. Selznick, head of RKO-
Radio studio, and personal friend
of the victim. Douglas Fairbanks
Jr., called
Miss Harlow was working at M
GIN studios when she received
word of the tragedy. The actress,
hySterical, was taken to the home
of her mother, Mrs. Marino Bello,
in Beverly Hills.
Miss Harlow in SeclusiOn
The platinum blond denied her
self to interviewers. A brief state
ment in which Miss Harlow denied
she had quarreled with Bern was
issued.
Miss Harlow was said to have gone
from her studio Saturday to her
mothers home, since her STEP
father was absent on a fishing trip
and her husband had a business
engagement.
The next day, Sunday, she went to
the studios, and that night returned
to the Bern home briefly before 60
ing back to the mothers house,
where a dinner party was to be held.
Carmichael, the butler, said he &C
companied Miss Harlow to the Bello
house Sunday night. She parted
with her husband the best of friends,
the houseman said.
Carmichael returned to the house
the next morning.
"The place seemed terribly quiet"
the butler said Il tip-toed into his
bedroom. 1t was empty Then I
stepped into the dressing alcove to
turn up the blind, and stumbled
over his body"
Little ConfeSsOr of Hollywood
Bern was born forty-two years ago
in Germany. His carer led him from
a poverty-stricken boyhood in New
York to high position in the mo-
ton picture industry.
Gradually Bern had come to be
known as "the little confessor of
Hollywood.
He sat at the bedside of the beau
tiful Barbara La Mari when death
came to the actress in 1926 after her
brilliant career ended in tragedy.
When fatal illness seized Mabel
the coincidence, again
it was Bern who was called upon
to soothe her last moments.
Lya De Putt, whose meteoric path
through Hollywood was as brilliant
as it was brief, few to Bern when
she was oppressed and in trouble.
Friend in Need to Many
1t is said that Bern persuaded
depressed and discour-
aged, to make her now famous
comeback"
He was a friend of both John
Gilbert and Ina Claire, Gilbert's
former wife, and retained both
after the marriage
ended in divorce.
Joan Crawford and jetta Goudal
are others who came under Bern's
protection at time when Holly
wood seemed about to crush them.
Estelle Taylor sought his advice.
Bern lived a secluded life far up
in Benedict canyon. His home was
SO remote that he placed a sign at
a lane branching from the, main