The Washington times., 1937-06-09
By
ADELA ROGERS. ST. JOHNS


Doctors and nurses, with
every miracle of modern science
at their command, firemen with
every piece Of life-saving equip
ment geared to its top capacity,
and the man she loved and the
mother she adored, fought a
brief, terrible battle for the life
Of Jean Harlow.
But neither science nor love
nor prayers availed. The little
movie star laid down her plati-
mum crown in a bare hospital
room, so blinded by pain, so
drained by the struggle against
death, she could not see her
mothers face bent above her,
nor the dark head Of William
Powell bowed as he knelt at
her bedside.
I have seen Jean Harlow fight
many battles. I stood beside her
while she fought one. Her courage
was a bright and living thing that
sent her forward even when she
couldn't see the next step. But
the enemy was too strong for her,
and she could die as dauntlessly as
she had lived.
26-TOO Young to Die
It does not seem possible she was
only 20. Twenty-Six is too young
to die. Yet, into those brief years
Jean Harlow had packed more hv-
ing than most people know who
round out the allotted three scores
years and ten.
The skyrocket Of her life famed
fnadly across the heavens, paint
ing bright, dazzling picture-and
went out as quickly.
Movie star. Why, If sat down
today and tried to put together as
fiction, everything that goes to
make up that title-Movie Star
Il could do no better than the
life story of Harlean Carpenter,
the girl from Missouri, who be-
came Jean ddTlOW.
If I tried to think up a character
to typify in every way that modern
Phenomena movie star-1
couldn't create one as perfect as
Jean Harlow, the original glamour
girl, the platinum blonde.
Bern's Suicide Hurt Jean
People, they say. do not die Of a
broken heart. Probably that is
true.
But I have sometimes wondered
II Jean ever came back from that
deep and terrible pit into which
she walked the night that her hus-
band, Paul Bern, killed himself and
left her alone to face a world that
might so easily have turned
thumbs down upon her.
I have sometimes wondered If,
beneath the superb courage and
brave face with which she carried
on after she read that final note
of his, her heart wasn't breaking.
Those days, I think, left her
Mounted with a fear of life that
she never quite licked, left her with
q wound that bled too easily.
And I may say now what, for
Jeans sake, could not say be-
fore, since never once would she
allow living human being to say
the slightest word against Paul
Bern.
But it always seemed to me
then and seems so still - that
that final ambiguous note which
Paul Bern left behind when he
chose to take the shotgun way out
of his morbid fears and jealouSies
was cruel and unforgivable thing.
Note to Dearest Dear
Do you remember that note they
found in the house where Paul
and Jean were honeymooning -
the note. which read:
Dearest Dear: Unfortunately
this is the only way to make
good the frightful wrong I.have
done you and to wipe out my alb
ject humiliation. I love you.
Paul. p. S.-YOu understand
that last night was only q
comedy"
Paul Bern was my friend. A
man of great intellectual achieve
ment, of great charity, of much
understanding.
Yet when he left his bride of two
months to face his suicide, and
that note, believe he did thing
which, could he have foreseen all
that followed, he would never have
done.
And Jean believed that, too, and
It helped her to live through the
days when his betrayal was the