Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Hopefully my internet problems will be fixed by tomorrow which will allow more posting and lots of photos. No matter what though the reveals will happen Friday beginning at 9:15 a.m and continuing every 15 minutes until finished.
I like to have one old Hollywood item every six months and I have been saving this one to sneak in under the reveal deadline.
This actress was definitely A list back in the day. And by back in the day, I mean prior to television. She was all movies. Our actress came from a very unstable background with perhaps the queen of stage moms as her mother. Our actress was never nominated for any of the big awards but starred in lots of movies. She was in and out of marriages frequently and one of the ways she got out of one was by killing her husband. Oh, not the husband everyone knows was found dead by a gunshot. Nope. He is considered her second husband, but in reality was her third. The second husband was a guy in the mafia who had seen our actress on screen and loved her. He wined her dined her and romanced her. Our actress loved it and eloped with him after just a few weeks. Well, at the same time this was happening our actresses career was about to skyrocket because she was moving to a new studio. The new husband wanted her to stay home and be a wife and our actress and her domineering mother wanted the big career. So, one night our actress and the man who would be her next husband and her next victim killed her husband of two months and buried him in the desert. It is said that the reason her next husband was killed was revenge by the mafia but I say it was our actress who saw a future which was brighter with a new man in her life. With divorce not an option, a gun was.
Jean Harlow
That was a good one. Shocking, too. Enty you're awesome, keep 'em coming
ReplyDeletegood one!!!
ReplyDeleteKat said...
I'll say Jean Harlow. She had the stage mother and at least three marriages that I know of. Also, the second 'official' husband died of an apparent 'self-inflicted' gunshot wound, which has always been suspicious in my view.
1:30 PM
but I am confused, did she kill her next husband too? So two killings?
WOW!
ReplyDeleteI love the Old Hollywood Gossip!!
Thanks ENTY for reviling this one!
Wow so it was Jean Harlow. Crap I wish I had been alive back then. Life seemed so much more fun.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the last one, want to thank everybody for being so much fun today.
Huge thanks to chihuahuense for giving credit to all the post winners (me being first lol)
hugs & kisses to you all! Esp you Enty!!
Whew...I am exhausted. Good night sweet Enty and my CDAN family
ReplyDeleteOMFingGAWD that is EPIC!
ReplyDeleteThe story about Sharon Tate seeing Paul Bern's ghost and then the apparition on the staircase with the slit throat kept me wide awake all night. Some of you know way too much about this stuff! The whole story is pretty terrifying, but the "beyond the grave" side of it really gave me the chills.
ReplyDeleteOne hell of a good blind item!
I need a cigarette after that session. Whew that was good, Enty.
ReplyDeleteNow for a quote from Miz Harlow herself:
“When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”
Jean Harlow
Who was the wiseguy she and Paul Bern killed?
ReplyDeleteThanks for another year of that thing you do!
Happy New Year!
This one is my favorite!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of them, Enty!
well, little ms. psychopath.
ReplyDeleteThese were good reveals. Enty lied by an hour, but I think he just isn't good at math.
ReplyDeleteTO all the great commentors on CDAN, I thank you for the humor and education you all have ultimately provided to me.
To Enty, with specifity to you springing your new columnist in the middle of this shit, I say, Fuck You Buddy. I didn't send 25 bucks of my savings while I was unemployed for you to woo some clothes whore to the site as a "columnist."
Happy Twenty Ten, all.
awesome reveals today!!!! thanks enty!
ReplyDeleteWow! Naughty, naughty girl!! I was gonna say she done him wrong .. but that was a Mae West movie! Perhaps a play on "Platinum Blonde" .. something about gun metal grey??
ReplyDeleteHappy 2010 to all!! Thanks for the great reveals EL!
Now that I know who it's about it's seems so obvious. Her mother really was a tyrant. Wow.
ReplyDeletewoah.... jean harlow...kickin it old school. that is some crazy crazy stuff. old hollywood BLOWS MY MIND. it was so gritty and dirty and warped and glitzy and glamorous. there were so many more secrets back then, it was so much more interesting i think. and i think it's probably why we like blind items so much...hollywood is so pasturized now its gross. plain vanilla. so it's fun to be let in on some of these dirty little secrets. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletethese reveals were fun.
*the emily blunt one was interesting, i think it raised more questions than it answered, non?
*the brittany murphy one was sad.
*the kate beckinsale one was cool, althouth the behavior in question isn't shocking considering the industry, it's always shocking to hear a big name thrown out with it. i'm going to think of that every time i see one of her pics!
*i love the keith urban one, but that one was figured out that day as i remember, someone posted the link to the article from australia or something.
*the bob saget and carla gugino ones made me really happy...carla's especially! domestic violence is a B*itch and i's really tough to overcome.
*the hugh dancy one was kind of weird, i don't know if he's joking or not, or the context of it i guess...
*LOVE the rachel weisz and mark wahlberg one. he's a total ass.
and of course the jeremy piven and dennis quaid ones were great cuz they're such jerks! i love knowing this weird crap about them that shows how out of touch they are with reality.
THANKS ENTY AND EVERYONE ELSE!!!!
sorry for rambling :) i'm excited!
This is crazy... My hubby even found it interesting because of the mafia side of it!
ReplyDeleteShe was a driven women I guess...
ENTY YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow, I did not think this one would be revealed!
ReplyDeleteWant to echo the kudos to Chihuahuense for the attributions. Good job! And your little peanut is gorgeous. :-)
ReplyDeleteThough I suspected this would be revealed as Jean Harlow. I am still not conviced. Not trying to start any trouble, but the only "gangster/mafia type" I know Jean Harlow ever dated was Longy Zwillman (I am assuming that is who Enty is implying), and as I said in my previous posting, she could have possibly married him--but she did not kill him or have him killed because he died in 1959 long after Harlow died. So if there is another ganster type person who Harlow dated/"married" (of course it is possible)--Enty, you should at least reveal who this gangster was..He could have been a low level gangster for all we know, but at least give us a bit more information other than just posting Jean Harlow's name. It isn't a complete answer to the blind, but hey, maybe that's just me! Anyway, Happy New Year everyone!
ReplyDeletei think i might have heard this one from the asshole/uncle/rapist/cop in the family. it just rings a bell somehow.
ReplyDeleteand to Whole Lotta:
what the hell is the problem? jesus jumped up on a side car, enty can't win for losing, can he?
love you enty, so far you got less complaints than last time, maybe the clientele is getting classier?
big smooches to you, you ARE the best!!
So who was the mafia guy? I know Abe "Longy" Zwillman had a lech for her -- he was even rumored to have killed Paul Bern -- but he died in 1959.
ReplyDeleteAnybody?
I LOVED THIS! You really rocked it this time Enty. I was also #44 on Reader photos! I loved it!
ReplyDeleteI love the Wahlberg and Harlow things.
Wow! Some of you guessed it, but still... wow!
ReplyDeleteMoney and fame seem to bring out the *best* in some. (makes me think about that douche on the reality show(s) who murdered the blond then went to Canada to off himself.)
Raise your hands if you think Mommie Dearest was the catalyst for this behavior. Stage moms, ugh. White Oprah is probably taking notes.
Does anyone remember the Mae West sleeping w/ bio-child? was that true!
So Paul Bern and Jean killed the mafia "husband"? I don't know if I believe this. Then Jean killed Paul Bern? I don't know if I believe this, either.
ReplyDeleteCarolMR, I'm with you on this one. Jean was a leading lady before she went to MGM, so there would have been some press coverage of her second marriage somewhere.
ReplyDeleteCan't see her killing Paul Bern, either. She would have to have been a sociopath. Everybody who knew her called her The Baby, not The Scary Bitch.
I'll gladly change my opinion if somebody can cough up a name for the second husband.
okay guys, i'm pulling out my book of hollywood scandals, i know jean harlow is in there and if i remember correctly it said she was married three times, but i've been too lazy to dig it out (just moved) even though i can see the box it is in from where i sit.
ReplyDeleteokay, here is what "the hollywood book of scandals" has for "jean harlow and paul bern: a deadly marriage":
ReplyDelete"Harlow endured a disastrous marital record: she divorced two of her three spouses, and her second husband, mgm executive paul bern, died under mysterious circumstances in 1932..."
according to this book, her marriages were:
wed chuck mcgrew II September 1927. they moved to la and were followed by jean's mother. she got her first part in 1928, and mama jean sensed an opportunity at hand and persuaded her daughter to pursue a screen career. in 1929 she found out she was pregnant which she thought would be her way out of movies but her mother insisted and arranged for an abortion. in june 1929 she and chuck separated because he couldn't cope with his meddling in-laws. he is not mentioned again in this book so i googled him, they were divorced in 1929 and i can't find anything about him after that. don't even know when he died.
she then had a few love affairs including abner zwillman who wined and dined her even paying for a fancier la home for her and her family. she was more intrigued with paul, however and began arranging for her to make the move over to mgm, which she did in 1932. by may 1932 jean was being "squired about town by bern" and he was telling people he planned to marry her. zwillman confronted jean and told her that bern was reputed to be homosexual but jean ignored any warnings from him or her mother who was also worried about this pairing. they wed in july of 1932. zwillman died in 1959.
he died mysteriously by a gunshot that same year, after dorothy millette came back after being institutionalized after paul's mother had committed suicide. he apparently only told a few people "which reputedly included jean" about dorothy who had moved to san fran in 1932. she supposedly jumped from a ferry and her body was found a week after paul's.
harlow married hal rosson in september 1933 and divorced him in 1935. and she then became romantically involved with william powell. rosson died in 1988.
so the only death that i can't account for is mcgrew's. so maybe he was actualy her second husband, not her first and she had four husbands in total?
that's a shocked blind item!
ReplyDeleteI was reading on Paul Bern and some of the stories say he was impotent, and that it was an obvious strain on their marriage. But I'm sure Jean would have been fully aware of it before their marriage; which makes this look like a marriage for her career not love.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I read is that when the butler found Paul Bern's body he did call an ambulance he called MGM, and police and paramedics weren't called until hours after his body was found.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Enty, I am a long time reader, first time poster. Your blog has supplied the exact amount of diversion that I need every day as a civil litigator. Thank you for 3 great years and I wish you and yours the best!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Claroscureaux. Jean Harlow was known as a kind, generous person in Hollywood. I read two biographies of her. I find this blind hard to believe.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Enty for doing the reveal on this one - although it's Hollywood "history" it was still a fun mystery.
ReplyDeleteNow how about another oldie you can reveal ?
I know you have to have a million of 'em, so how 'bout sharing a few?
Thanks Enty!!
ReplyDeleteNot only is the the best "gossip" blog, it's one of the best blogs ever. Not only do we get the year's reveals here, (which were guessed with a high degree of correctness by y'all when they first were posted), but we also get a mystery or two thrown in, along the way, for good measure. Like this beauty.
Here's my guess at what's being suggested here;
1) That Jean Harlow married someone in between her first marriage to Charles McGrew and her second marriage to Paul Bern, that is NOT part of her official history/biography.
2) That this second husband, was a mafia member who saw her, in her movies and was smitten by her appearance there. He then met her, wined and dined her, and convinced her to elope with him after only a few weeks.
As mentioned in ballyhoo's prior post, from "The Hollywood Book of Scandals", Abner Zwillman, who was known as the "Al Capone of New Jersey", and an early Prohibition gangster, dated Jean and supposedly got her a two-picture deal at Columbia Pictures by giving Harry Cohn, a huge loan. Which would have them dating just prior to, Platinum Blonde (1931), and Three Wise Girls (1932). The only problem with Zwillman being her unnamed second husband is that he was found hanged in his home, on February 27, 1959.
However, given Enty's reveal, I think that the Zwillman association gets thrown in a more interesting light now. It's certainly plausible, that if not Zwillman, then someone working for Zwillman could be Jean Harlow's mysterious second "mafioso" husband.
3) That the timing for this second marriage could have been within a few months of March 3, 1932, (Harlow's 21st birthday), which was when Jean's Howard Huges/Caddo Productions contract was bought out by MGM. This also strongly indicates a second husband in between McGrew and Bern. Jean and McGrew divorced in 1929, and her "career was about to skyrocket because she was moving to a new studio", in 1932. Also she was married to McGrew when she was 16, so it's hard to imagine a husband before him.
4) That Jean and Paul murdered her second husband, and buried him in the desert, only after a couple of months of marriage because her husband wanted her to stay at home, and she, her mother, and perhaps Paul Bern, wanted her to continue her career in Hollywood. Paul Bern supposedly worked very hard to get her signed to MGM, first trying to convince Louis B. Mayer, who didn't want to sign her, and then finally convincing Irving Thalberg to sign her.
5) That the theory that Paul Bern's estranged common law wife, Dorothy Millette, murdered him and then committed suicide 2 days later, is not correct.
6) That Paul Bern was really killed by the mafia, in revenge for him having participated in the murder of Jean's unnamed second husband. (Although Enty does suggest that perhaps Jean got rid of Paul herself, the same way she got rid of the mysterious second husband..)
Which opens up a whole new can of worms. Remember not only was Paul Bern dead, his estranged common law wife, died 2 days later, and finally Jean would be dead in less than 5 years. Additionally, all of these deaths would happen under strange circumstances.
Now, what I wanna know is how long do we need to wait to have Enty fill in THESE blanks..
Just fyi... if you're going to look at a "big book of gossip" make sure you know if it's a reliable source. There are several volumes written from speculation and faulty memory, that do not cite their sources, and have lead to other, equally unrealiable biographies.
ReplyDeleteAlso keep in mind that LB Mayer had a strong pr machine & "clean up crew" that would have suppressed these kinds of things.
TMZ and Enty didn't exist back then!!!!!!
Just fyi... if you're going to look at a "big book of gossip" make sure you know if it's a reliable source. There are several volumes written from speculation and faulty memory, that do not cite their sources, and have lead to other, equally unrealiable biographies.
ReplyDeleteAlso keep in mind that LB Mayer had a strong pr machine & "clean up crew" that would have suppressed these kinds of things.
TMZ and Enty didn't exist back then!!!!!!
FYI ... Mayer would have needed a time machine for his cleanup crew to have removed every single mention of Harlow's alleged gangsta marriage.
ReplyDeleteAt the time this is supposed to have happened, she was very well known to the general public, so there most definitely would have been mention of it in one of the trade publications or fan magazines or newspapers.
The marriage is claimed to have happened months PRIOR to her going to MGM. Mayer wouldn't have bothered cleaning up the marital mess of some starlet who wasn't already under contract and pulling in money for his studio.
If it had happened, you can believe biographer Irving Schulman would have heard of it from her agent when he did that hatchet job on her in the 1960s and had it in the book.
Her second biographer Stenn, who uncovered minute details of her life nobody had ever bothered digging up, would have included it as well.
Without a name for the mysterious gangster, it's just backyard gossip.
What is the source of this blind item? Jean Harlow was the biggest star of her time. This is the same as if you accused Julia Roberts of murder. You gotta offer up the proof if you're going to make these accusations.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe this one. I think it's a recycled rumor.
ReplyDeleteNeither Harlow, who was generally well liked, nor Bern, who was a quiet intellectual, really come across as murderers. I may be wrong, since I'm recalling what I read about Harlow years ago, but I believe her stepfather was also mob related. In fact I seem to recall Zwillman met Harlow through him. Since her mother and stepfather were living off of Harlow's earnings it would give them a lot of motivation to get rid of a pesky husband. Harlow apparently hated her stepfather but stayed with him - a "hold" over her would explain a lot. If it happened I just don't see Harlow/Bern as doing it themselves.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm late go this party, but wanted to add that you can't defame a dead person, so there are virtually no repercussions for making up scandalous and false stories about dead people.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying this story is or isn't true, only that we should keep in mind that the normal fact-checking that Enry does before revealing potentially defamatory blinds about living people might not be done when the subject is dead.
Enty says that this blind is not about "the husband everyone knows was found dead by a gunshot" but the husband before that. It's well recorded that Paul Bern was shot (Mannix's cover up means most people think it was suicide), so who was she married to before Bern?
ReplyDeleteTo Charles McGrew, a wealthy young man from the midwest. But he outlived Harlow, so it's not him. Enty's just got this one wrong.
ReplyDeleteI know this post is years out of date, but just wanted to lnote that it was Jean Harlow's *mothe* who married low level mafioso Marino Bello (deceased 1935).
ReplyDelete