E! Mysteries - Jean Harlow (1998)
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00:00In the 1930s, the beautiful platinum blonde sex siren redefined Hollywood's leading lady.
00:08She was brash and self-assured with a smoldering sexuality that both shocked and titillated
00:13audiences.
00:14But Jean's personal life was even more shocking.
00:17She had three marriages, one of them to a bigamist with some serious sexual problems,
00:23who turned up with a hole in his head under very fishy circumstances.
00:27She was Hollywood's first blonde bombshell, but her life was a whirlwind of personal disappointments,
00:32failed marriages, and romantic frustrations.
00:34Jean Harlow played a major role in the lives of Hollywood legends like Clark Gable, William
00:39Powell, and Howard Hughes.
00:41But she was also a divorcee before she was old enough to vote, and later became the widow
00:45of a naked man with a bullet hole in his head.
00:48Was this a suicide?
00:49Was this a murder?
00:51What was this?
00:52To this day, it's one of the big Hollywood mysteries.
00:54And unlike the bold, self-assured heroines Jean Harlow played on screen, in life she
00:59was cast in an epic tragedy.
01:01Harlow became embroiled in one of Tinseltown's most sordid scandals.
01:04And as if that weren't enough, throughout her rollercoaster life, nobody, including
01:08Jean Harlow, knew that Hollywood's favorite new actress was slowly dying.
01:13It was probably a lot of the pain she was going through.
01:18I don't know if she knew the end was coming or not.
01:21Perhaps the irony is that she was doomed long before she got to Hollywood.
01:24On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll relive the short, sad life of Jean Harlow
01:29and reveal the scandal that rocked Hollywood.
01:32Her story will be told through classic film clips, rare news footage, and shocking photographs.
01:42We'll also witness gripping reenactments of the night that Jean Harlow's private life
01:47became a public spectacle.
01:49I'm A.J. Benzo.
01:50Join me as we explore the glamorous life and tragic death of the silver screen's first
01:54blonde sex goddess and investigate the scandal that began the saddest chapter in Jean Harlow's
01:59life.
02:00Jean Harlow was born Harleen Harlow Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911.
02:27Her father, Montclair, was a prominent dentist.
02:29Her mother, Jean, who would later become her movie namesake, was frivolous and flighty,
02:34hardly a typical society matron.
02:37When Jean was 11 years old, her parents divorced.
02:40Biographer David Sten is the author of Bombshell.
02:43Mother Jean got a divorce, which in 1922 in Kansas City, Missouri, was a big scandal,
02:48and immediately departed for Hollywood, tried to get a career for herself, was told she
02:53was too old, went back in defeat.
02:55Jean's mother, her dreams for stardom crushed, was determined that her daughter would have
02:59every opportunity to succeed in life.
03:02At 15, Jean was sent away to a very prestigious boarding school in Lake Forest, Illinois.
03:07She fell in love with a handsome and popular young man from a wealthy Chicago family, Charles
03:12Fremont McGrew III.
03:14Marcella Rabwin was movie mogul David O'Selznick's executive assistant and a close friend of
03:19Jean Harlow's.
03:20She was in a girls' high school at the time she married him, and all the girls there were
03:25crazy about McGrew, and she, when he asked her, she said, yes, happily.
03:31But the marriage was short-lived.
03:33Jean was married at 16 and divorced at 19.
03:36She left Illinois and McGrew behind and went home to mother and the new stepfather, Marino
03:40Bello, the shady character with ties to the mob.
03:45Before long, the three of them set out for Hollywood in search of fame, or at least fortune.
03:50In 1929, at Mama's urging, the young beauty landed a job as a film extra at 20th Century
03:55Fox.
03:56This led to Jean's big break in the Laurel and Hardy comedy, Double Whoopie.
04:00And immediately, people noticed, who is this girl with this, of course, platinum-bond look?
04:05And that really, I would say, launched her career in many ways.
04:09The young starlet decided it was time to lose her birth name, Harleen Carpenter, not exactly
04:14a name you'd want to see up in lights.
04:16Joyce Van Der Veen is the author of Deadly Illusions.
04:19Her mother's maiden name was Jean Harlow.
04:23She loved her mother, so she took the name Harlow and her mother's first name, Jean.
04:29And so she also became Jean Harlow.
04:32So in order to keep them separated, there was Mama Jean and there was Baby Jean.
04:38And ever thereafter known as Mama Jean and Baby Jean.
04:41And it wasn't long before the beautiful Baby Jean caught the eye of agent Arthur Landau.
04:46He was a very good agent.
04:48He got her a part with Howard Hughes in his picture.
04:52It was a pretty good picture.
04:53He was not a bad producer.
04:54He had all the money in the world, of course.
04:57The movie was Hell's Angels, produced by Howard Hughes, the most dashing figure in Hollywood.
05:02Jean Harlow quickly became his flavor of the month.
05:04When we come back, Baby Jean turns into the bombshell who knocked the socks off Hollywood.
05:09But all the money, glamour, and fame that Hollywood had to offer couldn't keep Harlow
05:13off the road to scandal and tragedy.
05:15His appetite for teenage girls and support of communism forced him into exile.
05:24But what's the truth behind the star they call the Little Tramp?
05:27Mysteries and Scandals examines Charlie Chaplin.
05:30Tomorrow at 7.30.
05:31Only on E!
05:32Fame.
05:33Ain't no bitch.
05:34You are looking at Hollywood Boulevard, illuminated for miles in honor of the opening of Hell's
05:45Angels.
05:46It was the height of the Great Depression, May 27, 1930.
05:49But you wouldn't have known it here at Mann's Chinese Theater, where 50,000 people lined
05:54the streets for the premiere of Hell's Angels.
05:56It starred a beautiful young blonde named Jean Harlow.
05:59The producer was dashing millionaire playboy Howard Hughes, who was just 23 at the time.
06:04He had just made the most expensive film in history, $4 million.
06:08That would just about cover the cappuccino budget for a Hollywood flick today.
06:12Hell's Angels marked the beginning of Jean Harlow's rise to the top.
06:15I would like to use this occasion to publicly thank Mr. Hughes for the opportunity he gave
06:21me.
06:22Hell's Angels was a booming success and made Jean Harlow a household name.
06:26She was a mere 19 years old.
06:29Although she was under contract to Hughes, other studios soon began expressing interest.
06:34Howard Hughes signed Jean Harlow, before she appeared in Hell's Angels, he was paying her
06:37$100 a week.
06:38He signed her to a five-year contract.
06:40Within two years, really less.
06:43She was such a big star that he was loaning her out to other studios for $5,000 a week
06:47and paying her $250.
06:50Now one day he was a millionaire.
06:52One studio that borrowed Jean from Hughes was MGM, ruled by Louis B. Mayer.
06:57One of Mayer's lieutenants was a producer named Paul Byrne, shown here accompanying
07:01Jean to the premiere of Hell's Angels.
07:03Byrne was infatuated with the young starlet and pushed for her to be cast in the lead
07:07for Red-Headed Woman.
07:09Louis B. Mayer, the boss of MGM, really thought that Jean Harlow was kind of a slut.
07:16He was not anxious to give her that kind of a part, but Paul Byrne insisted and fought
07:23for her, and finally she got the part.
07:27That's what made her a star.
07:28The lead in Red-Headed Woman was a coveted one.
07:31Every actress in town was after it, including former silent screen star Anita Page, who
07:36auditioned for MGM executive Irving Thalberg.
07:39And I asked her if there was a chance that I could get it, and he kidded me and he said,
07:44oh, what do you do for Papa?
07:45Of course, he was just teasing, and I said, oh, I'll just give you the best performance
07:51I possibly can, and so he liked that, he laughed, and so that was that.
07:57But Papa gave the part to the platinum-haired Jean Harlow, who agreed to a dye job.
08:02There were no hard feelings between Harlow and Page.
08:05The two actresses even became good friends.
08:07I did like her so much, even although she got Red-Headed Woman.
08:12I wanted that one, and I could have played that right to the, oh, brother.
08:16Oh, brother is right.
08:18The film was about a woman who slept away right to the top and got away with it.
08:21She was absolutely terrific in the movie, and after that, she kept playing, in a sense,
08:27the Red-Headed Woman, the same persona, brassy, you know, showing off her body, and sharp, witty.
08:36Really, it was just too amusing for words.
08:39There I was with a cinder in the eye as large as a paving block, with the Grand Duke on
08:44one side of me and the Marquis on the other.
08:46Jean Harlow was sexy and sassy, but the one thing that everybody was talking about was
08:50that hair.
08:52The age of the platinum blonde had arrived with a bang.
08:55Alfred Pagano was Jean's hairdresser.
08:57We were creating the platinum blonde.
08:59We were creating a new type of lady.
09:05It was the first real glamour.
09:09Jean Harlow was the first American film actress ever to dye her hair, specifically to bleach
09:15her hair, and you have to remember that when this was done, a woman who bleached her hair
09:19was one thing and one thing only.
09:22A polite term for it would be a tramp.
09:24I used Pyorx, just a few drops of Pyorx, and it would burn.
09:30I'd say to Jean, you know, is this hurting you?
09:33And she says, a little bit.
09:35So I'd use a blower on her, cool it off sometime with magazines, fan it off.
09:42And Jean needed cooling off.
09:43All the rules of the day went right out the window with this girl.
09:46In fact, Jean Harlow started some very controversial fashion trends.
09:51Never never wore undergarments.
09:53And I used to say to Jean, my God, you don't have anything on underneath of that.
09:58She said, no, I hate lines.
09:59She didn't like undergarment lines, pants, bras, anything like that.
10:04And she was young enough where she didn't have to have anything hold it up.
10:09And, you know, God was holding it up for her.
10:12Well, whoever was holding her up had his work cut out for him, all right?
10:15So maybe Jean Harlow didn't like panty lines, but the studios loved the lines outside the
10:19theater.
10:20Harlow's sex appeal was about to explode all over America, and it was just what the doctor
10:24ordered to help the country out of the Depression.
10:27But the clock was ticking, and Jean Harlow's life was headed for disaster and death.
10:30When we come back, we'll examine the events which led to the scandalous and tragic downfall
10:35of America's first sex queen.
10:43Jean Harlow was only 21 years old and the hottest, sexiest property in Hollywood.
10:48It was the early 1930s, and the Depression was taking its toll on America.
10:52But Harlow was lifting everybody's spirits.
10:54Women all over America were running out to dye their hair to match the platinum blonde
10:58bombshells, and their husbands weren't exactly objecting.
11:01I'm A.J. Benza, and this is Mysteries and Scandals.
11:04Jean Harlow's life was glamorous, but was about to get very messy and very ugly.
11:09Things took a turn for the worse when she got involved with Paul Byrne, an MGM executive
11:14twice her age.
11:15If you don't want to marry me, just say so.
11:16I'm glad you're getting yourself all upset, darling, over here at Little Drinking Maid.
11:17No, not today, I don't.
11:18Today, I get married.
11:19In the summer of 1932, Jean Harlow did get married to Paul Byrne, who was instrumental
11:20in casting her in Red-Headed Woman.
11:21This was an unusual pairing from the beginning.
11:22They never slept together.
11:23He was impotent.
11:24He did not tell her.
11:25And when I talked to her about him, she said, the thing that he did to me, he did to me,
11:26he did to me.
11:27He did to me.
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13:02The interesting thing was is that Gene didn't know about Paul's common law marriage with
13:07the lady in New York who had a psychiatric history, Dorothy Millett.
13:13It appears Dorothy Millett had shown up at their home, had had a scene with Paul Byrne
13:19because under New York law, they were still legally married.
13:23They had a common law marriage, which made Paul Byrne a bigamist.
13:26Boy, this guy was a real prize.
13:28So was it the crazy woman from Byrne's past who pushed him over the edge, or did she pull
13:32the trigger?
13:34We had to come to the conclusion that Paul Byrne was murdered.
13:39He was murdered by Dorothy Millett.
13:44All the evidence points to it.
13:46There were eyewitnesses who saw her flee the scene of the murder.
13:51There was a car waiting for her.
13:53But that's a theory that has never been proven because no one was ever able to interrogate
13:58Dorothy Millett.
13:59They found out she had taken a steamboat to Sacramento, but she never arrived.
14:04And a week after Paul Byrne's death, her body was found in the Sacramento River.
14:10So Dorothy wasn't talking and Paul Byrne didn't have a lot to say either.
14:14But whatever happened to Byrne, this was not a good situation for anybody.
14:18So now it was time for the Hollywood power brokers to move into action.
14:23Damage control began almost immediately.
14:25The butler found the body, called Irving Thalberg, did not call the police.
14:29And the mayor and David Selznick, my boss, showed up over there and found the note that
14:36Paul Byrne had left.
14:38The note went like this, dearest dear, unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful
14:44wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation.
14:48I love you, Paul.
14:50And there was a postscript.
14:52You understand that last night was only a comedy.
14:54We couldn't really quite figure it out.
14:57Nobody understood the note.
15:00If they destroyed that note, it might look like Jean Harlow had killed her husband.
15:04So they did leave the note.
15:06They were really trying to just figure out how to save the studio's reputation.
15:11Within the next few days, everything blew open because you had Louis B. Mayer's doctor
15:16announcing that Paul Byrne was impotent because they were trying to give a motive to his suicide.
15:22The consensus among the players at the time remains that Paul Byrne killed himself.
15:26The question is why?
15:28Was it the fact that he was married to the biggest sexpot in America and couldn't rise
15:31to the occasion?
15:32Or was he murdered by his first wife?
15:34When we come back, we'll relive the final years of Jean Harlow's sad, scandalous life.
15:38It's hard to believe things could get any worse, but they did.
15:43Well, what a story.
15:51Constance Allenbury marries bigamist.
15:53If you publish that, you'll have another libel suit on your hands.
15:57I'm not a bigamist.
15:58You married me, didn't you?
16:01Ironically, Jean Harlow had married a bigamist, technically speaking.
16:05But now Paul Byrne was a dead bigamist.
16:07So Jean Harlow had been dealt two crushing blows at once.
16:10First she finds out her husband commits suicide, and then she finds out her marriage to him
16:14was probably a big sham.
16:15Plus his common-law wife, or the woman who claimed to be his common-law wife, Dorothy
16:19Millette, had just drowned under mysterious circumstances.
16:22But somehow, Jean Harlow managed to come through all of that with a lot of class.
16:26Jean Harlow heard about poor Dorothy Millette.
16:31Jean Harlow called the coroner in Sacramento and said, give her the finest place in the
16:41cemetery, and I will pay for the stone.
16:46Make it pretty, and add the name Byrne.
16:49And Dorothy Millette is buried under the name Dorothy Millette Byrne.
16:56But Jean was a trooper.
16:58Three days after Paul Byrne's suicide, she went back to work on Red Dust with Clark Gable.
17:03It was her tenth movie.
17:05Jean Harlow, a widow at age 21, recovered beautifully from the scandal of her husband's
17:09suicide.
17:10Her career was going gangbusters.
17:12And in a few short months, Jean was in love again.
17:15This time with her favorite cameraman, Hal Rawson.
17:18Rawson was almost a duplicate in appearance to Paul Byrne.
17:23He had the little mustache and the dark hair.
17:26He was a very good photographer.
17:28Listen, she was grieving.
17:30She needed someone to pick her up, and this guy did.
17:33But not for long.
17:34The Harlow-Rawson marriage ended after just seven months.
17:38So now, Harlow had been through three husbands.
17:41But in 1935, things started looking up again romantically when she met actor William Powell.
17:46She later starred in Liable Lady, a film with Spencer Tracy and William Powell, which was
17:51nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1936.
17:55Would I ask you to do this thing for me if I didn't consider you practically as my wife?
17:59Well, would you ask your wife to hook up with that ape?
18:02The ape objects.
18:03When William Powell came along, this was her greatest joy.
18:06They had a very, very happy time together.
18:11And I know that they were planning marriage because she told me so.
18:14But Jean's happiness was to be short-lived.
18:17In 1937, while filming Saratoga with Clark Gable, 26-year-old Jean took ill.
18:23It had been apparent to many of her co-workers that Jean was not in good health.
18:27What nobody realized was that Jean Harlow was slowly dying.
18:30By May of 1937, she had been sick basically for the last 18 months, and she was dying
18:36of kidney failure all through the making of Saratoga.
18:38And when you watch the movie, it's almost hard to believe that no one would go to her
18:42and say, you don't look well.
18:45Have you been to a doctor?
18:47As a Christian scientist, Jean's mother didn't believe in doctors.
18:50However, there is still a difference of opinion as to whether or not her mother would allow
18:54Jean to seek medical care.
18:56She had a very bad infection, and her mother did not take her to the doctor.
19:02When she finally did, it was too late.
19:05Her mother was a Christian scientist, but never held medical care from Jean.
19:09I have all of Jean's Good Samaritan medical records.
19:13The one person who finally convinced Jean to go to the hospital was not her mother,
19:17but the new love of her life, William Powell.
19:20The fact that he came to see her one day when she was so sick, and he said to her,
19:26Jean, how many fingers do you see?
19:29And she said, I don't see any fingers.
19:32And he knew then that there was something very, very wrong, and so he called his doctor
19:37and had her admit it.
19:38It wasn't as if anyone could have saved Jean Harlow in those days.
19:41There was no kidney transplants.
19:43There was no dialysis.
19:44So she was doomed.
19:46Jean Harlow died on June 7, 1937.
19:49She was just 26 years old.
19:51Hollywood was in shock.
19:53When I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was I went to look and get the newspaper.
19:59And right on the big thing, it said that she had died.
20:05Ah, come on out of the trenches.
20:06I'm not going to throw any bombs.
20:08I'm harmless.
20:09Yes, of course.
20:10You're as harmless as a revolution.
20:11Well, don't forget your cigarettes.
20:12I won't.
20:13I know an exit line when I hear it.
20:19Jean Harlow's funeral was the most spectacular in Hollywood history.
20:23William Powell was so distraught, he practically had to be carried through the ceremony.
20:27The grief-stricken Powell bought three crypts at Forest Lawn.
20:30One for Jean, one for Mama Jean, and one for himself.
20:34He was not buried in the crypt at Forest Lawn with Jean Harlow, which he paid for.
20:39That third crypt remains empty, and only Jean Harlow and her mother are buried there.
20:45And the sign over the crypt says, Our Baby, because everybody who knew Jean Harlow called
20:50her The Baby.
20:52And at 26, she was a baby.
20:55So here they are, Mother Jean and Baby Jean, together for eternity.
21:00Jean Harlow was Tinseltown's first platinum blonde bombshell.
21:03She changed the face of Hollywood, not to mention the hair color, forever.
21:06But what a shame that she was never able to fully appreciate the remarkable impact she
21:11had on a state of mind called Hollywood.
21:14I'm A.J. Benzer.