Paul Bern (December 3, 1889September 5, 1932) was a German-born American film director,
screenwriter and producer for
MGM, where he became the assistant to
Irving Thalberg. He helped to launch the career of
Jean Harlow, whom he married in July 1932, but two months later he was found dead of a gunshot wound, leaving what appeared to be a suicide note. Various alternate theories of his death have been proposed. Film producer
Samuel Marx believed that he was killed by his ex-common law wife Dorothy Millette, who jumped to her death from a ferry soon afterwards.