Early Life and Career
Bern was born Paul Levy to a Jewish family in Wandsbek, which was then a town in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein (now a district of the city of Hamburg). In 1899 Bern's family emigrated to the United States, and eventually settled in New York City.
Bern pursued a career in acting on the stage and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He later pursued other aspects of theater production. He eventually moved to Hollywood and worked as a writer and director for various, smaller film companies. This led to his working full-time as a producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the major studio of the time.
The star-studded film Grand Hotel, released six days after Bern's death, won the Best Picture Academy Award for 1931–32. Bern and Irving Thalberg produced the film, although neither was listed in the film credits (in the early 1930s MGM did not list their films' producers in their credits). However, the award was presented solely to Thalberg, and Bern was excluded.
Read more about this topic: Paul Bern
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The civilizing process has increased the distance between behavior and the impulse life of the animal body.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)