Bernard Durning
Encyclopedia
Bernard Joseph Durning was an American
silent film
director and star who worked primarily with
Lon Chaney
, Dustin Farnum
, and Buck Jones
. He was married to silent movie star Shirley Mason, whose sister, Viola Dana
,
was also a star. William A. Wellman
was his assistant director and protégé. His older brother, Harry M. Durning, was Collector of Customs for the Port of New York
from 1933 to 1953.
in the Bronx, New York
, in 1912, after attending Fordham University
.
He rose through the ranks of the studio as assistant to Edwin S. Porter
, Charles Brabin
, and John H. Collins.
He was Production Manager at Edison for three years. He stood six foot six and is recognizable in a film still
of a Stock Market scene of a 1912 Edison film which appears on page 33 in HOLLYWOOD The Pioneers by Kevin Brownlow
as the face directly below the podium.
William A. Wellman
said that "Bernie Durning ...was the handsomest guy I've ever seen in my life."
The years of studio training made Bernard Durning a master of technique, acquainted with every angle of filmmaking.
Even in his directorial debut at Edison Studios
he "invented and carried into execution an entirely new idea in the lighting of night scenes in 'Aliens'. Some very fine silhouette effects were the result..."
Aliens was written by Durning and starred his wife, Shirley Mason, as Kiku San, a Japanese girl. It was released as The Unwritten Code in 1919 and was the last film ever made by Edison Studios. "I guess we broke 'em!" Durning quipped.
Durning first met Shirley Mason when he rescued her from a train wreck scene at Edison. Shirley was only five feet tall and had passed out from the smoke pots. "My heart began to pound like everything when I saw who had rescued me!" Shirley said.
Both Shirley and her sister, Viola Dana, had been child stars
on Broadway
in The Poor Little Rich Girl
. Their real last name was Flugrath and a third sister, Edna Flugrath
, also starred in films at Edison and each married their director. Edna wed Harold Shaw and moved to South Africa
and made Rose of Rhodesia (1921), the first film to star actual Africans of color. Viola married John Collins who directed her in The Cossack Whip (1917).
Durning and Mason both worked for Fox Studios on the corner of Sunset
and Western
in Hollywood, California
, starting in 1920. They were called "The Most-Devoted Couple in Hollywood." Viola Dana worked for Metro Studios where she met Buster Keaton
who became one of the family. "Buster was the original man who came to dinner. He came home one night with Shirley and Bernie and stayed for three years," Viola told Kevin Brownlow.
Durning was a top director of action-packed melodrama
s starring Dustin Farnum and Buck Jones when William Wellman became his assistant director in 1921. Wellman called his two years with Durning "the greatest school a director ever had." "Wild Bill" Wellman and "Big Bernie" Durning had wild adventures making movies, such as their film company's fight with lumberjacks up in Eureka, California
, which William A. Wellman, Jr. describes in The Man and His Wings.
In Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick by Todd Robinson, Wellman biographer Frank T. Thompson theorizes that Wellman may have based his 1937 classic A Star Is Born
on his own relationship with Durning. Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick
"Quite frankly, he was my God." Wellman declared of Durning.
Durning also taught Wellman a valuable lesson about true love in Hollywood. "Keep your chasing out of the business entirely,"
Durning told Wellman of "this fakey love nest". It was his second Cardinal rule after Loyalty. When Big Bernie caught Wild Bill in the arms of the starlette of their picture in Buck Jones' dressing room, he proceeded to beat the heck out of him. Wellman then adds how Jack Dempsey
, the boxing Heavyweight Champion, and Durning were great friends who used to "knock the heck out of each other in Tom Mix's handball court...Durning stood up to Dempsey."
Wellman put what he had learned from Durning to practical use when he finally found his true love in the form of a Busby Berkeley
dancer named Dorothy Coonan whom he married and had six children. "I was still a champion of the Bernie Durning system. I had learned that long-ago lesson well."
Robert Mitchum
mirrored this advice in an interview with People
in 1983 while filming Winds of War
:
"I always took the advice of [director] William Wellman: 'keep your ---- out of the business.'" http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20084280,00.html/ Robert Mitchum, People
, 1983]
Bernard Durning also starred as the leading man in four films directed by Oliver L. Sellers--When Bearcat Went Dry (1919), The Gift Supreme (1920), both with Lon Chaney as his nemesis, and Diane of Star Hollow (1921).
Dick Grace
the stuntman
describes working on two of Durning's films in his book Squadron Of Death, The Eleventh Hour (1923)
and The Fast Mail (1922). In the latter, Buck Jones was severely burned when someone tried dousing him with a pail of gasoline, thinking that it was water. Adolphe Menjou
called it "the action picture to end all action pictures" which nearly ended the entire cast. Menjou put the blame on "Wild Willie Wellman." "Let's just say, 'we played rough.'" Wellman wrote in his autobiography, A Short Time For Insanity.
It was during the filming of The Eleventh Hour that Durning went on a drinking binge and told Wellman to direct it for him. "It's all yours, Willie." When Sol Wurtzel and Winfield Sheehan
, the Fox Studio heads, saw the finished film, Durning confessed and told them to make Wellman a director. "Dusty (Dustin Farnum) is nuts about him and so am I!"
Durning was directing his first big musical for Fox, a Zeigfeld Follies special, called Around The Town, starring Gallagher and Shean
in 1923 when he drank some bad water in Brooklyn and got typhoid fever
and died in St. Vincent's Hospital
in Manhattan, with Shirley Mason by his side. "The Heart of Hollywood is Broken" declared the Los Angeles Times
.
When Bearcat Went Dry (1919) was found in 1995 and is in the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The Gift Supreme (1920) the first reel exists on film.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
director and star who worked primarily with
Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
, Dustin Farnum
Dustin Farnum
Dustin Lancy Farnum was an American singer, dancer and an actor in silent movies during the early days of motion pictures. After a great success in a number of stage roles, in 1914 he landed his first film role in the movie 'Soldiers of Fortune', and later in Cecil B. DeMille's The Squaw Man...
, and Buck Jones
Buck Jones
Buck Jones was an American motion picture star of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, best known for his work starring in many popular western movies...
. He was married to silent movie star Shirley Mason, whose sister, Viola Dana
Viola Dana
Viola Dana was an American film actress who was successful during the era of silent movies.- Career :Born Virginia Flugrath, Dana was a child star, appearing on the stage at the age of three. She read Shakespeare and particularly identified with the teenage Juliet. She enjoyed a long run at the...
,
was also a star. William A. Wellman
William A. Wellman
William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
was his assistant director and protégé. His older brother, Harry M. Durning, was Collector of Customs for the Port of New York
Collector of the Port of New York
The Collector of Customs at the Port of New York, most often referred to as Collector of the Port of New York, sometimes also as Collector of Customs for the Port of New York or Collector of Customs for the District of New York, was a federal officer who was in charge of the collection of import...
from 1933 to 1953.
Film career
Bernard Durning began at Edison StudiosEdison Studios
Edison Studios was an American motion picture production company owned by the Edison Company of inventor Thomas Edison. The studio made close to 1,200 films as the Edison Manufacturing Company and Thomas A. Edison, Inc. until the studio's closing in 1918...
in the Bronx, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, in 1912, after attending Fordham University
Fordham University
Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...
.
He rose through the ranks of the studio as assistant to Edwin S. Porter
Edwin S. Porter
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
, Charles Brabin
Charles Brabin
Charles J. Brabin was an American film director and screenwriter. He was active during the silent era, then pursued a short-lived career in talkies....
, and John H. Collins.
He was Production Manager at Edison for three years. He stood six foot six and is recognizable in a film still
of a Stock Market scene of a 1912 Edison film which appears on page 33 in HOLLYWOOD The Pioneers by Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
as the face directly below the podium.
William A. Wellman
William A. Wellman
William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
said that "Bernie Durning ...was the handsomest guy I've ever seen in my life."
The years of studio training made Bernard Durning a master of technique, acquainted with every angle of filmmaking.
Even in his directorial debut at Edison Studios
Edison Studios
Edison Studios was an American motion picture production company owned by the Edison Company of inventor Thomas Edison. The studio made close to 1,200 films as the Edison Manufacturing Company and Thomas A. Edison, Inc. until the studio's closing in 1918...
he "invented and carried into execution an entirely new idea in the lighting of night scenes in 'Aliens'. Some very fine silhouette effects were the result..."
Aliens was written by Durning and starred his wife, Shirley Mason, as Kiku San, a Japanese girl. It was released as The Unwritten Code in 1919 and was the last film ever made by Edison Studios. "I guess we broke 'em!" Durning quipped.
Durning first met Shirley Mason when he rescued her from a train wreck scene at Edison. Shirley was only five feet tall and had passed out from the smoke pots. "My heart began to pound like everything when I saw who had rescued me!" Shirley said.
Both Shirley and her sister, Viola Dana, had been child stars
Child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...
on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in The Poor Little Rich Girl
The Poor Little Rich Girl
The Poor Little Rich Girl is a 1917 American comedy-drama film directed by Maurice Tourneur. Adapted by Frances Marion from the 1913 play by Eleanor Gates. The Broadway play actually starred future screen actress Viola Dana...
. Their real last name was Flugrath and a third sister, Edna Flugrath
Edna Flugrath
Edna Flugrath was the eldest of three sisters who found fame as silent film stars.-Early life:Born in Brooklyn, New York on December 29, 1893, she was the first born of Emil and Mary Dubois Flugrath. Her father, a printer by trade, was the son of Polish-German immigrants and had at one time been...
, also starred in films at Edison and each married their director. Edna wed Harold Shaw and moved to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and made Rose of Rhodesia (1921), the first film to star actual Africans of color. Viola married John Collins who directed her in The Cossack Whip (1917).
Durning and Mason both worked for Fox Studios on the corner of Sunset
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
and Western
Western Avenue (Los Angeles)
Western Avenue is a major four lane street slightly west of Downtown Los Angeles and the center portion of Los Angeles County. Besides Sepulveda Boulevard, it is one of the longest north/south streets in Los Angeles...
in Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, starting in 1920. They were called "The Most-Devoted Couple in Hollywood." Viola Dana worked for Metro Studios where she met Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
who became one of the family. "Buster was the original man who came to dinner. He came home one night with Shirley and Bernie and stayed for three years," Viola told Kevin Brownlow.
Durning was a top director of action-packed melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
s starring Dustin Farnum and Buck Jones when William Wellman became his assistant director in 1921. Wellman called his two years with Durning "the greatest school a director ever had." "Wild Bill" Wellman and "Big Bernie" Durning had wild adventures making movies, such as their film company's fight with lumberjacks up in Eureka, California
Eureka, California
Eureka is the principal city and the county seat of Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 27,191 at the 2010 census, up from 26,128 at the 2000 census....
, which William A. Wellman, Jr. describes in The Man and His Wings.
In Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick by Todd Robinson, Wellman biographer Frank T. Thompson theorizes that Wellman may have based his 1937 classic A Star Is Born
A Star Is Born (1937 film)
A Star Is Born is a 1937 Technicolor romantic drama film produced by David O. Selznick and directed by William A. Wellman, with a script by Wellman, Robert Carson, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell. It stars Janet Gaynor as an aspiring Hollywood actress, and Fredric March as an aging movie star who...
on his own relationship with Durning. Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick
"Quite frankly, he was my God." Wellman declared of Durning.
Durning also taught Wellman a valuable lesson about true love in Hollywood. "Keep your chasing out of the business entirely,"
Durning told Wellman of "this fakey love nest". It was his second Cardinal rule after Loyalty. When Big Bernie caught Wild Bill in the arms of the starlette of their picture in Buck Jones' dressing room, he proceeded to beat the heck out of him. Wellman then adds how Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title from 1919 to 1926. Dempsey's aggressive style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first...
, the boxing Heavyweight Champion, and Durning were great friends who used to "knock the heck out of each other in Tom Mix's handball court...Durning stood up to Dempsey."
Wellman put what he had learned from Durning to practical use when he finally found his true love in the form of a Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
dancer named Dorothy Coonan whom he married and had six children. "I was still a champion of the Bernie Durning system. I had learned that long-ago lesson well."
Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
mirrored this advice in an interview with People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
in 1983 while filming Winds of War
Winds of War (mini-series)
The Winds of War is a 1983 miniseries that follows the book of the same name closely and depicts events from March 1939 until the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941. Just as in the book, in addition to the lives of the Henry and Jastrow families, much time in the...
:
"I always took the advice of [director] William Wellman: 'keep your ---- out of the business.'" http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20084280,00.html/ Robert Mitchum, People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, 1983]
Bernard Durning also starred as the leading man in four films directed by Oliver L. Sellers--When Bearcat Went Dry (1919), The Gift Supreme (1920), both with Lon Chaney as his nemesis, and Diane of Star Hollow (1921).
Dick Grace
Dick Grace
Dick Grace was born in Morris, Minnesota and was an early stunt pilot who specialised in crashing planes for films. Grace was one of the few stunt pilots who died of old age. He was the author of several books including Squadron of Death, Crash Pilot, I am still alive, and Visibility Unlimited...
the stuntman
Stuntman
A stuntman or stunt performer is someone who performs dangerous stunts.Stuntman may also refer to:*The Stunt Man, a 1980 film starring Peter O'Toole*Stuntman , a 2002 video game**Stuntman: Ignition, its sequel...
describes working on two of Durning's films in his book Squadron Of Death, The Eleventh Hour (1923)
and The Fast Mail (1922). In the latter, Buck Jones was severely burned when someone tried dousing him with a pail of gasoline, thinking that it was water. Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Menjou
Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...
called it "the action picture to end all action pictures" which nearly ended the entire cast. Menjou put the blame on "Wild Willie Wellman." "Let's just say, 'we played rough.'" Wellman wrote in his autobiography, A Short Time For Insanity.
It was during the filming of The Eleventh Hour that Durning went on a drinking binge and told Wellman to direct it for him. "It's all yours, Willie." When Sol Wurtzel and Winfield Sheehan
Winfield Sheehan
Winfield Sheehan was a film company executive. He was responsible for much of Fox Film Corporation's output during the 1920s and 1930s. As studio head he won an Academy Award for Best Picture for the film Cavalcade and was nominated three more times.A native of Buffalo, New York, Sheehan served...
, the Fox Studio heads, saw the finished film, Durning confessed and told them to make Wellman a director. "Dusty (Dustin Farnum) is nuts about him and so am I!"
Durning was directing his first big musical for Fox, a Zeigfeld Follies special, called Around The Town, starring Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful double act on vaudeville and Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher and Al Shean .-Career:...
in 1923 when he drank some bad water in Brooklyn and got typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
and died in St. Vincent's Hospital
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers ' was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to as "St. Vincent's". St. Vincent's was founded in 1849 and closed in 2010...
in Manhattan, with Shirley Mason by his side. "The Heart of Hollywood is Broken" declared the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
.
When Bearcat Went Dry (1919) was found in 1995 and is in the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The Gift Supreme (1920) the first reel exists on film.
Filmography
- The Stock Market Edison Film (1912) (actor)
- The Unwritten Code (1918) (writer, director)
- Blackie's Redemption (1919) (actor) Directed by Alan Dwan
- When Bearcat Went Dry (1919) (leading man) Directed by Oliver L. Sellers
- The Gift Supreme (1920) (leading man) Directed by Oliver L. Sellers
- The Scoffer (1920) (actor) Directed by Alan Dwan
- Seeds of Vengeance (1920) (actor) Directed by Oliver L. Sellers.
- Diane of Star Hollow (1921) (leading man) Directed by Oliver L. Sellers
- The Devil Within (1921) (actor, director)
- The Primal Law (1921) (director)
- Partners of Fate (1921) (director)
- The One Man Trail (1921) (director)
- Straight from the Shoulder (1921) (director)
- To a Finish (1921) (director)
- While Justice Waits (1922) (director)
- The Yosemite Trail (1922) (director)
- Iron To Gold (1922) (director)
- Oath-Bound (1922) (director)
- Strange Idols (1922) (director)
- The Fast Mail (1922) (director)
- The Eleventh Hour (1923) (director) Directed by William A. WellmanWilliam A. WellmanWilliam Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...
- Around The Town (1923) (unfinished direction)
- The Arizona Express (1924) (A Bernard J. Durning Production)
- Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (documentary, photo of Wellman and Durning)