Bernard Durning

Bernard Joseph Durning (August 24, 1893 – August 29, 1923) was an American silent film director and actor who worked primarily with Lon Chaney, Dustin Farnum, and Buck Jones.

William A. Wellman was his assistant director and protégé. His older brother, Harry M. Durning, was the Collector of Customs for the Port of New York from 1933 to 1953.

Personal life Bernard J. Durning was born on August 24, 1892, in New York City, US. He was married to Shirley Mason. He died on August 29, 1923, in New York City.

Film career

Bernard Durning began at Edison Studios in the Bronx, in 1912, after attending Fordham University. He rose through the ranks of the studio as assistant to 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. 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 melodramas 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. "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!"

Marriage Durning married silent film actress Shirley Mason on June 19, 1917. The union was happy and they stayed married for six years until his premature death on August 29, 1923.

Death and aftermath Durning was directing a big special for Fox, called Around The Town, starring Gallagher and Shean in the summer of 1923 when he drank some bad water in Brooklyn and got typhoid fever. He 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.

Filmography The Stock Market Edison Film (1912) (actor) The Unwritten Code (1919) (writer, director) Blackie's Redemption (1919) (actor) Directed by John Ince 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. Wellman 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)