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Bernard Durning

Bernard Durning
When Bearcat Went Dry (1919) - 2.jpg
Bernard Durning and Vangie Valentine in When Bearcat Went Dry (1919)
Born Bernard Joseph Durning
(1893-08-24)August 24, 1893
New York City, New York
Died August 29, 1923(1923-08-29) (aged 30)
New York City, New York
Cause of death typhoid fever
Occupation silent film director
Years active Shirley Mason
(m.1917-1923; his death)

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.

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 Edwin S. Porter, Charles Brabin, and John Hancock 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) and the still extant Blue Jeans(1917).


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