Author’s Note: While researching this article, I learned that the victim was once married to a woman named Gribben. It’s a not-unusual Irish surname, so I have no idea whether or not there’s any relation to my family tree here. I just thought it was a tasty little footnote to an interesting early 20th Century murder and wanted to share it. The circumstances surrounding that marriage don’t have much to do with the story except to reveal a little bit about the dead man’s character. ~M.G.

“Handsome” Jack Bergen was a stuntman (they were called daredevils back then) in the nascent days of the motion picture business before the establishment of the Hollywood studio system.
He was also a bit of a cad, but even cads don’t deserve to be murdered. Unfortunately for Jack, he pushed his luck a bit too far and paid for his hubris.
His death came about as a result of, as one hack wrote, “filmland’s latest drama of scrambled domesticity.” In other words, Jack was shot to death by a jealous husband. But to simply put this down as a run-of-the-mill love triangle wouldn’t do it justice. The story involves history-making jurisprudence in New Jersey, a duel over the honor of a woman, and possibly a vengeful family who got away with murder.
Jack Bergen and George Cline were friends who worked for the Fox film company in Edgewater, New Jersey in the early 1920s. Cline was a location scout and Bergen was a stuntman.
The trouble began “innocently” enough when a tipsy Mrs. Cline and Bergen engaged in a bit of mashing during a party at the Clines’ Edgewater, N.J., home. They were observed by Bergen’s then-girlfriend, Alice Thornton, a 19-year-old bank clerk. Alice realized she should have heeded the advice of her grandfather, who objected to her relationship with the movie daredevil.
“All he is interested in was slicking down his hair, polishing his nails, and running after women,” Thornton recalled her grandfather saying.
Alice should have known better anyway, because she knew Bergen was already married when he was dating her.
“I can’t say a single good thing about my husband,” said his wife, Margaret (Gribben) Bergen when she was interviewed after Handsome Jack Bergen’s death. “He never did a good day’s work in his life.”
Thornton broke off her relationship with Bergen, but George Cline, not knowing the reason his friend’s love affair faltered (and also being ignorant about Bergen’s wife and two daughters), tried several times to get the pair to rekindle their affair.
“I evaded his questions, but he forced me to admit later that the ‘trouble’ was another woman,” Thornton told police. “He wanted to know her name, but I could not tell him she was his own wife.
“Finally, I blurted out, ‘Don’t trust your friends!’”
Cline reportedly began to suspect his wife and Jack of having an affair, but for several weeks he remained silent and acted friendly toward Bergen. In the early summer of 1922, the Clines and Jack Bergen went to the St. Regis Hotel in Saranac Lake, N.Y., where Cline was scouting a location for a Fox film.
Cline left to look over Standish, N.Y., leaving his wife alone with Bergen. When he returned, Mrs. Cline was in tears. She blamed the “sight of so many tubercular victims as the reason for her sorrow, but Cline was suspicious. He confronted Bergen, who admitted taking Mrs. Cline (despite semi-diligent research, I haven’t been able to find out her first name) for a drink.
For the next several weeks, Cline continued to question his wife about what really happened in Saranac Lake. Finally, on August 24, 1922, Mrs. Cline broke down and told her husband that Bergen had pushed the drink on her and in her inebriated state, taken advantage of her.
“I was determined to confront Bergen with this whole business,” Cline later told police. He telephoned Bergen and demanded that Jack come to the Cline’s Edgewater home to “discuss” the matter. Bergen hesitated, but eventually agreed.
He obviously thought something was up, because he wrote a note stating if he was killed, the likely culprit was George Cline. He put the note in his pocket and headed over to New Jersey on a ferry.
Unbeknownst to Bergen, Alice Thornton was on the same ferry, heading to the Cline home. Also on their way to the Clines’ house were Mrs. Cline’s two brothers.
“He was stunned when he saw me,” Alice told police. “I guess he knew there was no use lying.”
Cline confronted Bergen, who, according to Alice, stood tough.
“He threw out his chest and admitted his conduct,” she said. “‘I’m a rat and all that. What of it?’ he said.”
Bergen’s bravado infuriated Cline, who drew a gun.
“I said to Jack, now we will go upstairs and fight it out like two men and let God be the judge,” Cline later testifed.
Bergen replied that he had no gun and Cline said he provided him with a German Luger. The men proceeded up the stairs to the attic, where Cline claimed they planned to shoot it out.
Within moments, Bergen had been mortally wounded and was fleeing the Cline house.
“I heard one shot and a woman’s scream,” testified David Landau, the taxi driver who brought Bergen to the house. “Bergen, blood besmeared, limped and crawled from the house. I thought perhaps he was a hold-up man and started for a policeman. With a sudden display of strength, Bergan rushed toward the car and made a leap for the running board, but I sped on.”
Thirty minutes after the altercation, police found Bergen’s dead body. In his hand he held a scrawled note: “Cline killed me.”
Cline, Alice Thornton, and Charles Scullion, a brother of Mrs. Cline who gave Bergen the Luger, were arrested and charged with murder. Alice was charged because prosecutors believed she lured Handsome Jack to the Cline home to be murdered.
Cline didn’t help his case when he failed to stick to a consistent story.
His first story claimed that as the men proceeded up the stairs, Bergen turned on Cline and tried to shoot him. The men struggled for a moment and when Cline managed to disarm Bergen, the stuntman pulled a blackjack. Cline told the police that he was forced to shoot in self-defense.
His second statement claimed that while they were setting up for the duel, Bergen tried to shoot Cline in the back, but Cline disarmed his foe and his gun discharged accidentally, killing Bergen.
However, there were no powder marks on Bergen’s clothes, indicating that Cline was some distance away when the fatal shot was fired.
“I don’t believe there was any planned duel,” said Bergen County Detective Nathan Allyn. “I don’t think that Bergen had a chance for his life.”
In October 1922, the three defendants went on trial in Hackensack. The most exciting news to come out of the trial was the selection of a 23-year-old stenographer, Susan Squire, as forewoman of the jury. It was the first time that a woman had been selected to lead a jury in New Jersey.
After a two-day trial that featured just four witnesses — Cline, the Widow Bergen, the cab driver, and a “fireworks expert,” Joseph Eurilo, who was at the scene of the crime — the six-man, six-woman jury acquitted all of the defendants.