The true story behind "Bernie" is a real Texas doozy.

As an assistant director at a local funeral home, a Sunday school teacher and a choir member, big but gentle Bernie Tiede was, according to some, one of the most-liked people in Carthage. He was generous, sweet and attentive to elderly ladies and gave great funerals. So it seemed ironic that he became the live-in and travel companion of the aging rich widow Marjorie Nugent, whom some considered the meanest person in town.

Eventually Nugent made Tiede her only heir, but over time the relationship became - so the story goes - abusive; Nugent made Tiede's life hell, but he was too nice to leave her. Then one day in late 1996, Tiede shot Nugent, put her in her own freezer (for burial later, he said) and continued on for nine months as if nothing had happened, giving away large hunks of Nugent's dough to various people in need.

Austin-based director Richard Linklater ("Before Sunrise," "The School of Rock") became fascinated with the tale back in 1998, when he read a Texas Monthly story by Skip Hollandsworth. He teamed up with Hollandsworth, went to the trial, met a lot of the people who knew Tiede and has wanted to make the film ever since.

The trial was not held in Carthage. So many people there blamed Nugent and wanted Tiede released that District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson got the trial moved to San Augustine.

"That is what is really interesting about the whole story," says Matthew McConaughey, who plays Davidson in the movie. "Cases are moved all the time because they don't think they can get an acquittal. This one was moved to try to get a guilty verdict."

Tiede was sentenced to life in prison. Linklater, for one, thinks he's done enough time.


Louis B. Parks