Harron's tragic death remains a mystery. Officially classified an
accident, those who follow that theory believe that Harron, who was in
New York on September 2, 1920, for the premiere of
D.W. Griffith's
Horizonte Sombrio (1920),
which was scheduled for the next day, purchased a revolver from a man
who needed money, put it in his dinner jacket pocket and forgot about
it. Later he took the dinner jacket from a trunk, the gun fell to the
floor and discharged, striking him in the left lung. Those who maintain
that Bobby's death was a suicide claim that Bobby was extremely
despondent when Griffith bypassed him for the lead role in "Way Down
East" in favor of his new protégé,
Richard Barthelmess. At the time Bobby was
contemplating leaving the Griffith fold and forming his own production
company because of those concerns.