My own research showed that around 1960-61 Jeanette MacDonald was seeing an oncologist at UCLA Medical Center for a benign brain tumor. Yes, she was treated by a cancer doctor but no, one of the employees there stated that the tumor was benign. In the book that I annotated, Jeanette MacDonald Autobiography: The Lost Manuscript, I present written documentation by Fredda Dudley Balling, Jeanette’s collaborator on her unpublished book. In her letters, Ms. Balling explained that Jeanette was so ill it was feared she might not live long enough to complete work on the book.

However, even if the manuscript was never polished up to completion, Jeanette did not die in 1960 and in fact lived 5 years more. Her health battles were with a longtime heart condition that resulted in an arterial transplant – a new and novel treatment by Dr. Michael DeBakey.

See below for the article excerpt.

The late songwriter Hugh Martin wrote “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” for Judy Garland’s 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis, along with dozens of other songs for MGM and Broadway musicals.

A new CD chronicling his seven decades in musical theater was released earlier this month. Hugh Martin: Hidden Treasures features mostly demo recordings and rarities from Martin’s vast catalog of tunes, from a 1941 selection from the musical comedy Best Foot Forward to a 1961 song written for the unfinished musical Here Comes the Dreamers, which was never produced after lead actress Jeanette MacDonald was diagnosed with cancer. The CD also comes with an 88-page booklet chronicling Martin’s career, with essays by Stephen Sondheim, Sheldon Harnick and Michael Feinstein.

Martin was heavily involved in the creation of the CD in the months leading up to his death in March 2011. He worked closely with producers Bill Rudman and Ken Bloom, both of whom join Terry Gross on Fresh Air for a discussion of Martin’s songs and his lengthy career in show business.

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An interesting excerpt from the DVD review today in the New York Post:

Warner Archive also recently released another much-requested composer biopic, “The Great Waltz” (1938), one of several films about Johann Strauss Jr., who’s attracted the attention of filmmakers as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney and Andrew L. Stone.

This black-and-white MGM epic is officially credited to French director Julien Duvivier in his Hollywood debut (the same year his “Pepe Le Moko” was remade as “Casbah”), but major portions are known to have been reshot by Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg on orders from Louis B. Mayer, making it an interesting puzzle for auterists.

This one announces in an opening title that it doesn’t pretend to be an accurate depiction of Strauss’ life. Instead we’re offered up a romantic triangle straight out of “The Great Ziegfeld” with the composer (Flemish actor Ferdinand Gravey, borrowed from Warners, which had renamed him Gravet, and announced for an MGM version of “Scaramouche” that would never get made), his adoring wife (Louise Rainer, fresh from her Oscar win for “Ziegfeld”") and a flirtatious soprano (Polish-born Miliza “Rhymes with Gorgeous” Korjus) who helps further Strauss’ career ambitions.

This relatively star-light casting for MGM (the studio had considered the unlikely duo of Clifton Webb and Jeanette MacDonald) may have been the reason for the last-minute decision to scrap costly Technicolor for a movie that still looks very, very expensive.

As in “Rhapsody,” the story is but something to hang Strauss’ melodies on — and here, they get superb arrangements by Dimitri Tiomkin and Englsh lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The most famous, or notorious, sequence (quite possibly directed. at least in part, by Fleming) has Strauss spontaneously inspired to create “Tales from the Vienna Woods” while riding with his soprano through the woods in a carriage (the driver is ubiquitous character man, Christian Rub, briefly seen as the janitor who breaks the news of his teacher’s death to Gershwin in “Rhapsody”).

Von Sternberg is known to have re-shot the film’s climactic sequence. Mrs. Strauss races to the Vienna opera house to confront her errant husband and his mistress, who she knows are planning to run away. Mrs. Strauss (Rainer at her most smilingly tearful) gives the guilty couple her blessing, which she also knows will stop them in their tracks. Somehow this inspires Strauss to write “The Blue Danube” (a nice montage, also reportedly directed by Von Sternberg).

This film ends with an unfortunate epilogue (Fleming?) set 43 years later, when Emperor Franz Josef (an unhappy-looking Henry Hull) honors Strauss, who like everyone else is wearing old-age makeup. That is, all except for the glass-shattering Ms. Korjus, who is superimposed in her youthful glory, singing her heart out at the climax.

Korjus was Oscar nominated for her Hollywood debut but MGM scrapped plans to star her in a musical called “Guns and Fiddles” opposite Robert Taylor after she suffered a serious leg injury in an automobile accident. She made just one more movie, in Mexico in 1942, and died in 1970 in Culver City, Calif., where she made a movie thirty years earlier at Metro.

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June 18 is a special day for Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fans. Happy 108th Birthday, Jeanette!
In Jeanette’s honor,the maceddy.com website is having a special sale on many items, with discounts ranging from 10-50% off. See everything that is on sale at this link. (Note: Lifetime Members get an additional 10% off their order!)

Here is some of Jeanette MacDonald’s music for you to listen to or download:
Dream Lover (from her 1929 first film, The Love Parade)
Will You Remember (duet with Nelson Eddy and yes, we will remember!)
Italian Street Song (just fabulous!)
San Francisco (the one and only!)
Farewell to Dreams (duet with Nelson Eddy, cut from the film Maytime, his favorite recording with her)
Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes

And Nelson Eddy’s praise and poignant comments about her on the day of her death:

January 14 is a doubly sad day for fans of Jeanette MacDonald. For not only is it the day that she died at age 61 in 1965 but thirteen years later, Jeanette’s older sister Blossom died on the very same day at age 82.

Most of the time fans do not mourn siblings of their idols but in the case of Jeanette MacDonald, we owe much to Blossom. She fiercely loved her sister and throughout the decades was known to speak candidly about Jeanette’s life. Because of Blossom opening up her private phone book all those years ago and encouraging me to call this person or that…the personal story of Jeanette’s life began to be revealed. Not the Hollywood version but the stranger-than-fiction version which Jeanette – and Nelson – buried and publicly denied as best they could in their lifetimes.

It is because of Blossom’s feisty nature and insistence that her sister not be forgotten that we are all here today celebrating not only the life, movies and music of Jeanette MacDonald but the complicated and fascinating relationship she had with Nelson Eddy.

So today – January 14th – let’s celebrate the lives of two sisters. Blossom was no doubt Jeanette’s closest confidante and we have ample documentation to show how many times Blossom was there for Jeanette in moments of physical or spiritual crisis.

In the photo above, Jeanette and Blossom are pictured with their mother, Anna MacDonald.

If you would like to share your remembrances of where you were and how you learned of Jeanette’s passing in 1965, please email it to me.

Voice your opinion at this link.

Celebrate the life of Jeanette MacDonald by listening to some of her best recordings at this link.

Nelson Eddy's grave - with flowers and flags from the Mac/Eddy Club, 6/29/09

Every year, the Mac/Eddy Club holds a Birthday Bash honoring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy on the last Sunday of June. Afterwards, or usually on Nelson’s birthday (since it’s always close to the date of our event) some of the fans visit their graves and place flowers.

The gals that were responsible for purchasing the urns in front of the grave markers – on behalf of the Mac/Eddy Club – made their yearly visit on Nelson’s birthday. The next day they visited Jeanette’s grave. They graciously emailed us pictures to share with you, along with this email:

Thank you for a lovely meeting on Sunday. Everyone truly enjoyed the Brent Perry interview.

We went to the Hollywood Forever cemetery to bring our birthday flowers for Nelson. When we arrived, no one had been there. We did our usual trimming and cleaning…We always put in an hour’s worth of trimming and grooming the site and placing our flowers before [the NEAS rep arrives], and add their flowers. We have been doing this for nearly 10 years.

I have attached the “after” (with our flowers) , complete with our flags for the Fourth of July to symbolize Nelson’s love of country. It would be nice if you would post the photo of the way we left the site with our flowers….Brian and Beryl [members from the U.K.] brought the lovely basket in the middle.

Today, we made a special trip to Forest Lawn to visit Jeanette’s site and took two small bouquets, each containing two pink roses which we placed on each side of her crypt in memory of Nelson’s love for her.

Here are the photos showing the lovely flowers. Thank you, gals, for your loving care every year, as always!

Jeanette MacDonald's crypt with roses placed in her memory, 6/30/09

Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette MacDonald in Don't Bet on Women with Edmund Lowe

In honor of  Jeanette MacDonald’s birthday June 18, get 10% off both her Autobiography and the collection of her handwritten love letters to her 1927-8 beau, Irving Stone.

Also, two of her rarest films, thought to be lost for decades, are available at 20% off today – Oh, For a Man! (1930) and Don’t Bet on Women (1930).

Link to sale

Jeanette MacDonald

Implacabile Dea says:

Let the critics say what they will regarding Miss MacDonald’s vocalism. I found out what opera was by watching her movies. The charm and vitality that she exuded could serve this current generation of singers well.

What a beautiful lady…

mrmyster says:

Dea – J. MacD was perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I met her once backstage at a performance of Faust in Hartford; she had come to watch the tenor as she was singing the role of Marguerite the following week in Philadelphia. MacD had come back stage to see D. Kirsten after the performance; I happened to be in Kirsten’s dressing room when J. came in — unbelievable beauty. The hair! The skin color! The sculpted face …. the nuanced and vivid speaking voice! NOW, if only her singing voice had been able to match that! But it did what was needed at the time, and as to you, she brought operatic experience to millions of people. God bless her; I loved her! But I preferred to listen to Steber and Kirsten and Traubel and Flagstad!

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