Listen to him singing with Jeanette MacDonald…their most famous song…Indian Love Call.

Plus…In honor of his birthday we have released 4 new CDs of his music.

Click here for details.

What fun! Our own Nelson Eddy is back in the news headlines right now with today’s news announcement:

Celine Dion and Rene Angelil have announced the names of their newborn sons – Eddy and Nelson.

The singer gave birth to the fraternal twins on Saturday via C-section at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. She and the babies left the hospital on Wednesday night.

The babies were named, not for the  American opera singer who appeared in 1930s movies, but for a musical colleague and a Nobel Prize winner.

The name Eddy comes from Eddy Marnay, who produced Dion’s first five albums.

“He was like a father to her,” Dion’s rep told People magazine. “Eddy is a major influence in both Celine and Rene’s lives.”

Nelson is named after former South African President Nelson Mandela, whom Dion met two years ago while kicking off her would tour in South Africa.

Link

For Nelson Eddy fans -

I’m a little late updating this but in early September the home that Nelson Eddy built (which he later sold to Fred MacMurray) suffered a fire. The house is currently being remodeled and was under construction.

We had an earlier post about the house going up for sale, with photos of the interior.  The house has only had two owners.

Nelson designed this house himself. When he purchased the lot in 1938 he planned to use it for a family home for himself and Jeanette MacDonald. She was pregnant with his child and Nelson expected her to divorce her husband, Gene Raymond, and marry him. As we know, those plans never panned out.

Nelson married Ann Franklin instead in 1939 and they moved into the house with her son Sid Franklin, Jr.  A house that was built with ample room for raising children was never utilized for that…and Nelson put his “dream house” up for sale in the mid 1940s and moved next to the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

One of our Yahoo! group members took the photos below after the fire:

Pictures of the Halvern house in 2008 when it first went up for sale can be seen here and  here.

Such a shame…it may not have been a happy home for Nelson Eddy but Fred MacMurray and his family loved the home.

The Times is working on adding more biographical information about Nelson Eddy. Do you think Nelson Eddy should be a top priority for a more complete page? If so, leave a comment letting us know why.

As The Times continues to work on the Hollywood Star Walk database, readers are asked to help identify other stars on the Walk of Fame whom Nelson Eddy should be connected to, as well as locations in the world that were meaningful.

If you’d like to help with this project and give your comments, here is the link.

Nelson Eddy

Nelson Eddy…43 years ago today he died at age 65, too young and too soon. While he brought pleasure to millions with his voice, his personal life wasn’t particularly blissful. There’s no doubt that stress and unhappiness helped lead him to an early death.

In the midst of this Oscar weekend in which Hollywood and the film industry is celebrated, this is one sad note for the many Nelson Eddy fans who still remember.

It is always a sore point that Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald never had one of their great films acknowledged by the Academy with a Best Picture Oscar.  Their movie Maytime, the highest grossing movie worldwide of 1937, wasn’t even nominated! In fact, it only received a single nomination for the score by Herbert Stothart.

I attended an Oscar party once and I held a real Oscar in my hands. It was heavy and yes, there was something special about it.

But all the awards in the world don’t replace undying loyalty and caring of filmgoers or fans that endures for half a century and even more. Or a movie that is entertaining, timeless and enjoyable as well as excellent – even decades after its first release. Being able to watch a film over and over – 20 or 50 or 100 times – and still love it and find something new to see or hear – now that is a Best Picture!

Thank you, Nelson, for the musical legacy you left us.

Sharon

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

Nelson Eddy and his 1940s lifesize sculpture of actress Anna May Wong, limited edition replicas available at www.maceddy.com

As you may know, we own the original of Nelson Eddy‘s excellent lifesize sculpture of the famous Chinese-American movie star, Anna May Wong. Although the sculpture is undated, we have a photo of Nelson working on it, and it would appear to be around 1947 or so. Although – on the back of it, Nelson signed his initials and then made a line of 4 dots, a space, then 3 dots. We don’t know whether this means 43, as in 1943?

We did offer this years ago and sold exactly one replica of it. Recently we’ve had some requests for it again but needed a few orders to cover the costs of prep work and a new molding to make it available again.

We have had enough interest to resume the project…and will offer it for this pre-launch at the same price as the other Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald limited edition busts, $795 plus UPS shipping. And we can ship worldwide.  The bust is lifesize but actually a larger piece because more of Ms. Wong’s torso is sculpted – not just a head shot. Many who have seen it think it is Nelson’s best sculpture.

You can learn more about the Anna May Wong bust and order it at this link.

Nelson Eddy

Here’s a great Nelson Eddy story…while filming “Maytime”, Nelson revealed that during his death scene, when John Barrymore comes to Nelson’s flat, says a few words and then pulls a revolver, Nelson’s scene was filming without Barrymore on the set! If you look carefully, you’ll notice that there are shots of Nelson at the piano, then rising and speaking to Barrymore, and then closeup shots of Barrymore as he does the grim deed. The two men are not in the same shot.

If you have a Nelson Eddy story to tell, please add your comments here.

Nelson Eddy

Happy Birthday, Nelson!

You can make your own ringtone of his most famous duet with Jeanette, “Indian Love Call.” Here are the instructions:

Download it to your phone in the following ways: click on this link and download the mp3 file to your PC then transfer to your phone with a data cable or bluetooth. Or – download it direct to your mobile phone by WAP.

If you don’t understand the instructions above. then ask someone who is computer/cell phone savvy to help you! (That’s what I did!)

Enjoy!

PS: There is a sale today at www.maceddy.com on books about Nelson Eddy’s life and career:

Sweethearts, an eye-opening duo-biography of Nelson and Jeanette MacDonald.

Nelson Eddy: The Opera Years, includes reproductions of Nelson’s personal scrapbooks and the most comprehensive study of his pre-Hollywood career ever published.

The Rosary: The #1 best seller of 1911, Nelson Eddy chose this novel as a possible film vehicle for himself and Jeanette MacDonald in a proposed 1948 return to MGM as a team. The story is similar to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre but the hero/heroine are singers. A new introduction includes excerpts from written correspondence between Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald about the plot’s similarity to their own lives.

Nelson Eddy Lifesize Bust, self-portrait. Yes, Nelson Eddy was a man of many talents, including sculpting. This lifesize bust was done around 1942.

More Nelson Eddy news about the sculpture he did of actress Anna May Wong here at the link.