Nelson Eddy starred on the “Kraft Music Hall” radio series for three summers, 1947-49. For the first time, the complete series has been released on CD.
In 1947, his co-star was Nadine Conner. For the 1948 and 1949 seasons, Dorothy Kirsten took over. For one show in 1948 Kirsten fell ill and was replaced by Jeanette MacDonald.
The “Kraft Music Hall” was a popular radio show from 1933 until Nelson Eddy’s final show in 1949. Other hosts during the years included Paul Whiteman, Bing Crosby and Al Jolson. But by the fall of 1949, television had replaced radio in popularity.
The Hollywood actress Virginia Bruce has always been of interest to Nelson Eddy fans, if only because she co-starred with him in the 1939 film Let Freedom Ring.
Not many people know that Let Freedom Ring was originally supposed to co-star Jeanette MacDonald, and that it was planned as a follow-up film for Nelson with Jeanette in 1935 right after Naughty Marietta!
Of course there’s an added interest in Virginia Bruce because we know that she and Nelson dated for a time – not in late 1938 when they were filming Let Freedom Ring, but back in 1934 in Nelson’s early days at MGM!
Don’t forget that Jeanette MacDonald and Virginia Bruce also worked together in Jeanette’s first Hollywood film, The Love Parade. Virginia was one of Jeanette’s ladies-in-waiting.
But it is obviously Virginia’s connection to Nelson Eddy that most interests us, and what would have interested him beyond the obvious physical beauty. He went for young blonds, true, but not airheads. Virginia obviously had a keen mind; the biography reveals that at one time she thought to run for California legislature.
Scott O’Brien has done an excellent job in putting together Virginia Bruce’s life story, and his book features several interviews with close friends and family. They provide a more personal view of the woman although sadly, she seems to have kept very much to herself. Her daughter with John Gilbert also did not share much of the intimate details with the next generation. It was up to them to rediscover Virginia through memorabilia and their somewhat limited personal interaction with her. O’Brien quotes one of her nephews: “She was very independent. She was in charge…like Hillary Clinton…a woman in charge. She wasn’t subservient. Maybe she was subservient to her husbands, but she was headstrong, especially for women in those days. ”
O’Brien also quotes Virginia Bruce: “Perhaps part of my tragedy will be that I do spoil men. I seem to be the type to attract men that are much stronger and more forceful than I am….Most of my theories about the relationships between men and women spring, naturally, from my marriage to John [Gilbert].” Of course, her short marriage to him was doomed due to his drinking. But it’s interesting that along with Nelson Eddy, she also dated Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and other major Hollywood players.
Obviously Virginia Bruce had her personal demons. They are mentioned candidly in the book, because Scott O’Brien’s sources did open up to him. I wish they had even been more candid but I know from researching Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, there is often a tendency for sources to want to make these people look as good as possible, playing down the negatives. They don’t want to blurt out the bad stuff. They think they are protecting the person…and perhaps they are. But for posterity’s sake, we can lie to ourselves but we really do have inquiring minds…and we want to know all we can about how this lovely, gentle young actress became a lonely alcoholic in later years, despite having children and grandchildren.
Scott O’Brien’s picture of Virginia’s later life rings true to my own experience. Virginia Bruce was in and out of the Motion Picture Home during the same years that I knew Jeanette’s sister Blossom Rock, who also lived there. I was always interested in meeting and speaking with residents that had known or worked with Jeanette or Nelson. Yet I never interviewed Virginia Bruce. I visited her a couple of times but she was not particularly sociable or chatty. She was there once because she broke her hip; I don’t remember all the details but we heard that she was an alcoholic. (Of course, you couldn’t drink when you were there in hospital area, although some who lived in the Lodge or bungalows bought their own liquor across the street, or had friends smuggle it in to them.) The book notes that she was also treated there for cancer and cirrhosis. And yes, what I really remember about that is that here was a very ill woman but – she still smoked!
That never ceased to amaze me, because many in the Motion Picture Home were chain smokers – as was Jeanette’s sister Blossom.
I did not immediately recognize Virginia Bruce when I met her; she was heavy and much changed. She seemed pretty much a loner and regretted that she ended up her life cooped up in a small hospital room. Some actors, like Blossom Rock, made the best of life there and kept a busy schedule. Larry Fine of The Three Stooges was another optimist; despite a stroke that debilitated him even more than Blossom’s stroke, he’d set up a daily card game with his cronies and they’d play and smoke together for hours at a time. Sometimes Moe Howard would join them and they’d laugh about the good ol’ days and welcome any other old-timer who wanted to hang out.
But Virginia Bruce wasn’t like that, she seemed more bitter. And it’s borne out by a poignant quote from the book made by her: “Do you think when I’m gone anyone will remember that I had awfully dreamy eyes?” And another: ” Do you know Norma Shearer is just down the hall? She was the biggest of them all and here she is, blind and dying, after all that, all that fame and riches and now this. Maybe I haven’t had it so tough.”
I highly recommend reading Virginia Bruce – Under My Skinby Scott O’Brien. And I applaud him for writing about a lesser Hollywood star that others might not have bothered with. Her story is compelling. There are lots of pictures -including some with Nelson Eddy (take another look at the cover!) and some discussion of Nelson’s relationship with Virginia Bruce. After I finished reading it, I put Let Freedom Ring on my DVD player to watch, since I had a new understanding of what Virginia Bruce was all about. For once – I watched her throughout the movie instead of Nelson Eddy.
And maybe that’s my highest praise to a fellow movie star biographer – if after reading it you want to revisit that star’s films again – you’ve done your job.
Great news! We’ve released the second season of Nelson’s radio show, The Electric Hour, on CD.
This week we have a special package price for the entire season. This week only you save about $20 on the package price. heck out all ten CDs at this link.
The always wonderful Robert Osborne has a new book out, Leading Couples. And thank goodness he has a very nice section featuring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
Here’s a quote from the book: “Although it has become fashionable in recent years to poke fun at the Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy musicals, in their day they were more than immensely popular. They were innovative. As much movie stars as they were singers, the pair brought a sense of youthful exuberance to films such as Naughty Marietta (1935) and Rose-Marie (1936) that had been missing in much of the genre. Although the operetta had been a staple in the early talking era, too much bad acting had driven audiences away. Even critically acclaimed adaptations, like director Ernst Lubitsch’s witty pictures with MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, had fallen out of favor. Nelson Eddy’s sincerity helped bring back the romantic side of the genre. MacDonald had the good sense to know when to play it straight and when to insert tongue firmly in cheek.”
There are a few good photos, one in color, and a slight hint at something more than just friendship between them: “The only real MacDonald-Eddy feud was between their fan clubs.” He also notes that Nelson painted a portrait of Jeanette that was used in one of their films but mistakenly identifies the film as Bitter Sweet. It was, of course, Sweethearts.
This is an enjoyable book and another definitely recommended for your Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy collection!
The latest CD is JN143: Radio Promotions #2. This includes 5 radio shows, about 15 minutes each, for the following films: Rosalie, The Girl of the Golden West, Let Freedom Ring, Balalaika and I Married an Angel.
“There’s something not quite right about Frances McDormand’s Miss Pettigrew. A frowzy clergyman’s daughter who works as a London governess—an unsuccessful venture for her, as she can’t help proselytizing to her employers—she begins the film penniless, and soon falls into the service of Delysia Lafosse (the irrepressible Amy Adams), whose glamour seems bound to change her forever.
Yet ultimately it’s Pettigrew who effects the most change. She is a wise woman, it turns out, and has known both love and tragedy. The shift is unconvincing (how could Pettigrew be so naively shocked at Delysia’s promiscuity and slovenliness when she has spent her whole, hardscrabble life chastising people for such things?) but completely excusable, for Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is unabashed fiction. Based on an obscure 1930s novel by Winifred Watson, it is an ode to that decade’s frothiest, most urbane films—particularly those of George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch. Pettigrew, herself an avid moviegoer, clearly knows the drill; like a reluctant Prospero, she instructs Delysia (who, as embodied by Adams, recalls Carole Lombard, Jeanette MacDonald and Jean Harlow, among others) in just how to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.
The meta-narrative is surprisingly sophisticated and effective (much like the film’s heroine), but makes Miss Pettigrew a bit of a curio. Who is it for? The make-over porn promised in the trailer is slight, and the film’s confectionary art direction seems, above all, conceptual. Indeed, Miss Pettigrew is about the value and fragility of aesthetics (a motif of air-raid sirens reminds us that bliss is a fleeting thing)—not, say, the triumph of vigorous, youthful idealism. It is escapism for adults, and as such seems oddly, admirably out of vogue.”
Here’s another book recommendation! I read an excellent review of this book and decided to check it out, noting that she discussed Louis B. Mayer. It’s a slim volume but very insightful into the 20s and 30s. Maas discusses all aspects of her life and times, the cutthroat industry, prejudice against women, the parties that were little more than orgies. Seems like some aspects of Hollywood haven’t changed much!
From the “Publishers Weekly” review: “In 1920, she answered a New York Times classified ad from Universal Pictures, becoming, at age 23, Universal’s N.Y.C. story editor. In 1925, she arrived in Hollywood, turned down a screen test and instead scripted a Clara Bow vehicle, The Plastic Age….. Maas trashes Hollywood legends, recalling Louis B. Mayer as “a very fearful, insecure man”; Clara Bow dancing nude on a tabletop; Jeanne Eagels squatting to urinate in the midst of a film set; and Marion Davies commenting on her affair with Hearst: “I’m a slave, that’s what. A toy poodle.”
From the Amazon.com review: ” In The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Frederica–who met and married filmmaker Ernest Maas in 1927–shows how, despite her screenwriting abilities, her career in motion pictures was stymied by her outspoken disagreements with studio bosses, and how many of those around her gave into debauchery. (At one party, she reports, “undressed, tousled men chased naked women, shrieking with laughter. Included in this orgy was Ray Long, Mr. Hearst’s representative; Harry Rapf, my own producer; and even the immaculate Irving Thalberg–all drunk, drunk, drunk.”) Her memoir’s prose has a charming tone, perfectly matching her Jazz Age exploits, which take up the bulk of the story. She also discusses the decline of the Maas’s careers, which they finally abandoned after the Second World War, but not before writing a musical (called The Shocking Miss Pilgrim) for Betty Grable. The best passages concern Frederica’s adventures in a young industry that was still discovering itself, such as her part in the creation of a motion picture legend: newly arrived actress Lucille LeSueur came up to her one day and said, “I like the way you dress. You dress like a lady. I need that. I want to be dressed right. Smart. I figured you could help.” One shopping expedition later, and Joan Crawford was taking her first steps toward stardom. “–Ron Hogan
My only complaint was that the book wasn’t longer; still, this is an excellent eyewitness account of what it was like to be a woman in Hollywood. You can probably get the book through your local library system or order it at the link above.
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His first sound film was The Love Parade, made in 1929, the first truly “talkie” year. His use of camera movement is only slightly constrained in this operetta starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. The following year’s Monte Carlo was another leap forward, with its famous “Beyond the Blue Horizon” number, in which train sounds set the rhythm, leading to Jeanette MacDonald’s vocal and the choral backing of farmers as the train speeds by their fields. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) is similar in tone and subject to The Love Parade, with an even smoother execution. And One Hour with You (1932) — a remake of The Marriage Circle (1924), one of Lubitsch’s best silents — is arguably the greatest of the four.
The “argument” is largely a matter of casting. Chevalier was known as “the French Jolson,” and, like the American Jolson, his style and persona have (to be kind) dated badly.
In addition to his often impenetrable accent, Chevalier’s repertoire of rolling eyes, raised eyebrows, smug grins and jaunty chuckles make his whole act somewhere between irritating and intolerable. Monte Carlo benefits hugely by having Jack Buchanan (The Band Wagon) in what would otherwise have been “the Chevalier role.”
And then there’s Love Me Tonight (1932), a pre-Code classic from Mamoulian and one of the best musicals ever. Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, Myrna Loy, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Ruggles, even Gabby Hayes(!) when he was still just plain ol’ George. Highlights: the incredible opening scene where Paris awakens, MacDonald in a nightgown so deliciously transparent it belongs in a stag movie, and the “traveling” melodies “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Mimi”, both courtesy of Rodgers and Hart. In time, Rodgers came to detest Hart, MacDonald came to loathe Chevalier and I wasn’t too crazy about Mamoulian after working eight months deciphering his rambling tales of Hollywood yore. But – art lives on long after old grudges die, and this film is proof of that.
