“It’s not easy. One minute he doesn’t care and one minute he’s angry,” Jeanette MacDonald told Blythe Kearney, when she boldly asked Jeanette how her husband dealt with Jeanette’s relationship with Nelson Eddy. Watch through to the end of the video, as Jeanette’s comments about her life and career are found throughout the interview.

Blythe knew Jeanette from her childhood onward. As a child, Blythe spent a day with Jeanette and Nelson when they were vacationing together in St. Petersburg, Florida, as a private couple in the late 1940s. Blythe’s grandmother, Mary Blythe (of the Barrymore family), was Jeanette’s friend from their high school days; Jeanette would come and visit Mary in Florida every so often, and Mary attended both Jeanette’s wedding and her funeral.

Whether Nelson ever joined Jeanette at other times in St. Pete is unknown; for this visit around 1947 or ’48, Blythe was staying with her grandparents when he and Jeanette arrived together. Years later, around 1958, Blythe had a long talk with Jeanette, and they discussed Nelson, Gene, and Jeanette’s advice about finding love.

This video is an excerpt from the 3-hour interview; a more complete written transcript of it was published in Mac/Eddy Today, Issue #78.