The following is of interest to Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fans.
In the book Sweethearts, we learn that Jeanette first backed out of divorcing her husband, Gene Raymond, after serious threats were made against Nelson Eddy by the infamous Louie B. Mayer.
Some have questioned, did Mayer really have that power to frighten her so?
From the newly-released book, My Lunches With Orson, edited by Peter Biskind, here is Orson Welles’ take on the MGM studio boss:
HJ [Henry Jaglom]: Did anyone else offer you movies besides [Sam] Goldwyn?
OW [Orson Welles]: (Louis B.) Mayer offered me his studio! He was madly in love with me, because I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, you know? Twice he brought me over – spent all day wooing me. He called me “Orse.” Whenever he sent for me, he burst into tears, and once he fainted. To get his way. It was fake, absolutely fake. The deal was, I’d have the studio [as a producer] but I’d have to stop acting, directing, and writing – making pictures.
HJ: Why wouldn’t you have anything to do with him?
OW: Because he was the worst of them all. The rest of them were just what they were. The thing about Harry Cohn was: he looked like such a villainous Hollywood producer, there was nothing he could do that would surprise you. But L.B. was worse than Harry Cohn. He was self-righteous, smarmy, waving the American flag, doing deals with the Purple Gang in Detroit –
HJ: The Purple Gang in Detroit?
OW: Before the unions, it was all Mafia. But no one called it the Mafia. Just said “the mob.” And, mainly, the Purple Gang. They controlled all the blue-collar guys who projected the movies, pushed the dollies, swept the floors. They controlled the teamsters. They didn’t control directors or anything – didn’t need to. And when L.B. needed extra money, he got it from the Purple Gang. When he wanted strong-arm work, he’d call the Purple Gang, who’d send their tough guys into gown.
HJ: Louis B. Mayer had people hit?
OW: Beat up. I wouldn’t put it past him to have people killed. He liked to think of himself as a founding father and capo [chief] of the Mafia.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1940. Short green grosgrain jacket with boned bodice, velvet cross detail on sleeves and pleated cuffs. Bearing a typed label reading “8412” and a bias label inscribed in black ink, “J. Mac Donald / Bittersweet- 1887.” Together with a matching floor-length skirt with two layers, elaborate pleating and bow detail in the back. Interior of the waistband inscribed in black ink, “J. Mac Donald / Bittersweet” and a typed label reading “8412.” Accompanied by a copy of the film. MacDonald wears this dress while speaking to the owner of Schlick’s Cafe, where she is working as a singer.
Our club member, Di Taylor, has written a sequel to her first Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy “fan fiction” book, ‘Til the End of Time. The new volume, just released, is called Melody Immortal. The striking cover was designed by another club member, Don Schumann.
We have had a few writers re-imagine how Jeanette and Nelson’s lives should have turned out, with a happier ending and interesting twists. Some people are offended by fan fiction but I follow the viewpoint of J.K. Rowling who was “flattered people wanted to write their own stories [about the Harry Potter world]”. Let’s face it, if the original material didn’t inspire, no one would bother to create their own take on it!
And I’m happy when a good writer takes on the task…it is no easy task to write any book, whether fiction or non-fiction. In this new internet world of social media and off-the-cuff commentary, one can forget the amount of hard work and concentration it takes to complete such a project. So kudos to Di for writing not one but two excellent books!
I’m sure there’s not many of us who haven’t thought – in reading the actual Jeanette/Nelson story – that if only they had done this or that…ah, hindsight! So for those of you who enjoy romantic novels, you can savor Di’s take on “if only…”
I asked our one and only club member from India to write us a little about her interest in Jeanette and Nelson. Here was her reply:
Dearest Sharon,I thank you once again from the core of my heart for your genuine concern. It is indeed a great honor for me to share my feelings regarding Nelson and Jeanette with someone like you who is keeping their legacy alive.
My interest in Nelson and Jeanette started due to a younger cousin brother who is very different from other boys of his age. His life revolves around Nelson, Jeanette, Deanna Durbin, Arthur Tracy etc. and books.
It all started when he was in school. While his friends were interested in the modern gadgets and external extravagance, he was busy collecting old gramophone records. This interest was noted by an old Anglo-Indian teacher who had some records of Nelson Eddy. During Christmas time, this gentleman invited my brother to his house. He gifted those records to him and what better gifts could he expect for Christmas? Ever since, songs like At the Balalaika and Song of the Volga Boatmen became his national anthem. Nelson Eddy became his source of sustenance.
My brother is not a techno-savvy person. He seems to be from another planet. One day, he requested me to gather information about his favorite personalities from the internet. He made me listen to Nelson Eddy and I was awe-struck. My husband too, was enchanted and my mother-in-law was mesmerized. We decided that we would set up a library of our own where we would collect old books, music and movies. We named our library Rainbow Home Library celebrating the myriad colors of life.
This is how our affliction with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald started. We have just adored your writings on Nelson and Jeanette. My brother is a great fan of yours. He has read your books on Nelson and Jeanette several times. Your book Sweethearts is like the Holy Bible to him. My husband is very fond of Farewell to Dreams which you have written along with Diane Goodrich.
We can proudly say that we are the only ones in India to be madly in love with Nelson and Jeanette. Life without them would be a drudgery for us. It is a great privilege for us to be associated with you and we aspire to add to our collection with your aid in the coming days. May God keep you hale and hearty and flood your life with everlasting sunshine. Please accept lots of love and greetings from my brother, mother-in-law, husband and myself.
With lots of everything that is good,
Rituparna
Hugs to you and your family, Rituparna, and maybe in the future we can have a truly international get-together online (on Skype, perhaps) where our members from around the planet can meet and chat in real time!
Despite the fact that yes, some folks did change the radio channel once Nelson began singing, let’s put it into perspective. Chase and Sanborn was a middling radio show (ratings-wise) that took off once Nelson Eddy joined the cast. It was a brilliant move of counter-programming to add him to the series! In fact, Edgar Bergen’s radio salary jumped dramatically the next season due to the ratings increase with Nelson on the show. (Which is why Nelson remained on the show as his schedule permitted until he began hosting his own solo radio series…but still now and again return to C&S.) So while there were undoubtedly some non-Nelson fans listening to the C&S broadcast that fateful October evening, we think this article goes a little overboard suggesting there was a mass exodus. But those who did defect (probably more men since a majority of Nelson’s fans were always women) turned to some shocking “news.” From The New York Times:
It was all Nelson Eddy’s fault. Seventy-five years ago, at 8 o’clock on the evening of Oct. 30, 1938, millions of Americans tuned in their radios to listen to NBC’s “Chase and Sanborn Hour,” a popular variety show starring the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. When Bergen and McCarthy finished their first sketch — a routine about trick-or-treating — the announcer passed the microphone to Eddy, a booming baritone then starring with Jeanette MacDonald in a series of MGM operettas.
But when Eddy went into a thumping martial tune, “Song of the Vagabonds,” some of those millions went station surfing, and turned the dial to NBC’s less popular rival CBS just in time to hear a dance program interrupted by a special news bulletin. A Chicago astronomer had reported observing “several explosions of incandescent gas” on the planet Mars. Mysterious objects were moving toward Earth, “at enormous velocity.” A huge flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, had crashed into a farm near Grover’s Mill, N.J., 22 miles from Trenton.
Listeners sat frozen as a reporter, dispatched to the scene, described “something like a great snake” — dozens of them! — climbing out of the crater. A jet of flame erupted from the head of one of the creatures, immolating cars, buildings, people. The airwaves were filled with screams, and then a sudden silence. The invaders were here, and the nation — or some significant portion of it — panicked. “A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners,” The New York Times reported the next morning. “At least a score of adults required treatment for shock and hysteria.”
The latecomers had missed the opening announcement: This was not a live newscast at all, but a dramatization of H. G. Wells’s novel “The War of the Worlds,” as presented by a 23-year-old New York theater director, Orson Welles, and the members of his stock company, the Mercury Players. “The Mercury Theater on the Air” had such low ratings that the program had yet to attract a sponsor, which meant that there were no commercials to interrupt the hourlong show (though there were periodic announcements that the program was fiction).
Oh well, guess we shouldn’t complain; at least Nelson is in the news! Any publicity is better than no publicity…or so they say. Just as long as they spelled his name correctly! 🙂
You can hear the “other” Halloween broadcast with the CD above. Happy Halloween, folks!
UPDATE: Patrice Messina wrote the following after listening to the broadcast; seems it wasn’t because of Nelson that the radio channels were switched to “War of the Worlds.”
Re: The Halloween Chase and Sanborn. Heard it last night and a historian pointed out that it was around 15 min into the Bergen program when Dorothy Lamour was to sing that listeners turned the dial. So NOT when Nelson was singing! In fact he sang two songs back to back in about the first 3 to 5 minutes. Then he sang an aria toward the end of the hour long program. Am so happy they didn’t turn the dial when Nelson was singing! And it turned out that wily Orson KNEW the program schedule and that listeners often switched stations when singing came on around 12 to 15 minutes into Chase and Sanborn hour so planned to have the fake news reports start around 15 minutes when he knew people would stumble into the program. He really did plan to cause a bit of panic for Halloween.
This week we received a large package with the Nelson Eddy collection of a fan who recently passed away. I have been corresponding with her stepson Rick, who included with the package the photo above and the following letter:
Hi Sharon, I just wanted to add a personal touch and add this letter to your package to let you know how fortunate I feel that I found someone like you that can enjoy the enclosed items as much as my Step-Mom Margaret seemed to enjoy them. She was a special kind of Lady and I know that she is looking down from Heaven smiling at the thought of someone like you getting all this to share with others.
Thank you, Rick, for thinking of us and yes, we will be sharing the photos, magazines and other items from the collection in our own upcoming magazines, so that others can enjoy them. And on behalf of our group, let me extend our condolences and best wishes to you, your father and your family.
Oct. 16, 1951: Eddy’s booming baritone enthralls only Edmonton member of his fan club
EDMONTON – Hollywood singer/actor Nelson Eddy had many fans in Edmonton, but only one card-carrying member of the Nelson Eddy Fan Club: Margaret Linke.
When her idol came to town for a concert, Linke was invited to meet him after the show.
“I never thought he’d turn up here,” she enthused later.
The 31-year-old provincial government stenographer joined the club at 18 after corresponding with an American pen pal who was club president. Although the lone club member in Edmonton, Linke was one of 800 Eddy-ites in North America.
Besides up to eight scrapbooks she had filled with Eddy’s pictures and news clippings, Linke had a collection of the singer’s 30-page magazines, published every three months and distributed among his fan club members.
Unlike most chapters that held frequent get-togethers, the Edmonton club didn’t have enough members to do that, but meeting Eddy in person more compensated.
Idol and fan mostly talked about the seven movies he made in the 1930s with soprano Jeanette MacDonald, including Naughty Marietta and Rose-Marie.
A sellout audience attended Eddy’s first Edmonton appearance at the Stock Sales Pavilion on the Northlands grounds, dubbed The Cow Palace. The 50-year-old baritone sang such favourites as Rose-Marie, Oh What a Beautiful Morning and his signature tune, Shortnin’ Bread.
Renewed interest in Eddy and MacDonald in the 1950s brought Eddy’s old musical and romantic screen partner to Edmonton the following year. MacDonald thrilled 2,000 Edmontonians with a performance at the same venue where Eddy had performed.
Singing some of the same movie numbers that Eddy had during his visit, the audience rewarded her with seven encores.
MacDonald died at age 61 in 1965. Two years later, Eddy followed at age 65.
See this amusing article on Huffington Post. It shows Jeanette in 1930 with Pussums. Below, Grumpy Cat, a celebrity cat of today! Which one do you think is cuter?
Dear Members (Heck, Dear Non-Members, too; I don’t discriminate!),
This past weekend, when I was hosting a Club Meeting at my farm, I shared some recollections with Sharon that she has asked me to write up for the blog, so here goes:
In recent years, I have been a guest speaker all over my home state of Virginia. This started when the National D-Day Memorial (located in my home town, Bedford) approached me about putting together a lecture for their winter series. I have been a volunteer at the Memorial for a number of years, most often appearing in period dress for their various Living History events. They know my knowledge of and passion for Old Hollywood, and they asked me to create a presentation on the topic. Thus, my lecture Hollywood Goes to War: Screen Queens and the War Effort was born. I profiled a handful of my favorite actresses, Jeanette MacDonald being chief among them, naturally, and explained their contributions to their country during WWII. I accompanied my lecture with film clips and pictures on a projection screen, as well as taking items from my personal collection (such as a pair of Joan Crawford’s shoes) for people to see and enjoy. I was approached after my first lecture by several other people, and to date I have “played” every retirement home in the surrounding area, ladies’ groups, Veterans’ Associations, and other similar organizations. I always do a Q&A session after my lecture concludes, and try to stick around afterward to mingle and talk to members of the Greatest Generation.
Jeanette always garners a huge reaction everywhere I “take” her. My only explanation for this is that Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford and other actresses are still thought of today, more than Jeanette, and their movies are comparatively easier to find in stores and on TV. When older people see Jeanette, or, more to the point, Jeanette and Nelson together, they react with total joy, as if they are greeting a long-lost friend. That, to me, magnifies the importance of what we are doing in the MacEddy Club. These people were so beloved in their day and deserve to be right there at the forefront of our memories with Hepburn, Bogart, Garland, etc—but they won’t be unless we all take an active part in keeping their memories alive.
I have had a few very meaningful MacEddy-related encounters in my travels with this lecture, and while they are not concrete proof of anything, nor would my writing hold up in a court of law, I feel that these happenings are worth reporting because, at the very least, they are interesting.
Firstly, I was approached after my lecture one time by a very old gentleman whose opening line was, “MacDonald was exceptional. I got to meet her.” After I had picked my jaw up off the floor and hurried into his personal space, I asked for details. “I met her after one of her concerts for Army Relief. Some of my buddies and I went to see her, and she was magnificent—and gorgeous to look at. The screen doesn’t do her justice.” I said that I was sure that was true and, as a matter of fact, it had been said about her before. He went on to say that Jeanette, clearly tired after her concert, stayed in the hall until she had individually shaken the hand or kissed the cheek or signed the program of every single person in uniform who wanted to meet her. He added that as he and his friends grew closer to her, she took her shoes off, laughing that she was tired and would be more comfortable in her bare feet, if they didn’t mind. They didn’t! How like that sweet Jeanette—always so kind to her fans, and so loyal to those in uniform.
My second eyewitness story is more compelling. A woman at Westminster Canterbury, one of the classiest retirement communities in the area (where I have been asked to lecture more than once!) told me about growing up in the Philadelphia area. She was an avid Nelson fan and saw him in concert every time he was remotely local. As I was mingling with the group after my presentation, she approached me and asked if I had any idea if Jeanette MacDonald ever accompanied Nelson on his tours. I said yes, that we have had people come forward and say that she was there some of the time, on the road with Nelson or meeting up with him at a particular stop. A look of sly vindication crossed her features and she said, “Oh, I thought so!” When I asked her why, she said she had seen Nelson give a concert in Philadelphia “back in the Forties” and the weather was cold and miserable. Because of this, only a few people went to the stage door that night, and actually, when Nelson emerged, he told them all to go home before they caught cold! She remembers a woman, whom she described as “very willowy and slender” wearing slacks and a trench coat, with a scarf over her…wait for it….bright red hair. This woman, with her head down, walked purposefully from the stage door to the waiting car. Before she had reached the car, a voice from back inside yelled, “Jenny! Your purse!” upon which the redhead wheeled around, exclaiming, “Where have I parked my brain tonight?” and trotted back after her purse. She got into the car, and when Nelson came out, he got into the same car. The woman I talked to pointed out that she must have been backstage the whole time because, “She wasn’t dressed up enough to have been out front.” She said, “My friend and I always felt sure that was Jeanette MacDonald. There were rumors that they loved each other.” ……Recounting this now, all I can do is smile.
The last anecdote is possibly the most touching, though it is vastly different from the other two. One of my lectures was at the Guggenheimer Nursing Home in Lynchburg, and I had never been there before. Nobody told me (and I, at this point in my experience, was not savvy enough to ask) that the residents there were extremely, to use their term, “low-functioning”. This means there were many people there with Alzheimer’s and dementia, nearly everyone was wheelchair-bound and more than a few of these people didn’t seem to know I was there. My lecture is full of facts and history and statistics, and I knew at once that this wouldn’t do for this group. To give them the most enjoyment, I needed to simplify. I decided to skip the lecture and show pictures and videos and play music that would be familiar to them, and lo and behold, that ended up making a lot of people happy that afternoon. One woman was wheeled in about ten minutes after I had started. The nurse parked her chair very close to me, the only space that was left, and she touched my arm. “She won’t even know she’s here,” she told me. “She hasn’t said a word ever since she was moved in. Sometimes she responds to music, but she doesn’t talk.” I nodded and continued with what I was doing. Several of the residents enjoyed the Andrews Sisters, and a few smiled and pointed at the screen when I showed Fred and Ginger. When I got to Jeanette and Nelson, I decided to show Will You Remember from Maytime. Just as they were getting into the song, the wildest thing happened. From the chair parked so close to me, there was motion. The tiny, frail woman in the chair lifted her head. She never opened her eyes, but in the smallest voice, she sang “Ah, love is so sweet in the spring….time…..when blossoms are fragrant in May…..” Well, I was teary in about two seconds, as was the nurse. The whole way home that day, and every time I’ve thought of it since, I’ve been forced to marvel at the power of those two beautiful voices and the way they touch people. That woman hadn’t said a word in months. She wasn’t responding to anyone around her, but somewhere, deep inside, the magic of Jeanette and Nelson touched her. On some level, she knew them, and for a few moments, she was alive again. It was a moment I will never forget.
There is so much drama surrounding these two amazing people—even fifty years after their deaths. I’m not going to say we need to bury the hatchet and all be buddies, because I am realistic, but I do ask this of everyone who loves them: DO NOT LET THEM BE FORGOTTEN. They deserve our best, for all the years they gave us their best.
We had an informative and fun weekend in Bedford, VA, at the home of one of our younger club members, Katie Gardner. The weekend was September 27-29, 2013. Two films and some interview videos were screened; we had a lengthy Q&A session with questions asked by Kitty Job, a club member visiting us all the way from China!
Above, Katie presents our cooked-from-scratch Mac/Eddy luncheon which included: Virginia ham served in saucers (ala Maytime), Jeanette’s recipe for baked beans (with the India Relish included – delicious, in the end, but why were we surprised?), Jeanette’s recipe for brown bread (which she insisted should be served with the baked beans) and homemade lemonade (with maraschino cherries added to make the lemonade pink, per Jeanette), Nelson’s shortnin’ bread recipe, angel food cake and more! (For those interested in making these dishes, the recipes can be found at this link.)
More scenes from Otteridge Farm…Below, prize-winning show horses Rita and Frank who are real-life sweethearts and are inseparable…they go everywhere together even if only one is in a show…
Special souvenir mugs made for the occasion…
Our group at a restaurant together…including Evelyn Snow (purple sweater), celebrating her 78th birthday with us.
Once again the gorgeous scenery…
Fried green tomatoes, which were new to the non-Southerners among us…and delicious!
Maria Escano (left) and Bernadette Schwartz, who runs our Yahoo group:
During the discussions of the weekend, Katie reminded me that she had some interested eyewitness accounts to share. (It’s a 2-way street, I can spend hours answering questions but inevitably someone attending has information of their own to share!) I asked Katie to write it all up for me, and it’s such a lengthy report that I am posting it separately. You can read it at this link.
We had an amazing weekend and as we were tramp, tramp, tramping around the picturesque area on foot, we had to laugh that the Mac/Eddy group members make so many new friends, travel to places we’ve never been before, and in general have amazing adventures – all in the name of, memory of, appreciation of – Jeanette and Nelson!
