They were close in life and both died on the same day, January 14, but thirteen years apart.
In a world where Jeanette had very few confidants she could trust, much less any family members who supported her in her love of Nelson Eddy, Blossom was the caring, non-judgemental sister who only wanted to see her sister and Nelson happy.
Jeanette MacDonald died young in 1965, at age 61, after suffering for years with a bad heart.
Blossom MacDonald Rock passed in 1978 at age 82. She survived a stroke in 1966 and with her positive attitude toward life, was feisty and energetic for over a decade.
Is it ironic that the sisters died on the same day? Perhaps not; in the life story of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy one finds are many ironies, too many to be thought of as coincidence.
Above is a picture of Jeanette MacDonald’s sister, actress Blossom Rock, in the only film she made with her brother-in-law, Gene Raymond. This shot is from the 1964 film The Best Man and they are pictured here with Cliff Robertson.
More ironies…
A letter has recently surfaced regarding Blossom’s death, 13 years to the day after her sister Jeanette, on January 14, 1978. In particular, a friend’s lunch date with Blossom is described in detail just two days before her death.
But first let me provide the background and setting…so you can fully appreciate the letter reproduced below.
Those of you who have read Sweethearts know that despite Blossom suffering a stroke in 1966, her mind was just fine, thank you, regardless of her impaired speech. She was a spunky, upbeat personality who refused to bow to self-pity, and spent much of her time reaching out to and caring for others. When I met her as a teenager, I was able to, in short time, converse with her with no problem. She is the one who confirmed her neighbor’s statement that Jeanette was very much in love with Nelson Eddy. And Blossom went on to give me the basics of that story…if not by talking, demonstrating or showing me photos and other items to make sure I understood. And possibly even more important, she confirmed or corrected information I learned from interviewing others. There were also brief times that her speech returned to normal (documented here), whether medically understandable or not.
The only reason I did not learn more information from her than I did is simply because I didn’t know all the questions to ask. In hindsight, there is much more I could have asked her and she would have answered freely. But it was easier for her to answer me than to originate a lengthy, detailed communication.
I have written extensively how, over the years, I not only hung out with her at the Motion Picture Home (where she permanently resided after her executor Gene Raymond sold her Beverly Hills house without her knowledge), but we usually went out for the day, shopping, to lunch and to get ice cream. Blossom’s favorite restaurant was the Sandcastle in Paradise Cove (Malibu) and it was easy to get to, I drove over Topanga Canyon from the San Fernando Valley to the beach. Or we went to other restaurants in the Valley or Hollywood or elsewhere, if we were taking a long drive to see various haunts in the lives of Jeanette and Nelson. Long before GPS, Blossom would give me or whoever the driver was (as we sometimes went out with others) driving directions. She always sat in the front seat passenger seat and would point as appropriate to turn right or left at some street, or to get the freeway at this exit or that. And when she would comment about the often insane LA traffic or some car that got in our way, we’d all laugh. It was fun driving with her.
There were many restaurants on Ventura Blvd and we ate at some of those. Or we shopped and ate at nearby Topanga Plaza, the first California indoor mall that opened in February 1964. My favorite store inside was Pickwick Books (they had another store on Hollywood Blvd.) but Blossom’s was the May Company. And we used to sit and look at the “Rain Fountain” which was actually droplets of glycerin but was amazingly high tech for that day and age.
The above shot of the mall is from 1964, the year it opened. Below is the amazing Rain Fountain.
After shopping, we might also eat lunch in the mall, either at the Terrace Restaurant in May Company or the Jolly Roger and also sit and watch the Rain Fountain. And then our day always ended with ice cream and there were two choices, either Thrifty Drugstore on Topanga and Ventura or later the first “gourmet” ice cream place I remember, Swensen’s, with high prices for the day.
It depended on whether we wanted two scoops or one. You see, Thrifty’s was famous for their 5 cent cones. I think by the time I knew Blossom, the price was raised to 10 cents a scoop and two scoops for 15 cents. Blossom was very “scotch” and the price of Thrifty’s ice cream made sense to her. So we could “splurge” on two scoops instead of one!
Swensen’s was also on Topanga Canyon Blvd. and it boasted changing and interesting flavors such as pickle ice cream…which was frankly disgusting although the staff swore it was a popular flavor whenever they infrequently offered it. But their other flavors were delicious and tasted more like homemade ice cream.
One last place we visited a few times was the Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor in Woodland Hills. My father was the accountant for that place and on one’s birthday they gave you a free sundae. I remember taking Blossom there a couple times, sometimes for a birthday visit, or otherwise we shared a banana split.
The problem with Farrell’s was the noise level, it was so high we couldn’t really talk. They had an amazingly huge ice cream offering called “the trough” and if you could eat it all they rang firemen’s bells and clapped and cheered and gave the customer a pin to wear announcing that he made a pig of himself at Farrell’s.
The reason for my trotting out these memories is to show the reader that my spending full days with Blossom doing normal and fun things was our routine over the years. We didn’t just sit and talk about her sister. I last saw Blossom about a couple weeks before her death. I was now married and my hubby and I went to visit and give her some Christmas gifts, including some chocolates as I recall. She seemed a bit down and said she was tired and ready to die. But she perked up being around my then-husband who was tall and blond, she always had an eye for a good-looking guy and enjoyed visiting with him. She was back to her more cheerful self when we left.
And now to the point of this post. There are those who have tried over the years to negate Blossom, citing her speech issues and even questioning her mental capabilities.
The attempts to deny Blossom as a credible source are now once and for all proven to be bogus per the letter below written Dorothy Cassidy. Dorothy and her husband Thomas Cassidy, for many years host of the the Los Angeles classical music radio station KFAC, were longtime friends of Jeanette and Gene. Jeanette’s entire record collection was given to the Cassidys following her death. That is, except for Nelson Eddy’s solo albums – God forbid anyone would think that Jeanette actually WANTED Nelson’s recordings for herself – that might suggest that she liked him or admired his voice. So Blossom ended up with Jeanette’s Nelson solo record collection.
Dorothy Cassidy and her daughters were in quite thick with the Jeanette fan club and promoting (and I think honestly believing) the happy Jeanette-Gene marriage. In this letter written to Clara Rhoades, the Jeanette fan club president, dated January 19, 1978, Dorothy details the time she spent with Blossom just two days before she died. And was Blossom a blithering, incompetent idiot? Of course not! Dorothy writes:
I’m wondering if you heard the news of Blossom. She passed away on the 14th. I was out to see her on Thursday, the 12th and we went to lunch at the Westlake Inn, took a drive like she always likes to do, and stopped for an ice cream cone at Swenson’s (sic)…another “must” when we are out. She was fine and really enjoyed her day.
Dorothy continues:
She took ill on Friday and died early Saturday morning (around 2:30 or so, I believe). The funeral was yesterday, the 18th…just thirteen years after Jeanette. So it’s been quite a week…Blossom’s services were lovely.
Emily is still in St. Croix, but I had her phone number there so Nannette (sic, their grandneice), did get in touch with her.
Guess what, folks, this letter is absolute verification of the Blossom that I knew. And have written about for years.
As an interesting footnote, Thomas Cassidy died in 2012. Some time before that, one of our club members, Patrice Messina, told me that a good friend of hers knew the Cassidys and he was soon heading over for a visit to their house. Patrice plied him with information and while there, this man gently brought up the subject of Jeanette and Nelson and what the real story might be. Not surprisingly, they supported the Jeanette-Gene scenario…until Thomas said to his wife, “Come to think of it, after Jeanette died Gene did bring a different young man with him whenever he visited us.” At which time the subject was abruptly changed.
Our thanks to Maria Escano for sharing the Dorothy Cassidy letter. And as an additional footnote after seeing this letter, Angela Messino shared a letter she owns, written by Emily West (Wentz) also covering the news of Blossom’s death:
Thank you, Angela, for sharing this as well as your notes about Emily’s letter:
A couple of things struck me, Emily is writing this almost 3 months after the fact. In time for the next Comet [fan club magazine]?? Also, she gets the date of Jeanette’s death incorrect and whoever filed it just blindly copied it on the envelope, at some point it was corrected in a different pen. The letter is all about Emily and her woes and she includes a clipping about her and her family and trip, etc. which mentions Blossom’s passing and her relationship. This was all about her, all PR for how great Emily is. Wow. But she’ll certainly miss Blossom. What a cold one she was.
There were two women in Jeanette’s life that Nelson Eddy couldn’t tolerate: her mother Anna MacDonald and her secretary Emily West. As I wrote in Sweethearts, Nelson had nothing but anger when discussing what he felt was their treachery toward Jeanette.
Folks, we have a person from the “other camp” inadvertently verifying what I have said tirelessly all these years. Sad that it was suppressed all these decades but, well, we have it now. Again, the ironies of life…
Above we see two screenshots from the 1938 MGM film, Dramatic School, in which Jeanette’s sister Blossom (billed as Marie Blake) had a good-sized role alongside the film’s star Luise Rainer.
Just a couple of weeks ago, my own sister Arlene was visiting me in New York in February 2016. While I was on the phone basically being interviewed about certain Mac/Eddy facts, incidents and dates regarding Blossom in particular, Arlene overheard some of the conversation (the call was on speakerphone) and piped up that because of my father she also had worked at the Motion Picture Country Home (MPCH) in the accounting department, and that I had introduced her to Blossom.
Well, folks, we squealed and laughed…I didn’t remember that!…and I was amazed because while Blossom knew my other sister Julie, my mom and my first husband Tom, I did not recall introducing Blossom to Arlene at the Home. Funny, isn’t it? I expect every one I interview to know exactly what they were doing on such-and-such a date 40+ years ago with complete accuracy, and yet here I am having forgotten such an interesting tidbit of information. Oh well, such is life!
So Arlene told us the following: also as a teenager she worked after school there in the main building, in accounting. Remember that my father was the accountant for some executive in charge of hiring there. This man’s name escapes me at this point (and mom doesn’t remember either, nor does Arlene) but this is the fellow who called me into his office to say that Gene Raymond didn’t want me around anymore after I told Gene that Blossom had asked me to write a book about Jeanette. The man told me that I did excellent work and that that the residents there praised me – but that it was politics in regards to Gene Raymond (then on the Board of the MPCH) and his hands were tied.
Arlene worked part-time for our dad for school credit and pocket money… originally in dad’s office but for a time at the MPCH. We’ve since discussed this more and don’t know whether our dad was doing basic accounting for the Home itself as well as his other client. (Our dad was not in the film industry but his clients included many industry folks and this was how I was able to get interviews with some of his actor clients and others quoted in my book. Dad also helped package some film deals.)
Arlene recalls that I stopped by to see her one day in the main building, dressed in my Candy Striper uniform, and took her over to the Lodge to meet Blossom. Blossom was “a nice old lady” sitting in a chair in her room, was very pleasant and the two of us filled Arlene in on the book and research project, and I showed Arlene some of the photos Blossom was providing me to use.
Arlene was now interviewed on the phone and was asked about Blossom’s speech. Arlene said she had no trouble understanding her. Arlene observed that Blossom and I had a close friendship and were working together on a project that was meaningful to us.
In recalling again the events at the Motion Picture Home and the subject of Blossom’s speech, I mentioned one of the times that her speech was perfect and normal for a few days, and the circumstance that triggered it. I did publish this back in a 1991 article and here is an excerpt:
I’d like to clarify here that there were times when her speech suddenly returned, perfect. There was no predictability on this, it just happened. Once it occurred after we were looking at the Bible and I started to read the 23rd psalm. She recited it with me, and by the end of it, her speech was perfect and remained so for a couple of days before it slipped back. I have no medical explanation for this but it did happen. That evening Blossom, I and some “cute guys” (Blossom’s term) who worked in the Home sat with her in the dining room until the wee hours, drinking wine [they drank, I didn’t], and listening to her talk about Clark Gable, Hollywood’s golden days, etc. This happened infrequently at other times as well.
Blossom, similar to her sister Jeanette, was a religious and spiritual person but not necessarily in the traditional sense. Like Jeanette, she felt that mind over matter could at times produce great results. I was asked and will answer here as well; yes, at later times we read more out of the Bible, reciting together in hopes that Blossom’s speech would revert back to normal as it had once before – even if temporarily. But it only happened this one time after reading the Bible. Other times her speech came back unexpectedly or after I worked with her on speech therapy.
I have to say that the only time I ever saw Blossom cry was when her speech slipped back after this particular incident.
Each year, Blossom attended the annual Jeanette fan club Clan Clave finale. Her last one was 1977, just 6 months before her death. That was my last one as well, since our own club began in the fall of that year. But in Sweethearts I wrote about surreptitiously screening one of my sources, Sunny Griffin, by taking him over to see Blossom at this event when he first showed up in June 1976. I wanted to see her reaction to him. That she embraced him and they talked excitedly and that Sunny lit two cigarettes like in Now Voyager and put one in Blossom’s mouth, told me what I needed to know. Sunny attended both 1976 and 1977, but in the 1976 one Gene Raymond was not there. According to the Jeanette fan club publication, his new wife Nelson (that was her actual first name, folks!) had badly injured her hand. That was Gene’s reason for not attending. No, I don’t know any circumstances about that, how it was injured, did he hurt her, was it a self-injury… no data, folks. I just know that back then we were told by Clara Rhoades, that club president, that the marriage wasn’t happy. Why did Gene marry her? She was wealthy, pretty, maybe her ironic first name? Who knows. I was told that she was a religious woman and made it her mission to help Gene handle his drinking problem but obviously that was a failure as he got visibly drunk at these Clan Clave meals, to the dismay of some of the rather prim Jeanette fans there. And if his wife “Nels” had any concerns about other aspects of Gene’s life, it’s evident that it was status quo. In the page reproduced below from the 1977 Jeanette fan club journal, we learn that Gene’s friend Buddy Rogers was still very much in the picture after all these decades.
Here is that magazine cover:
And the write-up inside of the first event, which I have marked for interest:
Re: Sunny Griffin who talked about his adventures with Jeanette, Blossom and Gene in New York. I heard Jeanette’s secretary Emily West introduce him to Clara as “an old friend” of Jeanette’s and that’s why I wanted to check him out with Blossom.
Then, Samuel Griffin, attending his first Clan Clave, took his turn. He was so enthusiastic that he held the audience in the palm of his hand.
And as for Blossom:
Blossom received her standing ovation which she acknowledged with a broad smile. She is looking very well and seems to grow younger each year.
The following June of 1977, Gene was in attendance, as was Sunny and Blossom. Gene welcomed Sunny as a good friend of theirs and laughed with the group as Sunny stood at the podium and related more anecdotes. It was written up here:
With comments from the page below:
Jeanette’s sister, Blossom Rock, acknowledged her standing ovation with a broad grin. She’s looking as chipper as ever and just sparkled at being present.
Patricia Dale Beaumont and Samuel Griffin each took a turn speaking about “their” Jeanette….Samuel, his usual jovial self, entertained with a little story about Jeanette and a parrot.
Never mind that Blossom began first talking to me in 1970, even up till six months before her death she was on public display at a public event and interacting with Jeanette’s fans.
And no, I don’t remember the parrot story. We later videotaped many hours of Sunny Griffin but that incident doesn’t seem to be on the later tapes we did in 1982.
I’ve said it before and will again: we are lucky to have had such an ally in Blossom, who was a kind and social person. Her determination to have her sister’s story told is why we’re all here today.
Below, three wonderful photos of Blossom that are new to me but that certainly show what a spunky lady Blossom was. The first one is from the Masquire’s St. Patrick’s Day dinner honoring Donald O’Connor, also with Emily West – March 1964.
The one below is from Blossom’s birthday, August 21, 1965. Not sure but this might have been taken at her house.
This last one is from a community breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel, 1966, also with Emily West, who worked for the Gene even after Jeanette’s death till her own health finally failed.
Thanks to Angela Messino for sending us these great photos of Blossom!
