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!
Updated August 21, 2025. In 1973, Jeanette MacDonald: A Pictorial Treasury was published. It went to the publisher while I was still 19 years old. I dedicated the book to Jeanette’s older sister and my good friend, Blossom Rock. I had met Blossom two years earlier while volunteering at the Motion Picture Home which was close by to where I lived in Woodland Hills.
The Home was putting on a variety show as a fundraiser using their own residents – either from “The Lodge” (assisted living section) or the “cottages” which was like your own little home but with a group dining room for meals if one preferred. It turned out Blossom was doing a song-and-dance number with her brother-in-law, Gene Raymond. All of the performers, ambulatory or not, sat in wheelchairs in a half-circle on the stage, wheeled out by their helpers (that was us, the gals from the high school honor society doing our “good deed” for the month). And then each performer did their number – again, some sang from their wheelchairs and others not. Blossom got up, and she and Gene did a tap dance. Blossom’s dancing was nimble still – even just walking she still had that dancer’s walk – very similar to Jeanette’s – but as for the song…well, you could tell she had a sweet singing voice, on pitch and she could hum the melody but her attempt to sing the words was garbled, the results of a stroke.
Below is a picture taken that day of us. Note Caesar Romero as MC. Sitting next to Blossom, by the way, on her left is Sally Benson who wrote Meet Me in St. Louis. What a sharp wit that woman had!
In Sweethearts, I explain in more detail about my friendship with Blossom. How I came to know that Blossom was Jeanette MacDonald’s older sister, which frankly meant nothing to me as I was not familiar with the Mac/Eddy films. Only after I watched a theater screening of the movie Sweethearts with Blossom did I “get it”. And after that screening, I asked lots of questions and when Blossom affirmed that yes, Nelson and Jeanette were in love while making that film and that Jeanette was pregnant – with Nelson’s child – she made sure I understood that! – Nelson’s baby, not Gene’s… I suddenly realized there was an untold story here. As we talked more over the next weeks and months, I came to understand that Blossom was annoyed about how her sister’s life had faded into the shadows and was not included among the handful of universally worshiped Hollywood “greats.” Blossom wanted that remedied. And she made me understand that because I was of a younger generation, the freewheeling culture of the early 1970s, maybe I could see this with a more objective eye. None of this was particularly shocking or scandalous, except when considered by the secrecy and morals of decades past.
Hollywood still has, to this day, many secrets that still have not come out and probably never will. Jeanette and Nelson’s adulterous love affair (as it was viewed then) is pretty tame in comparison to other stories. It only SEEMS shocking because Jeanette in particular played up her blissful marriage and overall prim and proper life to her fan base. She was not, as she said to interviewer Tony Thomas, “the angelic creature I seemingly represent to a certain – uh, group of people.”
Blossom asked me to come visit her and thus we became friends. As happens when you are close to a stroke victim, you learn to make do and how best to communicate. I was a volunteer Candy Striper at the Home until starting UCLA. There I was commissioned by my film history professor to ghostwrite someone’s memoirs, but once I shifted gears and agreed to write a book about Jeanette, I was hit head-on by sources who were still afraid to talk freely or go public. The climate of fear was very strong. Blossom handed me her phone book, I made calls, met the first round of people. She also encouraged me to attend the annual meeting of the Jeanette fan club, which I did. Made the mistake of blabbing to everyone I met at the initial hotel room reception how sad it was that Jeanette was pregnant by Nelson during the filming of Sweethearts and how Mayer wouldn’t let them marry. You can imagine how well that went over! Only because I was known to be Blossom’s good friend is why they didn’t toss me out immediately – as I was a loose cannon. The disapproving glares and stares finally shut me up. And that club president, Clara Rhoades, attempted diplomacy by not trying to tell me that Blossom’s information was untrue (as she knew I’d never buy that, it had already been confirmed elsewhere). Instead, she advised me that this was upsetting, the fans didn’t want to hear it so maybe I’d better not discuss it here. Stupid me, I agreed and shut my mouth going forward…for the next few years actually, except in private.
In the meantime, Gene Raymond had been cautiously friendly with me. And as I wrote in a 1979 article:
Blossom had long ago given up on speech therapists and refused to see them. It amazed me that for several days at a time, her speech could be perfect. I consulted a therapist myself and was instructed on how to help Blossom, which I did. For a few months we spent part of each day working. The hospital staff was astonished that Blossom was tolerating my help when she had refused others. Even Gene Raymond…commented to me on how much good my presence was doing Blossom.
But I ultimately freaked out Gene Raymond (who was visiting Blossom) by asking him too many questions about a photo of his engagement party. He suddenly tried to stop both the book project and my contact with Blossom. More from that 1979 article:
I tried to visit Blossom but the nurses told me they had orders not to let me see her…. Finally I called Blossom and asked her if this was her wish too. She was furious and agreed to let me in the back door of the Lodge where she lived. Thus I continued to see her almost daily; either she would sneak me in or I’d take her out for a drive and ice cream. Finally one day I got brave and put on a disguise, and waltzed past the nurses with no recognition on their part! [I had prearranged this with Blossom, by the way.] Blossom was watching, a huge grin on her face, and once we got out of the nurses’ view, we burst out laughing and howled the rest of the afternoon!
I have so many treasured recollections of Blossom…the time the head nurse suddenly made an appearance at Blossom’s door, knocking impatiently. Knowing I’d be thrown out if caught, Blossom grabbed my arm and pulled me into the bathroom, shoving me in the shower. Closing the bathroom door behind her, she sweetly greeted the nurse, chatted aimlessly then finally ushered the woman out. Afterwards, we laughed at her quick thinking till we were weak.
For a time, I came and left through Blossom’s sliding glass door but finally, no one seemed to care anymore about me so I resumed visiting Blossom normally…and I continued to visit her openly throughout the rest of her life without any issues. In fact, one night when Blossom had the flu I called my mother and told her I was staying overnight to sit with Blossom since the new nurse on the floor complained that “it was a real pain” to have the added work of keeping an eye on her. I wrote: “In the morning she was amazingly better, much to the frazzled nurse’s astonishment.”
I did speak face-to-face with Gene Raymond about this whole scene, he was very nervous when confronted and tried to deny his involvement but I detailed all the specifics I had been told. No telling though whether that’s why the “ban” was lifted. (The full version of this article can be found in this book.)
I want to clarify that Blossom’s speech varied at times, and then there was the time of the miracle. We we were walking together in the deserted dining room area and there was large book on a table. We stopped to look at it; it was a Bible. She asked me to read something from it. I turned to the 23rd Psalm and started reading aloud. She spoke it with me, and by the time we were done, she was speaking perfectly. This lasted for about 2 days and that evening, she sat around in the dining room, smoking and drinking wine with the orderlies and other residents, answering questions about whatever. I remember someone asking her what Clark Gable was like in person. When her speech slipped back to imperfect, it was one of the only times I ever saw her cry.
Perhaps you can understand why, when the pictorial book was released, I decided to look like I was towing the party line – so as not to be sued and also not to scare off those who might come forward and speak to me as a result of this book being published.
So I only hinted that there was more than met the eye.
This book filled with innocuous text still had two shockers in it – for which I was attacked anyway!
First, I had the nerve to publish Jeanette’s accurate birth date. Sure, you may notice that other authors wrote in pre-1973 Hollywood books that Jeanette was possibly born in 1901, 1903, 1907, etc. But the difference was that MY information came RIGHT FROM JEANETTE’S SISTER! I was not using the nonsense 1907 birth date that the fan club claimed and that even Gene Raymond used on Jeanette’s crypt. And I was stating 1903 as FACT not rumor or assumption. Later still, I obtained a copy of Jeanette’s baptismal record, which also verified 1903.
Eek!!! Horrors!!!!! The shock of it!!!! I was called a liar and received hate letters from several of those fan club people. See below for evidence of my awful transgression:
To not alienate Gene Raymond, the fan club or anyone else, I wimped out and presented the happy Jeanette-Gene marriage. How else to learn more from this camp without being a double agent? And yet I couldn’t stomach not having the truth in there somewhere…and so I shouted as loudly as I could on the final pages of this book…because in the case of Jeanette and Nelson the pictures tell it all, do they not?
And Nelson’s pain close up:
And in case you can’t read the text, here are the very last words that basically wrap up the narrative, with a quote from “shattered” Nelson:
Later that day when television reporters interviewed him reality sank in and Nelson grieved, “I didn’t know she was dying. I’ll never get over it.”
Friends claim he never did.
Another round of attacks and hate letters and threats…I made many enemies for writing those carefully chosen words. Laughable, isn’t it?
When I did press for the pictorial book, I had to continue to be very careful. As revealed in my later book Sweethearts, Ann Eddy asked Emily West to show up at my radio interview with Thomas Cassidy. To make sure that I – quote – “didn’t spill the beans”. Which Emily did. Sat across from me and stared me down, daring me to open my mouth. Well, folks, I was still a wimpy coward and my voice quaked in that interview as I said nothing of importance.
But even in a newspaper interview, I tried to hint again at the truth, saying that the marriage between Jeanette and Gene ENDURED all their lives.
As I had hoped, post publication, new people came forward with information, several who knew that I knew…and so felt freer to speak openly. The book was a selection of the Entertainment Book Club and I had many people reach out with anecdotes to share.
Speaking of anecdotes, I’d like to share some a couple more. When I graduated high school, Blossom gave me a bottle of Chanel #5, my first perfume! And preparing for my senior prom, she bought me a pack of Trojans to take in my purse, in case I “got lucky” with my date. We were at the Savon Drugstore across from the Motion Picture Home and she was buying cat food for the several strays she took care of on the grounds. The poor young man behind the counter blushed bright red when Blossom insisted she wanted the condoms parked on the shelf behind him. He handed her another brand; nope, she wanted the Trojans. I was equally embarrassed, but when we got back onto the garden grounds of the Home, we sat down on a bench and she showed this naive teenager how to use them. When I say she was like an Auntie Mame to me, it’s not exaggeration. I was a bookworm-ish nerd, and we had talks that I was too shy to have with my own mother. A year or so later, when I had a serious boyfriend and thought he might be “the one,” she insisted I bring him over to meet her. He was tall and blond; after a nice visit together, she winked at me and nodded her approval. And yes, I did later marry him.
But my favorite Blossom story is this. My childhood home in Woodland Hills was on the site of a former massive orange grove (that had been divided up for development). Directly across the street from us, the Bothwell Ranch orchard still covered a huge stretch of land spanning many blocks. In our own backyard, twelve orange trees remained. They were juice oranges, not navel, and despite our family eating tons of oranges, every season a huge truck would pull up from Sunkist and they picked and bought all we had for some nominal fee (if I recall my dad’s comment correctly).
We also planted a peach tree; it became huge and each year, suddenly we had more peaches than one family could eat, so mom recruited us to help make dozens of fresh peach pies. Some mom froze for later use, most were given to friends and family. This particular day, mom was dealing with pies and asked me to help. I told her I was going to visit Blossom. Mom told me to bring her over and put her to work.
Blossom loved the idea and soon after, mom had her in an apron, holding a big metal spoon, stirring the mixture that was folded into the fresh cut peaches. I still remember the recipe; you poured a mixture of our fresh squeezed orange juice and sugar over the sliced peaches (skin still on) and let them soak for a lengthy time. Then you drained the liquid and cooked it on the stove with cornstarch added to thicken. Finally you poured that mixture over the peaches and voila! Fresh peach pie!
Blossom’s right hand was weak due to her stroke but she could surely stir the peach mixture together with her left. (By the way, she still autographed photos that were sent to her to sign. If you are a collector and have one with a shaky signature, that was her post-stroke handwriting. I used to watch her sign pictures and even mailed some of them back to the sender for her.)
Mom loved to sing and had a beautiful voice, so we were all warbling something as we worked, even Blossom. I don’t remember much else except mom’s lecture to Blossom about how you save empty calories if you don’t eat the pie crust, so that means you can eat more of the fruit filling. There was lots of laughter. I drove Blossom home before dinner, a pie in hand. It was to be shared with Blossom’s dinner table-mates, so I cut some slices up for the likes of movie director Mitch Leisen (supposed to be on a diabetic diet), writer Sally Bensen, silent actor Chester Conklin (and also the man in the barber chair getting a shave from Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator) and a couple others. Summing up, Blossom had a great day and mom made her a part of our family.
At that time, my father had recently been president of the Woodland Hills Rotary Club and was the accountant, if not for the entire Home, for the main man running it. I don’t remember his name but I do remember having a talk with him in his office, particularly about Blossom. My younger sister Arlene was doing a work-study program at our high school, and as part of it, my father arranged for her to work in accounting there at the Home as well. So in this regard, it was truly a family affair!
***
I met Diane Goodrich at my first Jeanette fan club and to my surprise, she was NOT afraid to talk. She had known Nelson through her father and she had several lengthy conversations with Nelson alone during a period of time when his life was at a low point. He and Jeanette were broken up and he was re-examining how it had all gone south, what he did to contribute to the scene but mostly how he had loved Jeanette despite everything, stuck with her through thick and thin but finally she dumped him. She was through with him and now much time had passed and he was finally coming to terms with it and trying to move on with his life. This was August 1951, by the way.
Over the next few years Diane and I worked together researching, me generally dealing with the pro-Jeanette folks and Diane meeting up with the pro-Nelson ones. Due to the climate of the times, there was no way I could keep my promise to Blossom in a timely way to get the full story out – even if I fully understood it – which of course I didn’t. But we also had no support from our sources…no one would go public, they assured us they would disavow and threaten to sue if they were quoted. Actually, Marie Gerdes (formerly Waddy) who once ran Jeanette’s fan club, was a gentle, sweet lady and she was perhaps the lone person who offered support but warned me of the heartache I faced if I was foolish enough to try and buck the establishment.
So bottom line, Diane and I would gather up the latest information from our sources and then go over with Blossom for her take on it. We made the rounds, seeking out older Hollywood folk and others who would talk. In June 1977, there was a huge dust-up at a screening of New Moon with the Jeanette fan club. The Nelson fans were defiant enough to clap after Nelson’s singing solo. At which point the movie projector was shut off and Clara Rhoades – a schoolteacher by profession – stood up and gave the Nelson supporters a stern lecture. Which resulted in several of them walking right out of the room. Including Diane Goodrich. I hesitated – still a wimp by nature, sadly! and then decided enough was enough. I walked out too.
At the end of that week was the grand finale dinner, MC’d by Gene Raymond. This was the event at which Sunny Griffin was a featured guest speaker, the flavor of the week. He was introduced as Jeanette’s friend and he related funny anecdotes about his days hanging out with her in New York. Gene greeted him warmly by the way. And early into the reception I took the opportunity to take Sunny over to greet Blossom, to observe her reaction at seeing him. Between Blossom indeed knowing him and Gene’s endorsement – and Emily West’s as well, by the way, I verified Sunny as a valid source.
After the New Moon fiasco, Diane Goodrich decided to start a fan club for both Jeanette and Nelson, to reach out to folks with the truth and to hopefully have more people feel free to come forward with information. She asked me to be Vice-President and I agreed. While visiting Blossom during that summer, we discussed these plans with her and asked her if she would be willing to be the first honorary member. She agreed. The first issue of the magazine was published in late September of 1977 – and guess what? During that summer we had READ ALOUD TO BLOSSOM EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE IN THAT FIRST ISSUE!!!
And she approved it all, even the cover layout I designed which by today’s standards was my poor attempt at colorizing a photo!
This included Diane’s first letter to folks about why a team club was needed:
Here’s what was on “Their Page”:
The main article was about both stars’ early years up through their meeting and their first disastrous date where Jeanette walked out in tears:
Notice Nelson’s quote: “I think it was that moment that I really started loving her. She needed me and I was forever hooked.” This is what he told Diane Goodrich in 1951. She wrote this in 1977. Please note that it wasn’t until 1990 that I ever saw what Isabel Eddy wrote about this time or what Nelson himself wrote in a letter from the 1940s stating “I wanted to crush her to me and kiss away her tears.”
And here is more – all of which was read to Blossom – about their early attempts at a relationship, Jeanette having to deal with Nelson’s temper and stubborn ideas about what he wanted in a wife…and why a marriage between them seemed incompatible and unworkable in the months before Naughty Marietta was begun:
In short, the beginnings of the story was to some degree all there and was read out loud to Blossom. As I recall, she corrected a few things or had some comments…which I had to retype on my typewriter.
When this magazine was published, Blossom was immediately given a copy and it went right on her night table to browse through along with my pictorial book and the Eiffel Tower nightlight I had brought her from Paris and a few other things. Actually, while I gave her the Paris nightlight in the summer of 1972, by some point in the year 1977 (as shown below), it seems it now had a place of honor on her dresser!
The point is, folks, that Blossom was fully aware of what was being written and how we intended to unfold the full story of the Jeanette-Nelson romance in the upcoming magazines.
PS: In answer to questions I am asked as to whether Blossom was bitter? Was she angry at Gene? I have to say overall – no. Blossom was practical, with a wry sense of humor, she shrugged off any dramatics. It was over, it had happened. Part of it was that she couldn’t express herself well verbally. Both more it was that, from her responses to our questions, she accepted at face value the way Jeanette’s life turned out and the scrapes that Jeanette got herself into. I’m not sure Blossom knew the totality of what we now know about Gene’s neglect of Jeanette in those last years. As I wrote in Sweethearts, she only expressed doubts about Gene one time to me. Otherwise, she was angrier at Nelson.
She was FURIOUS, however, when I learned that Gene was selling her house in Beverly Hills without telling her. But I was not there to hear that argument.
I did see Blossom angry with Gene two other times. Once over me, he was scolding her about how much she was telling me. The other incident, I don’t know what it was about.
Gene dutifully showed up on a weekend day pretty regularly (at least in the early ’70s) to take Blossom out for a drink and a smoke. He was friendly and affectionate with her from what I could see. He didn’t show up every week but he was around. Gene was on the Board there so he had business that brought him to the Motion Picture Home anyway. (He also invited Blossom to his wedding to Nelson Ada Hees, his second wife.)
By the way, there were non-publicized problems at the Motion Picture Home while Gene was involved. Reports of neglect and abuse of residents, in fact, Jane Withers asked me if I would testify as to what I had seen there as there were complaints and this was all being investigated. I had helpful information and I agreed but I’m not sure any legal actions were pursued.
In summation, the admittance of a Jeanette-Nelson romance was published during Blossom’s lifetime, with Blossom’s support. The opposing side was silent at that time, at least in public. How could they argue against her? To do so would have meant them calling Blossom a liar. They couldn’t call her senile as she certainly still had her wits about her – as evidenced by her presence and interaction at the June 1977 fan club dinner, so it was going to be very difficult to explain away her cooperation a mere 6 weeks later. By then Diane and I had announced and sent out a letter to all the Mac/Eddy fans that we knew to alert them that a new team club was being formed, what it was about, that fans who had information should come forward, and that the first magazine was currently being written with the full support of Blossom and would be published in September.
We are all lucky, folks, that Blossom was the plucky and forthcoming person that she was. No wonder Jeanette looked up to her.
***
In 2023, I re-published the oversized, glossy, hardcover pictorial book seen at the top of this article, adding a new introduction and additional chapter at the end, relating the back story of how that book came about. It’s a beautiful reproduction of the original coffee table book. The 50th Anniversary edition is shown below and at this writing, is only available at this link.
And finally in 2025, an important article about Blossom was published, including an audio tape of her speaking at the 1977 Jeanette fan club dinner. This was six months before her passing; check it out here. It does indeed finally set the record straight – putting an end to false reports that post-stroke, Blossom was unable to speak or communicate to me or anyone else.
In fact, she was an amazing, empathetic and talented lady, as you would expect a MacDonald sister to be.
Hard to believe that half a century has passed since the death of beloved 1930s icon Jeanette MacDonald. Today is the 50th anniversary and it also is the date that Jeanette’s beloved older sister Blossom died as well, thirteen years later in 1978.
Jeanette MacDonald was more than just an MGM superstar in that studio’s Golden Years. By singing opera in films, she (and her co-star on screen and in life, Nelson Eddy) helped introduce opera to the masses. So she inspired people in two mediums – movies and music. I cannot tell you how many people I have spoken to over these decades who tell me that they became an opera singer, a Broadway singer,a Hollywood singer, an actor, something in show biz, because Jeanette made it look beautiful and desirable to sing that music. Some of the greatest names in opera of the latter part of the 20th century found their initial inspiration in her movies – mostly the ones she made with Nelson but also San Francisco. And many, many actors in all genres, from drama to comedy, have found her their inspiration as well.
The photo above was given to me by Blossom when she first asked me to write a book about her sister. Blossom had quite a few younger shots of Jeanette, original portraits. I liked this one very much because it caught the essence of Jeanette – a childlike fragile innocence mixed with a hint of impishness, determination and repressed sensuality. I decided to use it on the cover of that book and Blossom loved it.
The candid above shows Blossom visiting Jeanette on the set of Jeanette’s 1942 MGM film Cairo. Blossom was a character actress; under the name Marie Blake she appeared in over 100 films, most notably the MGM Dr. Kildare series starring Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore. Blossom was a talented actress and comedienne but perhaps her greatest role in life was being Jeanette’s confidante. Whether it was Jeanette calling Blossom to come to Lake Tahoe to provide moral support after some personal heartache, or needing someone to stay with her to stave off loneliness and despair during months of hospitalization in the last year of Jeanette’s life – Blossom without complaint dropped everything to be there for Jeanette. Based on the letters we have seen from the 1940s, Blossom was (sadly) the only family member that Jeanette trusted, and remained her ally through thick and thin.
Below, a photo of Blossom when she finally found stardom for herself as a senior citizen, starring as “grandmama” in the TV series “The Addams Family.”
And finally, no tribute to Jeanette MacDonald could be written without the impact she had as half the team of “Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.” Great as her early films were and even her first two at MGM (The Cat and the Fiddle and The Merry Widow), she finally found her stride as a superstar when she and Nelson worked together. There was an added dimension to her – an electrifying chemistry of beauty, sensitivity, sensuality and tenderness. No one has ever been able to recreate that MacDonald-Eddy magic, that indefinable quality…but you know it when you see it, and it was noticeably absent when they worked with others.
Today we honor both sisters and yes…we will remember.
