Today marks the 70th anniversary of Nelson Eddy introducing a new song on radio. It was announced as “My Wonder One” with the sheet music published as “My Magic You.” Whatever the title, on January 13, 1946, Nelson’s fans tuned in to his weekly radio series, The Electric Hour, and wondered at the love-sick lyrics written by Nelson himself, set to music by Nelson’s accompanist Ted Paxson. For those of you who have watched Nelson’s “schmaltzy” performance singing on the 1954 Bob Hope TV show (following his unexpected appearance on Jeanette’s guest radio spot with Bob Hope, so Nelson was in a highly emotional mood) you might notice a similar heightened, blatant emotion. The song stunned Nelson’s listeners and the fans were all abuzz afterwards…could it really be true, etc….
Listen to the song at the link below.
Thanks to Katie Gardner for putting together a new video for this song, using Nelson’s own handwritten words to Jeanette that only serve to back up the intimate lyrics he wrote and sang.
In 1973, Jeanette MacDonald: A Pictorial Treasury was published. I was 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 her 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 when Blossom affirmed that yes, Nelson and Jeanette were in love while making that film and that Jeanette was pregnant – with Nelson’s child – I suddenly realized there was an untold story here. And Blossom was annoyed that 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 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 those days.
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.”
Once I agreed to write a book about Jeanette, I was hit head-on by the early 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 Clara Rhoades attempted diplomacy, 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) but cautioning 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, 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 stayed overnight to sit with her since the new nurse on the floor complained that “it was a real pain” to have the added work of keeping an eye on Blossom. 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.)
Perhaps you can understand why, when the pictorial book was published, 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 birthdate. 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 birthdate 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.
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 of this book:
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 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.
***
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.
Above is Jeanette MacDonald as she looked in the 1960s. Beautiful, same winsome smile but very thin and frail. She doesn’t appear to feel very well. And indeed she didn’t feel well; heart disease was quickly sapping her limited strength and diminishing her quality of life. Plus terrible loneliness only added to her physical pain. As we can see from her day-to-day desk diary in 1963, for example, there were 44 days (out of ten months in which she used this diary) where she noted that she was left “alone.” In earlier days this might not have mattered since she was used to being independent and traveling around but by 1963 that was both a physical and emotional effort.
In her last few years, she went through the motions, tried to save face with friends, family and Nelson Eddy, pretending all was status quo and good. Below we see an entry from Jeanette’s party guest book, celebrating her 1961 birthday and anniversary (two days apart). Here we see a rather crude and offensive “poem” apparently recited by Gene:
Blaming it on her “Gemini” nature, he says: “One twin I could smother but I do love the other, and I’m flattered to take them to bed with me….And Happy Anniversary – 24th – to my beautiful bride – All my love OMR [Old Man Raymond].”
I’m sure the guests were very appreciative of this apparent “proof” that Gene was the loving, caring husband, keeping a watchful eye on his delicate but beautiful spouse. However, one wonders whether Gene would have recited such a “poem” had Nelson been there. Maybe he would have just to antagonize Nelson…who can say. But as Jeanette noted in her letter to her fan club regarding this party: “Too bad Nelson was on tour – we missed him.” (It’s rather telling that Ann Eddy by herself was not invited!!!)
Below is a candid at the 1962 Clan Clave fan club get-together, one of her increasingly few public appearances. She tried to skillfully cover it up but look how very thin she was.
Posted here at the same event with Dorothy Cassidy (wife of Thomas, the KFAC radio announcer) and daughter Peggy, Gene and Jeanette look happily married as always though the behind-the-scenes picture was very different.
How different? Well, we have a day-by-day, blow-by-blow description of her personal heartache and decline from her 1963 desk diary which was in the possession of her fan club president Clara Rhoades (seen in the photo above right although slightly cut off). While Clara and her group asserted Jeanette’s happy home life, it’s obvious they didn’t wish to share with her readers any knowledge from Jeanette’s handwritten entries. But happily that cover-up is no more.
Below is Clara’s obituary from 2011:
It is because Tessa Williams was in failing health and has since passed away (in November 2015) that we were able to obtain this important piece of documentation.
The desk diary has been discussed both on video from our last Mac/Eddy event and as a raw, unsentimental written overview. What I’d like to do here is point out how Jeanette herself verifies many things I wrote about in the last couple of chapters of my book Sweethearts. Please note that I knew nothing about this diary until mid 2015. And yet sometimes it seems that Jeanette was somehow looking right over my shoulder as I was writing it.
Before I launch into actual quotes from the book and examples from Jeanette’s writings, look at the cover of the desk diary. Jeanette has noted how to contact long distance and she has the phone number to get the precise time. During 1963 Gene Raymond (who she calls GR in the diary) was away a lot but often in the same time zone. Why would Jeanette have to keep careful tabs on time and deal with continual long distance phone calls? Yes, Gene was out of town a lot but she makes notations of dates that Gene calls her from New York or elsewhere…she is very meticulous about this…it is sometimes every other day or longer. The obvious answer for daily phone calls is Nelson Eddy, they spoke no matter where in the world he might be.
In keeping up the facade of her happy life, here’s an example showing how Jeanette was not always truthful when reporting “facts.” Take her birthday, June 18. We know from Jeanette’s diary entry that she was alone although Gene Raymond showed up for dinner with her…
At some point that day Nelson certainly would have called her. And what happened? “Big quarrel after dinner…same old thing.” We take it for granted that Gene accepted Nelson’s presence in Jeanette’s life but this entry would indicate that there were still many quarrels about it. Furthermore, Jeanette had “no sleep” either on the night of the 17th or the 18th. In general – an awful time for her. And yet what did she write her fan club?
This is the PR version that Jeanette relates to her fans: “My birthday, which by now should be forgotten anyway, Gene and I spent very quietly together.” Um…no, Gene left you alone and only showed up at dinner…and then there was an ugly scene after. And this was, by the way, Jeanette’s 60th birthday but there was no party, Gene didn’t take her out to a restaurant for a special meal….nothing.
Despite what Gene might write or say in public, Jeanette’s diary shows there’s no mention of any real warmth or affection (or a love life) between Jeanette and Gene. Even looking at logistics alone, Gene was gone much of the time whether for work or for events or other excuses…any reason to stay away. In Jeanette’s letter to her fan club dated April 10, 1963, for example, she writes: “It always creates a sort of disruption in our routine when Gene has to go back East for any length of time. And since he was there several weeks, it meant a lot of catching up when he got back, including flying time at March Field.”
There is exactly one mention of any attempt at affection or comfort from Jeanette to Gene during this entire year. On January 25 it appears there was some issue with him (why Gene was angry with her was not specified). Jeanette went to a Science of Mind lecture later which she found “very interesting” and that night she “made the mistake” of venturing to Gene’s bedroom for what? To talk? Resolve the problem? Comfort? A hug or reassurance? Or more? Whatever reason, he rejected her peace treaty. “Indifferent results” she noted and returned to her room. Next day “went to movie – after movie things ok with GR.” But she wasn’t feeling well and noted: “I’m too tired” to go out the next day. The following day, she tried to take a voice lesson with Grace Newell but it was “too much” for her and she had a dizzy spell. And more dizzy spells followed on the next days.
To put things in perspective, we know that Gene was at this time involved with actress Jan Clayton plus he had several male lovers. One wonders how much Jeanette knew about any of this. Or if she did, whether she cared or not.
The June 25 notation is troubling: “GR returns for dinner…terribly dizzy after dinner”. I wonder whether there is a connection here to what I wrote in Sweethearts:
Sunny Griffin…spoke of how Gene would put sleeping powders into Jeanette’s juice or drinks…
One could presume that Gene was trying to be helpful due to Jeanette’s chronic insomnia…but the connotation provided by Sunny was altogether different. This was verified by another of Gene’s friends who stated that Jeanette, well, cramped Gene’s social life in their home, you might say. Which also begs the question as to what Jeanette was referring to when she notes on June 6 a “big fight” with Gene – “came home too early.” Is she saying she came home too early and found Gene doing – what?
Jeanette is careful writing to her fans about anything that touches the subject of Nelson Eddy. For example, regarding the big Bel Air fire (which burned down “Mists,” by the way), she notes that “Fred MacMurray and June had their house partially burned, but what wasn’t burned was ruined by water.” Why would she mention this house specifically? She wasn’t close friends with the MacMurrays…Well, because it was the house on Halvern that Nelson had built FOR THEM, Nelson designed it back in 1938 when he thought Jeanette would divorce Gene and they would live there and raise a family together.
The neglect and verbal abuse that Jeanette suffered during this year was described in Sweethearts:
One day Jeanette did not feel well and managed to walk to the staircase banister and she called down for Gene who was in the house but ignored her.
We see several instances in this diary of Jeanette being dizzy and/or unwell, here’s one example:
As for other health issues, here is a quote from Sweethearts:
Along with low blood pressure and frequent fainting spells, it was rumored that she’d also suffered at least one stroke as her speech was temporarily affected.
In her diary Jeanette wrote in pink letters: “Had spell can’t talk”
The migraines that several people told me about that so plagued Jeanette were in full evidence during this year, several mentions including this:
On occasion Gene was busy at home with friends, here’s one who’s mentioned in the book:
Anyone who says that the Jeanette-Gene marriage was happy needs to remove their blinders and read what Jeanette wrote about the repeated quarrels that went on in the household. Gene, whose job was to make sure Jeanette was well taken care of, was often absent. And even though Jeanette doesn’t discuss the topic of these quarrels, from Sweethearts we learn:
He [Gene] taunted her to break down her will, telling her that Nelson didn’t love her anymore, he was only being kind, why did he need her when he had Gale.
And a sampling from Jeanette’s diary:
January 30: “Dizzy” and: “Bad turn at lesson.”
February 2: “GR not home…Feel lousy”
February 4: “GR at SAG meeting”
February 5: “GR at banquet”
February 7: “GR away all day”
April 10: “GR home very late”
June 6: “Big fight with GR…came home too early”
June 17: “GR…home 2:45 am. Hi” [High, ie, he was drunk]
June 18: “Big quarrel after dinner”
June 19: “GR at airplane exhibit all day”
June 25: “GR returns for dinner…terribly dizzy after dinner”
September 10: “After dinner GR to Comstock to arrange his books. Not back by 3:45 am. I went over twice started calling at 11:30. No A[answer]”
September 11:” [Gene] slept till 10:30 am. Says he went for drive up coast….GR in awful mood”
Etc, etc.
Jeanette was a human being with failings such as we all have…but she was a good and loyal person. Why should she have suffered so during this time? From Sweethearts:
She stuck pretty much to home and most of her friends never had any inkling of her private torments…. Many of those who prided themselves on being long-time friends knew little about her.
And by the way, Jeanette confirms the following quote from Sweethearts:
From the time Jeanette and Gene moved into Twin Gables, they had separate bedrooms and Richard Halverson had occasion to wonder just how happy a couple they were.
They continued to have separate bedrooms until they moved out of Twin Gables and then they moved into two apartments at the Wilshire Comstock…and Jeanette makes a point of discussing HER apartment and HIS.
I also note in the book how Jeanette’s phone was her lifeline and that she depended on those daily calls with Nelson, here she writes she “can’t seem to reach anyone by phone”.
At least she still had her phone. This is 1963, folks; as we know, her bedroom phone was removed in January 1965 when she was virtually bedridden. But back to 1963:
Jeanette tried to keep in good spirits and not let Nelson know the true state of her health but on a few occasions she phoned him, hysterical, frightened that she was dying.
I bolded the word “hysterical,” this sentence was written exactly as it was told to me. And here’s proof that Jeanette became hysterical from two different dates in her diary:
Just for the record, for the entry above, Nelson had just wrapped up his booking in Cleveland, Ohio and he had a over a week until he opened in New York City at the Latin Quarter. We have no documentation to show whether this was one of the times that he flew back to Los Angeles to spend time with Jeanette. Another case of hysterics:
In this instance, Nelson was off to Kansas City where he was to open on the 18th. Did he fly back to see Jeanette even briefly? For here is what I was told about Jeanette’s hysterics, as quoted in the book:
Nelson had his hands full trying to calm her down. On at least one occasion, he flew back to Los Angeles from the Midwest to spend a few hours with her before flying back in time for that evening’s first show.
We know that on February 25, Gene left at 5 pm for New York for a month. The next day Jeanette noted a Visitor!! (unnamed) who showed up. It should be noted that every person who visited Jeanette, or that she went to see, was mentioned BY NAME in this diary. However, Gene made a few notations in it himself so it was not private. And Nelson was never mentioned at all…so you figure out who “Visitor!!” was. Here’s a clue: Nelson’s final show in Philadelphia was the night of the 25th. And by 3:30 the next afternoon, Jeanette’s “Visitor!!” was at her door.
In fact, Jeanette cancelled other things that were scheduled after “Visitor!!” arrived, including a doctor’s appointment. That night she had “no sleep.” The next couple of days: “No nap.” She did, however, start feeling a lot better, “slept fairly well,” went out with her sister, had a manicure and a “wonderful day” and “stayed home”. Her weight crawled back up over 100 while Nelson was around. This visit of Nelson’s was the only time Jeanette seemed truly happy that entire year…or at least that she noted in her diary. That was only time the word “wonderful” was written.
On March 2, Nelson was in Syracuse ready to open his show there. And Jeanette’s weight slid down again to 97 pounds.
Even though Nelson wasn’t much present (nor was Blossom, they apparently did not understand fully the scene at home), it’s interesting to note the influence Nelson had on her health, even from afar.
In early May, Nelson fell seriously ill with pneumonia. He was in Framingham, Massachusetts and entered the hospital on the 8th. The night before this happened, Jeanette “slept well.” By the next night, she noted “no sleep.” She immediately lost two pounds, down to 102, the next night slept “fairly well” but after that it was “not enough sleep” or “not much sleep”. She was “too restless” to nap. She continued with generally “no sleep” and “not much sleep” until Nelson was released from the hospital on May 16. And then surprise, surprise, that night she “slept fair” and the next night – “slept fairly well”. She was also able to resume having a “small nap” each day again. On the 17th she did something unusual – “got letters off and looked at trunks in attic”. And then at 4:00 she went to Citizens’ Bank with her secretary Emily West to “remove letters.” Whatever significance these letters had, Jeanette took them home and on the 18th she “sorted letters for trunk.” She’d had a very productive day but by the end of it she had a migraine. On the 19th she continued her project and “put letters into trunk for storage”. The exertion seemed to make her “sick” the following day but her weight did creep back up and stabilize at 104 for a time.
One wishes that Jeanette had felt more free to write more details in this diary. Nelson left for Australia and at the same time Jeanette headed to Houston for open heart surgery. (Reality check: Nelson fell ill in Australia, lost his voice, cancelled his tour and flew back to the States where he was seen visiting Jeanette in the Houston hospital.) The diary ends on November 1st with her notation of leaving for the hospital. She remained there for a few months and then upon returning to LA and her new home at the Wilshire Comstock, her life resumed with the same kind of neglect and abuse as before but perhaps escalated.
There are some who tell me they can’t bear to read the last couple of chapters of Sweethearts. It’s too difficult, too painful. And there are others who don’t want to believe the information presented there.
All I can say is: Jeanette confirms this difficult time in her life. It should not have been…but this is the sad truth. As verified by Jeanette herself.
As a postscript, if one makes the mistake of thinking that Nelson was happy with the way these last years went, think again. I was just forwarded a testimonial written thirteen years ago:
The truth is in fact what Nelson stated: “We married the wrong people.” And no matter how Jeanette tried to keep her marriage going, even if in name only, it was a far cry from the joy, good health and happiness we would have wanted her to enjoy in her final years.
