Jeanette MacDonald

Mac/Eddy Today Journal #76 released!

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Finally shipping!

Our 76th issue wrapping up 2017… rounding out our 40th anniversary with several tributes including celebrating Maytime‘s 80th anniversary;  a comprehensive article by Darryl Winston including a look at the top movie star rankings during the ’30s and early ’40s (and where Jeanette and Nelson fit in); a study of newly received paintings by Nelson done in his “blue” period of 1951-2 as well as busts, drawings, doodles and his nude torsos of Jeanette; an eyewitness write-up of Jeanette’s live 1944 operas; and early diary entries of Jeanette’s mother, Anna MacDonald, which shed some light on both her character and personal events going on in her daughter’s life. Also featured is the top Hollywood story in the news today – the Harvey Weinstein (and other moguls/actors) scandal and comparisons to the trials some stars endured with Louie B. Mayer…including young Shirley Temple. We have well-documented the heartbreaking interference of Mayer in the lives of Jeanette and and Nelson over the years. In a letter to columnist Hedda Hopper, Jeanette herself admitted that Nelson was basically “blacklisted” when she returned to MGM in the later 1940s…forget their proposed “joint” projects (such as The Rosary) or what became Three Daring Daughters, the bottom line was that Nelson was out and Jose Iturbi was in…

Link to order Journal 76

Jeanette MacDonald’s Celebrity Diet per Vanity Fair

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The just-released March, 2012 Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair magazine features a section on diets of Hollywood stars from the 1920s until today.

Jeanette MacDonald is mentioned as using a “Ginger Ale and Ice Cream Diet.”

You will recall that in the late 1920s, Jeanette was underweight and visited a New Jersey live-in treatment center where she did nothing but drink tons of milk to GAIN weight.

Herbert Stothart, Jr., son of the MGM’s musical director during Jeanette’s studio years, said that whenever Jeanette came over to their house for a meal, “She ate like a bird.”

Nelson Eddy was promptly put on a diet when he arrived at MGM by none other than the studio mogul, Louis B. Mayer. When at the studio, Nelson’s diet consisted of coffee and Mayer’s mother’s chicken soup. That’s right, any time Nelson dined at the studio commissary he was presented with a bowl of soup. That was the entirety of his “diet.”

Other sources told me in passing that during the 1930s, more sinister diet secrets of the stars could include pills (such as was prescribed to teenaged Judy Garland), swallowed tapeworms and even heroin.

Jeanette’s “Ginger Ale and Ice Cream Diet” seems much more delightful than any of the above!

Thanks, Vanity Fair, for mentioning her!.

Article Claims Jeanette MacDonald had cancer in 1961…


This is an interesting article.

My own research showed that around 1960-61 Jeanette MacDonald was seeing an oncologist at UCLA Medical Center for a benign brain tumor. Yes, she was treated by a cancer doctor but no, one of the employees there stated that the tumor was benign. In the book that I annotated, Jeanette MacDonald Autobiography: The Lost Manuscript, I present written documentation by Fredda Dudley Balling, Jeanette’s collaborator on her unpublished book. In her letters, Ms. Balling explained that Jeanette was so ill it was feared she might not live long enough to complete work on the book.

However, even if the manuscript was never polished up to completion, Jeanette did not die in 1960 and in fact lived 5 years more. Her health battles were with a longtime heart condition that resulted in an arterial transplant – a new and novel treatment by Dr. Michael DeBakey.

See below for the article excerpt.

The late songwriter Hugh Martin wrote “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” for Judy Garland’s 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis, along with dozens of other songs for MGM and Broadway musicals.

A new CD chronicling his seven decades in musical theater was released earlier this month. Hugh Martin: Hidden Treasures features mostly demo recordings and rarities from Martin’s vast catalog of tunes, from a 1941 selection from the musical comedy Best Foot Forward to a 1961 song written for the unfinished musical Here Comes the Dreamers, which was never produced after lead actress Jeanette MacDonald was diagnosed with cancer. The CD also comes with an 88-page booklet chronicling Martin’s career, with essays by Stephen Sondheim, Sheldon Harnick and Michael Feinstein.

Martin was heavily involved in the creation of the CD in the months leading up to his death in March 2011. He worked closely with producers Bill Rudman and Ken Bloom, both of whom join Terry Gross on Fresh Air for a discussion of Martin’s songs and his lengthy career in show business.

Link

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