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The Lost Manuscript, I present written documentation by Fredda Dudley Balling, Jeanette’s collaborator on her unpublished book.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.

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Jeanette MacDonald was considered for “The Great Waltz”

An interesting excerpt from the DVD review today in the New York Post:

Warner Archive also recently released another much-requested composer biopic, “The Great Waltz” (1938), one of several films about Johann Strauss Jr., who’s attracted the attention of filmmakers as diverse as Alfred Hitchcock, Walt Disney and Andrew L. Stone.

This black-and-white MGM epic is officially credited to French director Julien Duvivier in his Hollywood debut (the same year his “Pepe Le Moko” was remade as “Casbah”), but major portions are known to have been reshot by Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg on orders from Louis B. Mayer, making it an interesting puzzle for auterists.

This one announces in an opening title that it doesn’t pretend to be an accurate depiction of Strauss’ life. Instead we’re offered up a romantic triangle straight out of “The Great Ziegfeld” with the composer (Flemish actor Ferdinand Gravey, borrowed from Warners, which had renamed him Gravet, and announced for an MGM version of “Scaramouche” that would never get made), his adoring wife (Louise Rainer, fresh from her Oscar win for “Ziegfeld””) and a flirtatious soprano (Polish-born Miliza “Rhymes with Gorgeous” Korjus) who helps further Strauss’ career ambitions.

This relatively star-light casting for MGM (the studio had considered the unlikely duo of Clifton Webb and Jeanette MacDonald) may have been the reason for the last-minute decision to scrap costly Technicolor for a movie that still looks very, very expensive.

As in “Rhapsody,” the story is but something to hang Strauss’ melodies on — and here, they get superb arrangements by Dimitri Tiomkin and Englsh lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The most famous, or notorious, sequence (quite possibly directed. at least in part, by Fleming) has Strauss spontaneously inspired to create “Tales from the Vienna Woods” while riding with his soprano through the woods in a carriage (the driver is ubiquitous character man, Christian Rub, briefly seen as the janitor who breaks the news of his teacher’s death to Gershwin in “Rhapsody”).

Von Sternberg is known to have re-shot the film’s climactic sequence. Mrs. Strauss races to the Vienna opera house to confront her errant husband and his mistress, who she knows are planning to run away. Mrs. Strauss (Rainer at her most smilingly tearful) gives the guilty couple her blessing, which she also knows will stop them in their tracks. Somehow this inspires Strauss to write “The Blue Danube” (a nice montage, also reportedly directed by Von Sternberg).

This film ends with an unfortunate epilogue (Fleming?) set 43 years later, when Emperor Franz Josef (an unhappy-looking Henry Hull) honors Strauss, who like everyone else is wearing old-age makeup. That is, all except for the glass-shattering Ms. Korjus, who is superimposed in her youthful glory, singing her heart out at the climax.

Korjus was Oscar nominated for her Hollywood debut but MGM scrapped plans to star her in a musical called “Guns and Fiddles” opposite Robert Taylor after she suffered a serious leg injury in an automobile accident. She made just one more movie, in Mexico in 1942, and died in 1970 in Culver City, Calif., where she made a movie thirty years earlier at Metro.

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Nelson & Jeanette Mentioned in MGM History

Check out this interesting history of MGM article and happily, Jeanette and Nelson are mentioned. The website itself is quite interesting and informative:

It’s 1928, and the success of Warner Bros’ musical, The Jazz Singer, has ushered in a new age of talking pictures. Audiences adored it, and it was sink or swim time for MGM. Suddenly, the silent cinema rule book was thrown out of the window and numerous opportunities opened up in Hollywood.

Composers were in demand, and song and script writers, along with voice coaches, were needed more than ever. White Shadows In The South Seas was the first MGM sound picture, although not a talkie. Originally filmed as a silent picture, MGM realised that sound wasn’t just a passing fad and, like most studios at the time, swiftly added sound effects to its music. But they did make one character speak – and that was Leo the lion, who roared for the first time.

The first MGM talkie picture, and the first MGM star to speak on the screen, was William Haines in crime drama Alias Jimmy Valentine. The film was only part talkie, but it was nevertheless a step in the right direction for MGM. The new technology meant a big change around for the studio – for some stars, their career was over, and for others it was just beginning. Stars like Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy were among them.

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Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Twin Flames

Here’s an interesting take on the Jeanette MacDonald – Nelson Eddy romance in an article entitled: “Plato: Communism and “True Love”, authored by Jeff Pierce:

The following is by Karen Starich who uses astrology to forecast the financial markets. Her premium service blends astrology with technical analysis to locate points of confluence and then highlights specific trades for subscribers.

Plato’s original concept of Utopia and a purely communist state can be found in his writings on “The Republic” 360 BCE. His work lays out the foundation for an idealized slave society where all property belongs to the state, and the people are assigned to their station in life by the ruling class.

Plato no doubt had his short comings, however his dear soul may have cleansed itself by now….hopefully. I admire Plato for another reason. Plato had a connection to a higher consciousness and understanding of the human soul that seems to contradict his philosophy of a perfect society.

The Split-Apart Theory

I will give credit to Plato for his split-apart theory, a topic I would rather write about, and that is “true love.” Plato was the first to reference that man is a part of one soul in which they are only half of. Plato described that the soul is “split apart” from an original ovoid. Each split apart half is a twin or “twin Flame” of the other, sharing many of the same personality traits, characteristics, and appearance. Each half is an exact duplicate of the other, they descend into form and one assumes the masculine and the other the feminine.

Every person has a unique pattern and no other soul in the universe can claim this oneness with you except your twin flame. Because you are only born once, spiritually.

America discovered twin flames in the Summer of 1941 with the cinematic and real life love story between Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. A perfect match on screen and in real life. Seeing their love on screen and hearing it in their duets as their eyes told one another, and the whole world, the special love of twin flames. The story of twin flames can also be seen in the 1990?s film “The Butchers Wife.”

Many people spend a whole lifetime searching for their other half, as it is our intended destiny to reunite with our twin flame. When twin flames unite there is a magnification of the souls potential and power of creativity that cannot be achieved with another. Nelson and Jeanette were radiant on screen together.

The films they made singly are forgotten, but together they were able to tap their inner potential as twin flames united can, and their films broke box office records. Plato also warned of the difficulties the reunion can bring. Often the magnetism and likeness is so overwhelming the souls cannot emotionally handle the union. Unfortunately for Nelson and Jeanette her career ambitions and their strange combination of people and circumstances kept them apart for their entire lives.

It is hard to imagine how Plato could have two diametrically opposed theories of the human spirit. His theory of Utopia and a communist society diminishes the human spirit and oneness with the divine potential that is our destiny with our twin flame. Communism destroys creativity and the will to be, and fosters instead a death wish culture. Communism is anti-love, a matter golden age without spirit.

As we enter a new age and the year 2012 it is important to hold the concept of our highest potential and oneness with our other half, even if that one is not near. By doing so we can tap into our highest potential and change the course of events in the earth.


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