Happy Holidays to Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy fans from the Mac/Eddy Club!
Listen to Nelson singing Christmas carols here.
Nelson Eddy called the “Josh Groban of the 1940s”
Nelson and Eddy….more online discussion of Celine Dion’s name choices for her twin sons. And, in particular, a comparison of a 20th century singing superstar (Nelson Eddy) to a 21st century singing superstar (Josh Groban).
Comparison of “our” Nelson Eddy to Josh Groban is not a terrible thing. I have been to a Josh Groban concert and it is very reminiscent of what a Nelson Eddy concert was like back then – a gorgeous male singer wowing the audience with “long hair” music….an almost-all female audience with women old and young swooning over every note…and screaming their applause.
Security these days is tighter than it was back in Nelson’s day, so Josh doesn’t have women rushing on stage mid-performance. But who knows…maybe Josh returns occasionally to his hotel room to find an eager fan hiding under his bed! That too happened to Nelson Eddy in his heydey.
For those of us who are younger and never had the joy of seeing movie star Nelson Eddy in person, we can at least get some idea of how wonderful/unique it is to have a gorgeous operatic singer to squeal over. I wrote once that Nelson Eddy was like a rock star of his day…and that was no exaggeration!
Thank goodness the 21st century bobby-soxers have a classical singer to adore!
Celine Dion names her twin sons “Nelson” and “Eddy”!
What fun! Our own Nelson Eddy is back in the news headlines right now with today’s news announcement:
Celine Dion and Rene Angelil have announced the names of their newborn sons – Eddy and Nelson.
The singer gave birth to the fraternal twins on Saturday via C-section at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. She and the babies left the hospital on Wednesday night.
The babies were named, not for the American opera singer who appeared in 1930s movies, but for a musical colleague and a Nobel Prize winner.
The name Eddy comes from Eddy Marnay, who produced Dion’s first five albums.
“He was like a father to her,” Dion’s rep told People magazine. “Eddy is a major influence in both Celine and Rene’s lives.”
Nelson is named after former South African President Nelson Mandela, whom Dion met two years ago while kicking off her would tour in South Africa.
Nelson Eddy’s Halvern House Had September Fire
For Nelson Eddy fans –
I’m a little late updating this but in early September the home that Nelson Eddy built (which he later sold to Fred MacMurray) suffered a fire. The house is currently being remodeled and was under construction.
We had an earlier post about the house going up for sale, with photos of the interior. The house has only had two owners.
Nelson designed this house himself. When he purchased the lot in 1938 he planned to use it for a family home for himself and Jeanette MacDonald. She was pregnant with his child and Nelson expected her to divorce her husband, Gene Raymond, and marry him. As we know, those plans never panned out.
Nelson married Ann Franklin instead in 1939 and they moved into the house with her son Sid Franklin, Jr. A house that was built with ample room for raising children was never utilized for that…and Nelson put his “dream house” up for sale in the mid 1940s and moved next to the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.
One of our Yahoo! group members took the photos below after the fire:
Pictures of the Halvern house in 2008 when it first went up for sale can be seen here and here.
Such a shame…it may not have been a happy home for Nelson Eddy but Fred MacMurray and his family loved the home.