Allan Jones, an actor with a beautiful tenor voice, publicly blamed Nelson Eddy for ruining his film career… out of jealousy, Jones claimed.
That Nelson Eddy finally took a stand regarding this situation is correct, but the reason why is not.
Here are the facts as Nelson himself (and others) explained it over the years.
Fact: Nelson and Allan were at one time good friends!
Fact: Nelson actually helped kick-start Allan’s career. Back in Philadelphia, in 1929 when Nelson was already an established concert and opera star, Nelson held a series of concerts at the Warwick Hotel, and chose to sing each concert with an up and coming opera singer. Nelson always tried to help other promising singers, even long before becoming a Hollywood superstar. For the 1929 series, one of his guest singers was Allan Jones, who’d begun his professional career working in coal mines! Below is a reproduction from the book, Nelson Eddy: The Opera Years, of Nelson’s 1929 Warwick concert program cover.
Fact: when Allan came to Hollywood, his career quickly took off. He co-starred in two Marx Bros hits: A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races.
Fact: Allan next sang opera excerpts opposite Jeanette MacDonald in Rose Marie. These included segments from Romeo and Juliet and Tosca. But Allan made the mistake of hitting on Jeanette, even though everyone knew that she and Nelson were an item. Nelson was not amused at his friend’s betrayal. The result? A few lines of Allan’s solos as Romeo remained but his solo excerpt from Tosca (“E lucevan le stelle”) was cut. Was this Nelson’s fault? Allan tried to claim this was so but if we honestly look at the editing of that opera scene, his character Mario did sing with Jeanette’s Tosca before he faced the firing squad. This was vital to establish for non-opera movie crowds how both characters don’t realize the rifles have real bullets in them. Mario is shot and falls; Tosca waits till the soldiers leave and then praises Mario for his excellent acting, urging him to get up quickly so they can flee. But the point of that entire scene was Jeanette’s character having a complete nervous breakdown on-stage once she realizes Mario is dead! Spoiler alert: she’s equating this to the fact that own criminal brother, played by Jimmy Stewart, had been captured and put to death, thanks to Nelson’s Mountie character who betrayed her. Jeanette’s acting in this scene is brilliant and leads into the finale sequence, whereas Allan’s role was secondary, just as it was in the earlier scenes when he sang Romeo.
In other words, this movie was NOT planned as a showcase for Allan Jones, as the Marx Bros films had been. But because both opera sequences were montages – again, to help the non-opera fans understand the plots – it’s likely more scenes were filmed and more solo singing was recorded, probably by both Jeanette and Allan. Then the montage sequences were subsequently edited down by the brilliant Slavko Vorkapich, whose operatic montage masterpiece came the following year with Maytime.
Fact: Nelson and Allan must have made up, with Allan apologizing, because they remained friends. As evidenced by their involvement together – Nelson, Jeanette and Allan – in a real estate deal, for example. And at Christmastime, the three of them made a home recording of the Faust trio, giving out the records as Christmas gifts to their friends.
Fact: By early 1937 it was obviously that Jeanette and Nelson would not be getting back together. She’d announced her engagement to Gene Raymond in August 1936 but even until the end of that year, she and Nelson discussed reconciliation. They finally agreed to “remain friends”; ie, she was not willing to even partially give up her career to be Nelson’s wife, which is what he wanted and perhaps wrongly demanded. But he didn’t want a “Hollywood marriage”; and with spending part of each year traveling on his concert tours, he needed her by his side.
So… Jeanette and Nelson were now broken up as a screen team as well, and her next movie was The Firefly with Allan Jones. While they filmed, Nelson was away for months on tour. He returned to LA with the certainty that Jeanette was making a mistake by marrying Gene Raymond, and his intention was to convince her of this. This even with the studio snidely insisting he sing at Jeanette’s wedding, to which he wrote Jeanette a scathing letter, sarcastically suggesting which songs would be best. But still, even with this hurt, he wanted to sit down with her and hash out how they could compromise on a future together.
Once back in LA, Nelson spared no time coming back to MGM, only to learn that the very-married Allan Jones had once again hit on Jeanette! No matter that she was engaged to someone else, Nelson was not tolerating this again! He actually beat Allan up and then went to Mayer and said, it’s either him or me, you decide!
So yes, Nelson’s ultimatum was the final straw, but one can’t say that Allan didn’t bring it upon himself.
This after the ironic fact that yes, Nelson did sing at Jeanette’s wedding and Allan Jones, as her current co-star, was a member of the wedding party; they even stood next to each other in the photo below! Nelson looks miserable; the woman next to Allan is Helen Ferguson, Jeanette’s publicist who helped orchestrate this entire event. Jeanette’s sister Blossom, the matron of honor, stands next to Helen.
Fact: Allan made one last MGM film with Judy Garland, moved to Paramount and later Universal. He never became the massive movie star he’d thought would be, and ended up in a few “B” pictures. In later interviews, he denied that Nelson beat him up but agreed that Nelson had him booted out of MGM so his film career crashed.
Note: The Firefly was a hit although it was primarily a diva solo showcase for Jeanette, and there wasn’t much chemistry onscreen between the two stars. But one consolation: Allan singing “The Donkey Serenade” was a hit and it remained one of his signature songs the rest of his life.