Commentary by Missy:
Nelson Eddy romanced Jeanette MacDonald, especially by sending gorgeous bouquets and gifting exquisite jewelry. He asked her to marry him and set a date - repeatedly. He thought the interference of Louis B. Mayer into their lives was ridiculous. Jeanette rebuffed him. She was not a woman without experience and she had reservations about love and marriage lasting. Though she was thought of as the ultimate "good girl" by the public, a perfectionist on set who thought of herself as cautious, Jeanette met Nelson for trysts at a little cabin in Lake Arrowhead. She was clearly finding him desirable and interesting.
For reasons that can and cannot be explained, she would marry Gene Raymond and stay married to him until she died.
Jeanette had two smash hit movies one after another and was the top female actress and movie star at the time, and we can understand that her ambition was to continue her career and perhaps achieve more greatness and more wealth. She did not wish to walk away while on top and into marriage. It's almost as if, despite the reportage that she did not know, that she did know she was entering into a White Marriage (translation here of the French term Mariage Blac) and that she could continue to have sex, unmarried, with Nelson Eddy - or in the future some other man.
Her life seems to be the classic case of 'you can't have it all.' Her personal life would forever suffer. Jeanette had also had a serious personal relationship that included living together with her manager, Robert Ritchie, who was abusive to her. She had doubts about marriage and seemed to have more than one man on the string, and perhaps this was her way of avoiding commitment or even avoiding being left to be alone. Speculations on my part, I realized.
Excerpt: Page 161 from Sweethearts by Sharon Rich
Jeanette and Nelson were in a deadlock. Nelson desperately wanted to marry her, with no delay, and she was willing, but only if he allowed her to continue in her career full time. Again, he refused . His own possessiveness, combined with his acute awareness of the ridiculousness of Mayer's ultimatums and the lengths to which he had affected their relationship, kept him from his love. Very soon, his own stubborness and the rage he had struggled so long to control would cost him dearly. The day finally came when Jeanette felt she could no longer tolerate his irrational sexual attacks.
On August 20, 1936, Anna MacDonald announced publically that her daughter Jeanette was engaged to marry Gene Raymond.
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Jeanette and Nelson began filing film 'Maytime' when she became engaged, the early film that featured a song called 'Will You Remember '(Sweetheart). Both had operatic songs to sing in the film and they worked eighteen hour days. Nelson watched over her, since this grueling schedule was too much. She let her manager Robert Ritchie know that he was still her manager.
Excerpt: Page 165
Kroeger (Steve Kroeger, a friend of Robert Ritchie) was so amazed at Jeanette's unhappiness over her engagement that he suggested to Bob that he might still have a chance to win her back. Ritchie appears to have taken Kroeger's advice to heart. He continued to remind Jeanette that he still loved her and would be there for her if Gene Raymond didn't work out. Ritchie continued to hope for the best until a week before Jeanette's marriage, but his family maintains that he never got over her.
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Commentary by Missy:
'Maytime', which was filmed at great expense in Technicolor, suffered when the director Irving Thalberg unexpected died at only age 37 of pnuemonia. 75% of the film was scrapped and they had to start all over. New cast were hired, songs were scrapped, and the budget was reduced so that it would have to be filmed in black and white
Nelson and Jeannette managed to be civil to one another on the set, however, Gene Raymond was around and Nelson had a number of women visiting him in his trailer dressing room on breaks. He was the equivalent of a rock star in his time and perhaps Jeanette wondered if he really could live a lifetime faithful to her. Nelson was not beyond trying to make her jealous.
Excerpt: Page 168
Smiling, Nelson left. But he didn't want to go home, so he decided to catch up on some letters left in his portable dressing room. To get there , he had to walk through the fairgrounds set. A single light nearby added an eerie glow to the scene. The stillness and beauty of the set charmed him, and he sat down under a tree and closed his eyes. Suddenly, a sound startled him. He jumped up to see who was there, and smelled her perfume before he ever saw her. Jeanette called out fearfully," Is anyone there?" Nelson was silent. He waited until she recognized him, then wordlessly started to walk away.
In later yeas, many commented to Nelson about the Beautiful, "Will You Remember?" love scene filmed under that tree. Once, after Nelson's tongue had been loosened with a few drinks, he told a close friend, "Yeah, Well you should hear what really happened under that tree!"
According to Nelson's own account, Jeanette stopped him and tried to convince him that they could still be friends. "It's not friendship I want from you," he retorted. "You've made your choice." He again started to walk away but she threw himself at him.
"This time she seduced me!" Nelson concluded proudly.
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Commentary by Missy: Their affair resumed. Gene Raymond and Jeanette's mother were banished from the set.
Excerpt Page 169 : They spent the night under the tree, returning at last to her dressing room before dawn, ... It was obvious to the crew that their relationship had suddenly and drastically changed...
How this all fit in with Jeanette's marriage plans is a mystery. Jeanette apparently wasn't thinking about the future, she just impulsively threw caution to the winds.... Nelson termed these final days of 1936 of 1936 the time "when we were in lust with each other." He alluded to the act that previously he had always felt he had to hold back a little in their lovemaking for fear of overwhelming her with his passion, and because she was physically frail. Now, suddenly, things had changed. Nelson delighted in her new aggressiveness. "No woman has ever satisfied me as she does," Nelson told Sandy Reiss (one of Jeanette's friends). "It goes beyond sex."
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