Sharon Rich's book Sweethearts begins with this devastating opening scene.
As the sun was setting, Jeanette and Nelson went to their favorite spot overlooking Lake Tahoe, where they performed a sentimental wedding ceremony. Jeanette sand, 'Indian Love Call,' a song they'd made famous then they knelt together and promised to love, honor, and cherish each other forever. Their vows were performed without witnesses and without a clergyman. They were renewing the pledge of love they'd exchanged eight summers before in 1935, at this very place, while filming their second movie together, Rose Marie.
But now it had to be done in secret because legally and in the public eye, each was happily married to someone else. A series of incredible events had prevented their wedding from ever taking place and had hurtled them into lifestyles from which they now could not extricate themselves. By necessity they lived double lives --- a roller-coaster ride with moments of great passion countered by even longer stretches of agonizing separation. Sometimes the burden was too difficult to bear; they'd battled back from numerous breakdowns and suicide attempts during their years together.
That is why now in the final days of 1943, they needed to get away from the world and reaffirm their love and their faith in a God they trusted to somehow, someday, make things right for them.
Jeanette took a ring off her finger and handed it to Nelson. It was a stunner --- an emerald surrounded by diamond that had cost him $40,000 in 1935. Sometimes she wore it in public on her wedding finger - more often on a chain around her neck. "Your dear life is bound to me forever," Nelson said as he slipped the ring back onto her finger and kissed her.
They returned to their "honeymoon" cabin. Nelson tenderly calling Jeanette 'my wife." After dinner, they discussed several topics, including the state of their careers, then retired to their separate Rooms. Recently, they had been keeping things on a "spiritual' level, because intimacy brought with it such a devastating letdown when they were forced to part......
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Commentary by Missy"
Suicide attempts! This sounds like a mutual obsession to me.
The film they worked on in Tahoe had a song called Indian Love Call in it that the couple made famous.
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