The heartbreaking story of Golden Hollywood Era legends Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy is included here at Mistress Manifesto, not because Jeannette was Kept by Nelson or Nelson was Kept by Jeanette; who knows what, if any, financial arrangements in this convoluted plot were. It's because these two people, who had so much going on between them personally, also portrayed romantic couples on screen, married others and stayed married to them - as if everyone had to be married to someone - but were each other's real sweethearts for 30 (thirty!) years.
While claiming platonic friendship and a good working relationship only, they both lived compromised lives in which everyone involved came to accept the limitations. No doubt about it, they committed adultery. How much choice did they have? Little is known about how Nelson and his wife got on but they never had children. However, the man Jeanette married, Gene Raymond, was not heterosexual and there is no reason to think they had sex - other than her many pregnancies - which are attributed to Nelson. Sadly, though pregnant eight times, each pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage.
Author Sharon Rich, who headed a Jeanette MacDonald fan club, made it her life's work to learn everything she could about the singing comedic actress who she had such admiration for. Her book was meticulously researched and the intent was to bring us the whole truth. The title of the book could have been, in my opinion, "Jeanette MacDonald : Victim of Louis B. Mayer."
Their chemistry on screen was undeniable, the songs they sang together romantic and memorable, but the enduring love story of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy is actually a tragic tale, and the megalomaniac monster in the middle was the infamous Louis B. Mayer, the producer of films and the co-founder, in 1924, of film studio MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). By his actions it is clear that he owned people and not just their labor. When a person signed a contract with his studio, they gave up control of their lives, personal and public.
I wonder why there had not been more rebellion back in the day. I'm going to make a judgement call and say that back in the day people were raised to obey authority figures and that most everyone needs a job. But these two had amazing careers to consider.
Jeanette MacDonald appeared on Broadway and had signed with another studio and then switched again. In 1933 she signed her contract with MGM.
MacDonald and Eddy were at the height of their individual and coupled fame during the Great Depression, and made eight films together, between 1935 and 1942. Their films that made millions for MGM. Their fans would go to see their films repeatedly, taken with their beauty, their duets, their chemistry. Each of them had solo singing careers as well. Their concerts as well as their films were mega-hits. Jeanette was a soprano with an almost three octave range. Baritone Nelson Eddy was the highest paid singer in the world for a good decade.
So called 'morals clauses' in film studio contracts were about keeping the public from perceiving the reality of private lives. Discretion was strongly advised when it came to unconventional sexuality and relationships. The American public was church-going and did not approve of divorce so stars had to appear to be heterosexual and faithfully married. For those who signed the studio contract and who were disobedient, there was punishment, anything from from being forced to agree to abortions to being totally ruined. Not for nothing that phrase, "You'll never work in this town again." Mayer and people who worked for him or feared him stayed in line. Jeanette and Nelson settled into their relationship with many in the business in the know and protecting them - providing sympathy and understanding - except for Mayer.
Yet, Jeanette and Nelson were compelled to be with each other, and perhaps being told no, the on and off again nature of their embroilment, created a mutual obsession.
We've probably all known - or been - people who got embroiled in a relationship that they seem to live for or that kept them living. That seems to be the case here.
The two operatic singer-actors met in 1933, and may have had some involvement before they met again to work together in 1935 It was love at first sight, at least for him. She was considered cold or prudish by many though she was not. He wooed her, with jewelry, with flowers delivered on a daily basis, and intense flirtations.
Nelson asked Jeanette to marry him before either of them were married to someone else but she referenced her career. He asked many times. She told friends that she did not want an Open marriage and did not trust what he might do when on long concert tours. She also said that she did not believe she could guarantee anyone that her love would last the years. Yet it apparently did.
It took a year for the relationship to go all the way sexually. Maybe longer. She had a past and was no virgin. Their first encounter may have been date rape. He apologized and did much better next time, gaining her forgiveness. There would come a point where she would say she had tired of his 'sex attacks.' While there may have been times when they tried to reconfigure their relationship - to platonic friendship - to just lust - it endured for life and through eight miscarriages.
She got pregnant that first time. He wanted to get married in Reno right away but she called Mayer. She had to ask his permission to marry, have a child, or divorce. He was livid and demanded she abort and break up with Nelson.*
The battle between Mayer and Eddy would go on for years.
About half way through the book called, Sweethearts, which is the primary reference for this month's posts, when I was on the part about Jeanette's second pregnancy, I had to take a break.
Was this what I was looking for in a subject for this blog? I had never heard of MacDonald or Nelson or knew nothing about them on screen or off. I did not know that she was once the most famous and successful star in Hollywood. I wanted to understand why someone so famous, who I imagine would have many men interested in her, stayed with men who were not right for her. If a woman with such beauty and talent and who has earned some very good money stays with a man who is wrong, what about all of those women who do not have those advantages? Perhaps Jeanette wanted to be a role model to the public even if it meant living a lie. So I watched videos on YouTube. I listened to these talents singing, heard their impressive voices, did more research.
As personalities, she and Nelson may have liked drama, high highs and low lows and she may have been provocative. I suspect she was addicted to being on an emotional roller-coaster, as was Eddy. But there is more to it. That more may just have been true love.
Still, no doubt in my mind, Jeanette MacDonald, for all her red-headed beauty, her verve, her talent as a singer and comedic actress, was an abused woman. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, and not by just one person. Though she projected happiness in public, that was sometimes good acting - even excellent acting. She was considered a perfectionist on the set, demanding of herself and a total pro, yet she did not take care to control her fertility. Contraception was available.
Just to start their relationship with complications, Jeanette admitted to Nelson early on that she was having sex with Mayer. Her mother even thought that she was Mayer's mistress. It's claimed that Meyer actually loved her, though he expected sex from any woman who wanted to become a film star. We can say that he abused her personally by giving her little to no choice and she was not the first or last to experience such interference.
What's more, the man that she married instead of Nelson was homosexual. There is a suggestion here that Jeanette was abused by Nelson Eddy before and after her marriage to this husband. Her husband was also abusive to her. Perhaps not every day or for years on end, but when the relationships were down.
In 1942, both stars were finally free of MGM contracts. Times were changing. New talent emerged. However, the two performed together on radio and eventually Jeanette returned to MGM and did two more films - but without Nelson. The couple spent more time than ever, with Nelson especially not caring who knew the truth. In 1946 he thought the honorable thing to do was to officially break with Jeanette. He threw himself into religion. Of course, they went back together again. This would be their pattern until Jeanette was too ill.
Jeanette MacDonald's health was precarious for years as a heart condition withered her away. Nelson's sense that she was fragile from the beginning was right. Nelson was heartbroken when she died and everyone gave him sympathy but he was only a pall bearer. Her husband, for whom she had provided cover for his homosexuality for years, took charge and may have even kept Nelson from her in the end, claiming the husband's place in her last days.
Nelson didn't live a whole lot longer.
This month I'll explore the relationship between these two tragic sweethearts in more depth and perhaps we will all come to understand the nature of their thirty year romance. I've chosen some telling excerpts and will make commentary along the way.
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Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot features a number of Hollywood personalities in these posts. You can search for the word Hollywood to bring them up.
But as I read about opera singer Jeanette MacDonald, I thought about opera singer Maria Callas. MARIA CALLAS OPERA DIVA and MISTRESS OF ARI ONASSIS was featured here in August 2010
Another person who figures into the MGM - Louis B. Mayer story is MGM "Fixer" Mannix. You can read about him in: GEORGE REEVES : Superman and Kept Man: So What? His Lady's Husband Had a Mistress Too! in My 2013
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