SARAH BERNHARDT : DAUGHTER OF COURTESAN YOULE VAN HARD : TRANSFORMED HERSELF INTO A WORLD FAMOUS ACTRESS AND A NATIONAL ICON OF FRANCE KNOWN FOR HER OWN "SCANDALOUS" LIFE

SARAH BERNHARDT  

(1844-1923) 

Baptized Sarah Marie Henriette Bernard but born Jewish

Eventually Called The Girl With The Golden Voice

I've had Sarah Bernhardt, who was considered the best actress of her generation, on my list of future subjects for some time. My search for books in English that are well regarded lead me to this one by author Robert Gottlieb, which is primary reference for this month's posts, along with some interesting web sites and YouTube videos. Gottlieb states that Sarah herself spun stories and that some of the people who wrote about her had agendas and so, perhaps, it's not possible to know the true or whole story. But he does try.

I think Sarah Berhardt had a hard life but like many of the people profiled here, she made the best of what she had to deal with.

What surprised me was learning that Sarah's mother, Youle Van Hard, was a courtesan in Paris and that she was born illegitimate and unloved. I was also surprised to learn that after Youle took Sarah out of school, she encouraged her to become a teenage courtesan. Youle had three illegitimate daughters over the years. You could say she set her daughters up to be courtesans, and, though youthful Sarah did have patrons for at least some of the time in her youth, her younger sister reportedly became a prostitute and had an even harder life. 

Sarah's eventual successes may have begun because it seems that her mother, a patron, or most likely her birth father, were willing to provide an education for the girl. This was a time when women often went without an education. She took an early interest in acting and the theater and was educated at a good convent school and then a school for acting, but she was also born into a world where her gender - her family's situation - her class at birth - and her Jewishness came with limits. If you've been reading Mistress Manifesto, then you know that many a courtesan in previous centuries was also an entertainer. It was beauty, talent, and fame that attracted patrons and who knows what came first. Acting has become a respectable profession but it wasn't always. It was long assumed that any actor, any theater person, was living a scandalous life.

Sarah Bernhardt eventually became world famous - a celebrity - while also known for her 'love life.' I think that Sarah was expert at marketing and promoting herself, kind of like the way the singer-dancer Madonna, an expert at reinvention, has been. As an example, in her youthful days, Sarah posed with a hat that had a bat on top rather than a bird and took a coffin with her on her travels, and may have slept in it, which is sort of "ghoul school." Or was that just for a photo? I suspect that, if she took her coffin seriously, it was to remind herself to live life to the fullest rather than any darker reason such as thinking of herself as a Parisian vampire.

Sarah Bernhardt may have been known to love her independence. Was she a feminist? We can't say that just becoming an unmarried mother who has to support a child makes a woman a feminist. What went on in Paris, where courtesans had their place in society was one thing. Her behavior and attitudes were even thought to be part of an exaggerated or unstable personality. And maybe she did have some sort of breakdown at one point or another. 

Sarah Bernhardt was Jewish by birth but her father was Catholic. She, and her sisters, were baptized eventually. She was placed in a Catholic orphanage. But who really was her father? 

It wasn't common for a discarded orphan to leave a convent at thirteen years old and begin school at the Conservatoire de Musique et Declamation in Paris. Someone was interested in her education and her religion and wanted to give her a chance at success. Was that person her mother, who she believed - with good reason - didn't love her but who might have set aside some money? A father?

Excerpts from EBSCO.com: "Although she won second prize for tragedy in 1861 and second prize for comedy in 1862, she regarded the conservatory’s methods as antiquated. She left the conservatory in 1862 and accepted a contract with the national theater of France, the famed Comedie Francaise....In 1867, when Bernhardt was twenty-two years old, she became a member of the company at the Odeon, where she found definite successes in roles such as Cordelia in a French translation of William Shakespeaer's play King Lear (pr. c. 1605-1606), as Zanetto in François Coppée’s verse play, La Passant (1869), and as the queen in Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas (1838). Indeed, it was Hugo himself who called Bernhardt the girl with the Golden Voice (vox d’or)—a name that stayed with her throughout her life. Meanwhile, Bernhardt’s success was so immediate that she even gave a command performance for France’s Emperor Napoleon III. However, the Franco-Prussian War interrupted her rising career with the closing of the Paris theaters in 1870."

Like several of the women I've featured here, Sarah was a woman who inspired artists to portray her. Alphonse Mucha, whose posters are rather well known to this day, was a collaborator with Sarah. She posed for him and he also designed costumes, sets and jewelry for her. He even enjoyed a seven year contract with Sarah. Their professional relationship began when Mucha designed this poster for her, as she starred in the play 'Gismonda.'

These posters were all over Paris the first of January, 1895.

Also, like several of the women I've featured here, a flower was created and named for Sarah, which is a peony.

In Robert Gottlieb's book we learn early that Sarah was not exactly the most truthful person, though her lies, as I see it, were out of concern for her reputation, her career, and ultimately her ability to support herself and her son. He says on page one that she was "a complete realist when dealing with her life but a relentless fabulist when recounting it." One of the questions was what year she was born and where. The 1844 above is the earliest year. One page 2 he says, "There are three basic components to her experience of childhood, two of them enough to derail an ordinary mortal: Her mother didn't love her and she had no father. What she did have was her extraordinary will: to survive, to achieve, -and - most of all - to have her way."

Sarah Bernhardt's son, Maurice Bernhardt was well loved. Never loved by her own mother, Sarah was determined to love him. She had been sent away to be raised by others and then introduced to the world in which men gave money to women for sexual favors, although that's not to say that there was always the possibility that the relationships her mother had - or she had - entailed far more. For at least a couple years after the birth of her son, someone supported her. And she took lovers, even when someone might be considered to be far too old for her.

She was bisexual, had romantic affairs with both men and women and played both male and female parts on stage. She was creative. Besides her talent for acting and singing, she became an accomplished painter and sculptor. She was also a woman of business.

Sarah married one time, to a Greek military officer and actor ,Aristides, also called Jacques, Damala. They married in 1882 when she was in her late 30's He was a decade or so younger than her, they separated, but stayed married until his death in 1889. Damala was an opium and morphine addict and a womanizer who died of an overdose.

Perhaps she proved her strength of spirit and courage most during World War I. In 1915 she had a leg amputated but soon after she volunteered to perform for the troops, to improve moral, and insisted on being carried to the front lines. She appeared in propaganda films and patriotic plays.

Gottlieb's book is short but sweet. I'm challenged to post what would be most interesting to my readers about this fascinating woman! Read on!

Missy

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*** She was photographed sleeping in a coffin.

The following web sites and articles are reference or this post

MUCHA FOUNDATION ORG See other posters that featured Sarah Bernhardt and read about the artist.

EBSCO RESEARCH : SARAH BERNHARDT

NINA BECOMES KNOWN IN THE UNITED STATES

February 11, 1972 Life Magazine Cover

The very beginning of Nina's memoir, which was published in 1973  by Walker and Company publishing in New York, begins with this statement.  

Excerpt page 9:

"I was famous but felt like a freak and was damn well going to show them that I wasn't  No one in America knew me but for being "The Danish Singer in the Hughes Affair." While in New York in February fer the Grand Jury hearings there'd been dozens of offers for cabarets and television and I don't know what else."

(Note; her manager in Europe, John Marshall, had gotten Nina three weeks at the St Regis Hotel "Maisonette", which was a small and elegant room, for a debut in the United States, but the St. Regis became "Press besieged."  She was separated from her husband Frederik at the time and also had a housekeeper and nanny with their children in London.  Her mother, who was in Copenhagen, then brought the children to New York with her.  The three weeks at the St. Regis was a successful run of the show.)

Half way through the book she finally gets to the chapter Ibiza where she mentions Clifford Irving once more.  No doubt the scandal did bring her name into the spotlight, for many in America, for the first time.  Nina Van Pallandt did do some television and other work as a result of the interest in her.

Here's her film information from IMDb IMDB - NINA VAN PALLANDT

THE GOOD - THE BAD - AND THE VERY UGLY by SONDRA LOCKE : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

SONDRA LOCKE

THE GOOD, THE BAD, and the VERY UGLY - A Hollywood Journey

Sondra Locke has an innocent wistful quality to her looks, and she's a very spiritual in a New Age kind of way, seeing ghosts, believing in synchronicity, signs, and portents. Yet, like many people who have psychic abilities, she had not a clue about what was really going on in her life with long term lover and keeper, Clint Eastwood, until it was a shock. She was maybe the last to know.

They met on a set for a film he hired her for, had an affair, and it lasted - and was good- for a long time - years. In that time she had two abortions and a sterilization, to do it Clint's way.

Now, Clint was clearly married when they met and so was she - to a gay man from her home town who she apparently always held in high regard. They both went their own way with other partners and did not divorce for years. Sondra at times contributed to his support. Clint knew all that.

Clint was married, straight, and a father. But IT TURNS OUT HE WAS ONCE KEPT BY A GAY MAN early in his career!

Though Sondra Locke was and is an actress, her relationship with Clint was first and foremost, and though she was paid - poorly - for her work in his films, she was loyal to him, loved him, and gained some benefits. When he was out of town she busied herself with decorating and refurbishing a house of her dreams - which Clint owned and she came to think of as her - their - house.

She lived the life of a wealthy woman, a woman who had other people - Clint's people - to take care of a lot of things so she could focus on a major redecorating project. She got used to him coming and going, being here, there and everywhere. She was in shock and denial for a long time. After all, she and Clint had been a couple in his - their -social life for a long time and now some of those friends, catching change in the air, were stepping back, not wanting to be involved or only suggesting she needed a lawyer.

Sondra Locke writes intelligently, honestly, and with the perception of what happened after the fact. It sounds like Clint got tricky and nasty when he wanted out (or her out of their Los Angeles house, one of many) and that he had been dishonest with her for a long time too.

One of the problems many mistresses have is getting recognition for the value they have in a man's life and having that translated to finances. (Remember we are not discriminating here in saying a woman - a man. We know there are kept homosexual people and heterosexual men kept by women!)

IT WAS IN THE TRADITION OF THE EUROPEAN (KINGS) IN DAYS GONE BY THAT A WOMAN BE COMPENSATED FOR THE TIME SHE SPENT WITH HER ROYAL, especially if she gave him children; being a mistress kept a woman out of the marriage market though sometimes she was married off into a cover marriage. Because all mistresses are not dependent women and the things women do are often thought of as free, it becomes a feminist issue.

C 2010 - 2024 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All rights including International and Internet Rights are reserved.

The book is C 1997 by Sondra Locke William Morrow is the publisher.\

Note January 2024  I'll be excerpting from Sondra Locke's book during this revisit to past posts.  I hadn't before.  Missy

SONDRA LOCKE : THE GIRLFRIEND IN CLINT EASTWOOD FILMS and HIS MISTRESS OFF SCREEN ; THEIR LONG RELATIONSHIP ENDED UGLY

SONDRA LOCKE

Image by Georges Biard

Wikimedia Commons attribution

1944-2018

(Sandra Louise Smith)

Back in July 2010, when Mistress Manifesto was a newish blog, I featured actress Sandra Locke as Mistress of the Month. Here is what I wrote:

She's an actress and director, an interior designer and home renovator, but she had a lot of time off and waited around for her lover... actor Clint Eastwood. Her income from the work on his films was small and she lived a life of more luxury than on her own salary with him. When she wanted and needed to do more - become the producer of film projects - he found her less desirable. She had two abortions and then a tubal sterilization at age 30 to keep him happy. She's sorry about that now, but there it is. She wanted her relationship with Clint to endure but, while he had these demands of her, he cheated and had other children with other mistresses...

Sondra Locke is a woman who could have made it on her own financially without Clint. But her case is interesting... because she kept a marriage with a gay man who had his own long term relationship all the while. ***

They spent over a decade as a couple - some count thirteen years. The first film, in which she played his love interest was The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Then she was in the lead role with Eastwood in the film The Gauntlet (1977). Then they hit special success in Every Which Way But Loose, which may people remember because of a orangutan named Clyde that also had a role. (1978). In that film and the sequel called Any Which Way You Can (1980) Sondra finally got paid well, reportedly six figures plus a percentage of the profits. She had a career before Clint Eastwood but had taken a pay cut for the Josie Wales film. Because she she played the role as a country singer in these two films, there was briefly an attempt to get a singing career going. Bronco Billy (1980), Sudden Impact (1983). In 1985 Clint Eastwood directed Sondra in an Amazing Stories episode.

1989 Locke sued Clintwood and it was settled out of court. He was accused of fraud, of ruining her career.  He sued too accusing her saying she had not fulfilled her agreements with him.  The lawsuits went on for years.  

Sondra died of breast and bone cancer at the age of seventy-four. She had been Oscar nominated in 1968 for her roll in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.  She is best known for her films with Eastwood.  However, she did continue to work as a producer and director.  And when she died she was still married to her husband Gordon Anderson. Their loyalty was lifelong, though they were undoubtedly in an Alternative Relationship, one that Clint Eastwood seemed to understand and then use against Sondra. In the excerpts I have chosen from her memoir, I'll do my best to move the story along for you.

Missy

C 2024 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

*** Gordon Anderson was homosexual and pursued various relationships during his marriage to Sondra.  Sondra considered him to be her only family.

CASSANDRA PETERSON ON THE SEXUAL ASSAULT SHE EXPERIENCED BY A CELEBRITY BASKETBALL SPORTS FIGURE

In perhaps the most horrific passage in her book, 'Yours Cuelly, Elvira' is the sexual assault that Cassandra experienced. To comply with the Google requirements for no sexual explicity, I have not changed any words below, but I have stopped at the ...

Excerpt:

"The other episode involved my friend "Unce Wilty' who I'd run into once or twice at the Playboy mansion since moving back to L.A.

In Las Vegas, whenever Wilt was in town, he and Sunny frequently slept over at the house I shared with her and our other roommates, and spent a lot of time hanging around the pool.  I got to know him and liked him a lot. He was flirty, although always respectful, but he did have a big ego to go along with his big body and big career. He was smart, interesting, and funny, and damn was he big. He towered over us at seven-one. We took a picture together by our pool one time and in it I look like a munchkin, only coming up a little above his waist. It was crazy how big he was - not just tall like his friend Lou Alcinder (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabber) who I'd met with him on a couple occasions, but huge, weighing in at 300 pounds. My entire outstretched hand just fit into his palm.

Wilt had always flirted and kidded around with me, but he was never pushy or rude. He was rich, good looking, and famous, so he had girls coming out of the woodwork. He hardly needed to force himself on anyone like me. I was somehow always able to deflect his advances by joking around, and he'd always laugh and slough it off. I'd known him for so long, I trusted him and felt comfortable around him.  ...

The third time I went to his house for a party, my friend bailed on me at the last minute, so I went alone. An hour or so into the party, he asked if I had seen the closet he'd built for his basketball jerseys from the various teams he'd played with over the years. As I shook my head no, he led me through his bedroom and into his closet, which was roughly the size of my single apartment.  I stood marveling at the rows of size fifteen shoes while he pulled jerseys off the rack  - the Philadelphia Warriors,  the Harlem Globetrotters, the L.A. Lakers - and laid them out on the center island for me to see.  "Wow!", I gasped, trying to look impressed even though I didn't know a thing about basketball. Suddenly, with no warning, he grabbed me from behind, gripped my neck with one gigantic hand, and shoved his sweatpants down with the other. ...

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked.

I didn't respond. My face burned with anger and humiliation as he chuckled to himself on his way out of the closet. It all happened so fast I was still in shock. Trembling, I made sure he was gone, then ran into his bathroom, locked the door, and puked into his giant-sized toilet. ...

***

She never heard from this predatory narcissist "friend" again.  He knew what he was doing. This is the story of a man who a woman had known for some time, at least to the point where he had been welcome in her home and she his. And of a celebrity who bragged about having sex with thousands of women. One wonders how many of these women were raped. Cassandra said who would believe an out of work actress and ex stripper. I wish it were "Who would believe an outsized sports figure."

Well, I believe her.

What is the answer here? To never flirt? To never be friendly? To never go to a party? To never trust a man who is a friend? 

****

Please note that I listened to this book as an audio book in which Cassandra Petersen herself reads, and then I got the e-book. My download shows page numbers 252-254 which depends on the size of text one chooses. I do hope you'll want to read this book, just as I hope I've lead you to other books that are worthy of your time reading!  

Missy

WHO IS HE REALLY?

 

CASSANDRA PETERSON WAS RAPED BY A MAN SHE INVITED IN FOR A DRINK

In Chapter 15 of Cassandra Peterson's book, 'Yours Cruelly, Elvira', she reveals that she was raped. The first rape she reports in this chapter happened after she invited a man who she'd met at a club and had a conversation with back to her place for drinks.  I know that some men do think that such an invitation is considered as an invitation to have sex, or to at less mess around a little. Such stories make us women far less likely to invite men on dates.

However, I think we women have to educate men - all men - including our brothers and platonic male friends, what rape is. I agree with Cassandra that even if things are far along, if a woman says stop, a man should comply. There are very many reasons why a woman may want to stop, from concern over contraception to not feeling well to sobering up to - very many reasons.  

In this case the man was a rapist. The classic rapist.  There is no confusion about it.

When she suggested they get together another evening, before much had happened, he was angry.  He threw her to the floor, he balled up his fist and asked her if she wanted her teeth knocked down her throat. He threatened her that he knew where to find her and that she was not to tell.  There are times when I do hope there is eternal hell rapists. They are rarely one time offenders. Such men rape and rape again. They hate women. Rape is violence. They love that they are destroying a woman's health, reputation, and sanity.

Cassandra says she knew people would think she had asked for it by inviting him in. Also, she was aware that as an ex showgirl and because of her sexy Elvira character, she was less likely to be believed if she did report the rape.

***

Please note that I listened to this book as an audio book in which Cassandra Petersen herself reads, and then I got the e-book. My download shows page numbers 251-252 for which I took notes.

CASSANDRA PETERSON HEARS THE WORDS "YOU'LL NEVER WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN"

Excerpts from the book Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson

Chapter You'll Never Work In This Town Again

"It fills me with so much hope and pride that women are finally able to speak out about the treatment we've had to endure from men. Women have always had to worry about the damage to their livelihoods,  not to mention the loss of their dreams and aspirations, which could result from resisting men's unwanted advances, or God forbid, reporting it.  These days men are finally having to think very seriously about the potential damage to their own careers that engaging in this type of sexist behavior may cause.  One way or another, it will catch up with them, and karma's a bitch."

(Cassandra goes on to describe some of the experiences she had beginning as a girl when the neighborhood child molester tried to get at her, another at age 12, then in the 7th grade,)

"Miraculously - seriously - miraculously I made it through my teen years without getting raped, although I had some very close calls. I learned over time to never walk alone at night, to never park in dark areas, to always check to see whether anyone was hiding in the back seat of my car before getting in, and to keep an eye in the rear view mirror to make sure no one was following me.  It's great to grow up feeling like you're being hunted, right girls?"

(On an interview for a national commercial, a man asked her if she liked performing a certain sexual act and got up from his desk without any clothes on below his shirt.) "Shaken I jumped to my feet and headed for the door as fast as my feet would carry me.  As I literally ran down the dark hallway, my commercial aspirations in the dumper, I heard him yell these very words" You'll Never Work In This Town Again."

Please note that I normally cite the page number but the e-book I downloaded does not have page numbers showing.

As I read this, I was reminded of experiences I've had, such as being groped suddenly by a stranger when I sat waiting to get into a restaurant. That man was old and I wondered just how many women had been groped by him, how many got chased around the desk in his office. 

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THE THEFT OF CHOICE : SPECIAL EDITION of MISTRESS MANIFESTO FEATURING CASSANDRA PETERSON

The inspiration for this month's excruciatingly uncomfortable subject is the story of her rape in the memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson, better known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. You may be familiar with the character of Elvira, who years ago started out a long stretch as the hostess of late-night scary B-movies on television, some of them laughable, especially if you were in range of Los Angeles stations. Prior to becoming known as Elvira, Cassandra had what might be called a colorful life, which I'll get to in a moment.

I'm not a fan of horror or scary films and can't remember ever staying up late to watch the show, but I knew about Elvira the way I knew about Angelyne, who I elected as Honorary Mistress of the Month in October 2010, long before she was outed by a mysterious character and then a biopic was made of her life.  If you lived in Southern California in those days then you knew she was around.

Angelyne's mystery was how she could afford to be on so many expensive billboards all around town, how she could afford all the cosmetic surgeries, how she could afford pink sports cars, one after another, and spend so much time driving around Los Angeles and being seen. (She certainly did not seem to have a regular job or much in the way of actual acting work. She did manage to record some music...)  There were always whispers of mysterious benefactors. A friend of mine who had his moment of fame decades earlier and interacted with a number of people in entertainment told me who everyone said Kept Angelyne, which I've never revealed. Just about everything else he had ever told me about various show business people had checked out. But let me get back to Cassandra.

While Angelyne may live 'in character' and be famous for being famous, Cassandra Peterson, who as Elvira in some way got associated in some people's minds with Angelyne, played Elvira as an actor, keeping her private life private but not in a downright secretive way as Angelyne did. Some reviews of Peterson's book mentioned that finally she was getting personal. And she did in her memoir, including about her rape.

Of course Mistress of the Dark uses the term Mistress in a way that I do not here at Mistress Manifesto. Defining Mistress is one of the goals of this blog as we learn about so very many for whom a label such as Mistress might be right. Overall, however, the term Mistress implies a woman who is in command, if not of others, than of her own life, which can also seem to be ironic and contradictory, since in so many novels where Mistresses or Kept women or Courtesans are the main character they are actually subject to a passion that makes them sin.  

When I search for books that are non-fiction in libraries to read and consider for inclusion here, I always encounter hundreds of fictive books in which the Mistress is a character.  Sometimes I think there are hundreds of such books for every one that is non-fiction. Why, I ask myself, are all these novels written, sold, and read?  I think it's because many women do have the fantasy of being in a relationship outside of marriage.

One of the aims of Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot is to to look at the realities. We ask how did (and do) Courtesans, Mistresses, Kept People, Groupies, Harem concubines, and just plain women who have affairs with men who aren't free to marry them, live their lives? We wonder if, as in films, the 'bad girl' is always punished by society or fate.  We do this at a time when people are more open in general about who they are and what they want, and sometimes what they want falls into the category of Alternative Lifestyle.

We love the idea that we have Choice, but how much Choice do we have?

To review the book Yours Cruelly, Elvira:

Cassandra Peterson grew up with an abusive narcissistic mother caused her much pain and a beloved father who did not defend her. She grew up in a lower-middle class home where there was no talk of careers or college for her. She was a Beatles-maniac and long live rock and roll! She became the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas at the time; her parents signed their agreement. She's been Sex Positive and never shy about showing off her physical assets, in particular her breasts. Meeting Elvis Presley, who gave her some wise advice, was the highlight of her life in Vegas. 

Attempting to support herself as she took bit parts and background work, Cassandra Peterson went to Italy where she had some experiences that could have turned out worse. Destitute and squatting, ripped off and escaping a criminal lover, she ended back in America. In Los Angeles she decided to add her natural sense of humor to her bawdy personae. She took classes with the Groundlings comedy troop, which she eventually was invited to join. She and a partner wrote the comedy scripts for the horror show evenings she hosted

In her personal life she was not shy about having sex and didn't hold herself to traditional values. Not religious, she favored the Ernest Holmes Science of Mind way of goal setting. She also lovingly accepted gay men as friends, coworkers, and co-creatives. For a long time she-who-would-someday-be-known-as-Elvira was just scraping by, even when she had room mates or lived with a man to keep the cost of living down, even as she paid her dues and took her acting and improv classes, even as she sought agents, went on auditions, and took rejections.

When I first saw the book as an offering as an e-audio book and an e-book at my library, I thought, what the heck, I'm under no obligation to read it if it turns out it's no good. But it was, surprising so.  First of all, I love e-audio books when the writer/author reads their own work. Cassandra does, expressively, and humorously.  She's frank. And I was surprised at how much I was enjoying the book and could relate to her as a human being. Even if I personally would be far too self conscious to ever be a showgirl, I could certainly understand how much she loved music, how big a deal meeting Elvis and having a good conversation with him it was. I could certainly understand about being true to one's art, even if it didn't pay.

So when I got to Chapter 15, entitled You'll Never Work In This Town Again and she started reading/speaking about it, knowing already that she had been propositioned many times, had been sexually harassed, had been offered work in exchange for sex (in Hollywood called 'the casting couch') by sleazy men, I was unprepared to hear that she had, after fending off and surviving so much, been raped. 

So, this month as a Special Edition here at Mistress Manifesto, the focus is Rape, which is the Theft of Choice and so horribly common, and so hateful towards women, I swear sometimes I think castration should be the punishment. 

Thank You Cassandra Peterson for inspiring this Special Edition.

Cassandra Peterson was married for twenty five years and suffered six miscarriages before finally having a child at age 43. She had long been involved in LGBTQ Rights but had to adjust when she herself fell in love with another woman. When her book came out in 2021 she was seventy years old and had been in that relationship for 19 years. As an activist she has also been involved in PETA anti-fur campaigns. She is also for the Me-Too Movement and is vocal about having been verbally and psychologically abused not only in her childhood, but also in her marriage. 

C 2023 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

You might be interested in reading: ANGELYNE THE BILLBOARD QUEEN : RUMORED MISTRESS OF THE MONTH is in the archives for October 2010

P.S. I'm not suggesting Petersen has been a Mistress or a Courtesan or a Kept Woman. Her memoir does not suggest it.

A TRY AT HOLLYWOOD as CHABING COOPER and GIVING UP ON LIFE

Isabel Rosario Cooper went back to entertainment or tried to.  Life in Hollywood didn't renew her work or fame that she'd left behind in Manila.

"Chabing (the name she used as an actor) went from playing a nurse, a geisha, a Siamese harem wife, a Native American, a Chinese servant, a Chinese-American secretary, a hula dancer, another Chinese servant, a Filipina servant, a Carabean slave, and an "Oriental" belly dancer.  In lower budget Charlie Chan films she has full scenes, exchanges dialogue with the lead.  In others she is just another body providing color, being a type.  (Pages 128-129)

"In the decade following her arrangement with MacArthur, Isabel Cooper relentlessly remakes herself, Isabel Kennamer, housewife from Washington, D.C; Belle Cooper, ingénue; Isabel Cooper, actress, possibly Isabel Moreno, wife, Chabing Cooper, nightclub hula dancer; Chabing, actress.  She shaves at least a decade from her actual age, claims to be white, Malay, Scottish, Irish, Javanese.  She moves from being a mistress to getting married, then divorced, to married again (and again.)

Finding herself evicted from a familiar role, and unsatisfied with the one that follows, she invents a plethora of selves in order to survive --sometimes just barely and with bruises to show--in the manifold niches available to women like her.  Both distant from and yet intimately bound to the war raging across both oceans, these roles show a woman making do with scant material and doggedly crafting a life and livelihood through ingenuity and manipulation, or what perhaps has been dismissed as "feminine wiles."  (Excerpt page 110)

The last film she appeared in was shot in 1953 and released the following year and was a fake documentary about burlesque. She had no other roles.

How Isabel continued to live is unknown. However, when she died, she was probably fifty years old and it was an overdose of barbiturates and was likely suicide. Her once upon a time husband, Frank Kennamer, now remarried with children, and a lawyer, was called upon and provided her a burial plot but it is without a headstone in Holy Cross Cemetery, Los Angeles.

There may have been an investigation but the file is lost.

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ISABEL ROSARIO COOPER IN THE PHILIPPINES - VAUDEVILLE

This image comes from a brief news item that appeared in November 2017 in an

on-line newspaper called Philstar Global. Learned that date taken and photographer are unknown. It also appears in Empire's Mistress starring Isabel Rosario Cooper as a black and white copy. Even from afar one can see the dimples that gave her that nickname.

TYPECAST AS A TRAGIC MIXED- RACE CONCUBINE OR SEDUCTRESS

Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez ask us not to reduce Isabel to the stereotypes of a tragic mixed-race concubine or seductress. She says this has happened in other books, the books for instance that are part of the YouTube video I posted. To be fair, I think each author tried to envision her and understand her role in General MacArthur's life, as their own gender and time and place and personal limitations allowed. So be it a powerful older man who treats a 'petulant and spoiled' younger woman to tea gowns, kimonos, and black lingerie' or whose existence in his life threatens his career, Gonzalez asks us to look deeper.

(Notes and observations having read pages 2-3)

Did Isabel, lonely and neglected despite being Kept, go out and seduce other men for fun?

**************************

A little time out here:  After so many years reading and researching and writing around the subject of Mistresses here at Mistress Manifesto, the idea that a Mistress is the seductress, the idea that she always ends up in a tragedy, is not new to me. That Isabel Rosario Cooper is portrayed this way is no surprise to me. Implied is that women who have relationships with men who are already married or who do not marry them end up punished in some way, such as being murdered or ending in suicide. You will find several of those women in these pages.

So at this time I want to remind my readers that so much of our perceptions about mistresses come from books and books tend to be about exceptional people and extraordinary situations, of which being a Mistress is one of those. Overall, it's difficult to find information on those mistresses who were not exceptional people in extraordinary situations. That is why I say that the most successful of them may be people we never hear about. There are people who are happy with their station in life, whatever it happens to be, and that includes some wives and mistresses who willingly man share. It is an assumption that every woman wants marriage and a traditional marriage at that. It's also an assumption that a mistress is a kind of prostitute, there for the sex, with a thin veneer of a relationship keeping her and a lover together.

My feeling about Isabel Rosario Cooper so far is that she was likely influenced by coming from the Philippines, which to this day is quite mixed-race and also dominated by Catholic traditionalism. To this day a woman uniting with a much older man is not thought badly of there overall. Some of the women do seek marriage with American men who are older. Rather an older established man who can provide is considered a plus and American men know this. I know of more than one woman of Philippine heritage here in the United States who has, with the approval of her father, been a mistress. One of these women seemed especially servile. I knew that she had also been a mistress to a Hollywood producer previously and that her then-current man had also had mistresses in the past who left the relationship when marriage was not forthcoming. So I hoped this woman was not waiting for him to marry her. By servile I mean that she waited on him, cooking and serving food, and basically acted in-wait to his needs. Consider that if he was not going to marry her, those years she lived her life around him were years in which she was not getting an education or developing a career. 

Missy

ISABEL ROSARIO "DIMPELS" COOPER : FILIPINA ACTRESS and MISTRESS OF FAMOUS MEDAL OF HONOR WINNER GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR,

General Douglas MacArthur is the American Military leader who was in the Army, and successful in what was called the Phillipine Campaign, an effort to keep the Japanese out of East Asia. He uttered the famous words "I shall return." (And he did.) But when he left the Phillipines in 1929 between World War I and World War II, he asked Isabel Rosario Cooper, his much younger Mistress to come back to the United States with him.

ISABEL ROSARIO COOPER

"Dimples Cooper"

1914* to 1960

In 1929 when the General was recalled to the United States, to San Francisco, and left Manila, he sent Elizabeth love letters. In 1930, MacArthur was asked to serve as as U.S. President Herbert Hoover's Chief of Staff. MacArthur asked Elizabeth to move to Washington, D.C. so they could continue their romance. She was a film actress and singer, who performed in vaudeville acts also as a dancer, and is sometimes called a showgirl. She first appeared on stage at the age of five.

Born to a Scottish father and Chinese-Filipina mother, called Eurasian, Isabel was young - about eighteen or twenty (she may have fibbed about her age a bit) and he, born in 1880, was fiftyish. They were introduced at a party where he is said to have fallen in love instantly at the sight of her beauty and femininity. Called "Dimples Cooper" she was famous for being the first actress in the Philippine films for performing on on-screen kiss in 1926, daring at the time but just a kiss. For her his invitation was a decision to leave her home country and a promising career. His love letters to her survive but hers to him do not. Actions speak louder than words.  She moved to D.C.  He set her up in a 'love nest' in the nation's capitol.

The General came from an American pioneer family and spent his life in the military; begining with a military school education and top of the class at West Point; World War I, World War II, and Korea. He married a woman named Louise Cromwell Brooks, called a socialite, in 1922, and divorced seven years later, childless. His military career was illustrious, however, it seems he had little time to be a husband.  And so he met Isabel Rosario Cooper at a time when he was leaving a marriage. Or was she the reason for the divorce?

According to author Vernadette VIcuna Gonzalez, Isabel has been erased from any recounting of Douglas MacArthur's life. I muse that perhaps this is because his international fame was so much greater than anything she achieved or perhaps it is because he himself did not openly admit to having had her in his life. He wrote a book about his life and did not include her. I went on numerous sites about him, and these sites detail his power and might in military actions, but it's true there's no mention of Isabel in them. Some do not even mention he was ever married.  Britannica, Wikipedia... Perhaps it's because he came from a culture, a time and place, in which only legal wives were honored with acknowledgements. Or he intended to always keep her hidden away. I did watch a number of YouTube videos that were uploaded after this book came out, and I'll be posting one that quotes from a few books about MacArthur that do include at least bits and pieces about Isabel. Sadly, it's suggested she was only in place for sexuality. It's even said that he only bought her clothes to wear indoors and in bed.

There is another aspect to this story and that is Isabel Rosario Cooper also only spent about ten percent of her life with this man, but her only claim to fame is because of her association with him. Make no mistake about it, she was with a national hero in the United States but also her native Phillipines. One wonders if or who knew about Isabel during their involvement and if there was a conspiracy or silence or his fellows just thought it was none of their business what he did when he was off work.  (If so, I agree with that. I don't believe we should take our personal lives much into our working life.)

I wonder if Douglas meant to shelter Isabel, to have a private life that was protected from media and fame for both of them, or if he was ashamed to have not married her. It could be said that she made a sacrifice to be with him. Certainly various authors have made their claims and assumptions about his sexuality or even his relationship with his mother.

Sadly, it seems that the General wanted to hide her away. Reading this story I was reminded of another Mistress that I profiled here at Mistress Manifesto Blogspot, Marita Lorenz, who as a young woman was involved with Cuba's military and political leader, Fidel Castro.  She too was left waiting for his visits, almost a captive. Well, Douglas was gone a lot, and so Isabel went out to night clubs and kept herself busy. She was a young vital woman and perhaps also the thirty years in age between them has become a problem.

Their relationship is estimated to have lasted five years. (However, I do think that is an estimate!) May of 1934 is marked as the time in which she finally moved out of the hotel and into a rooming house; this has to be a downgrade and perhaps suggests he's no longer keeping her.  Much of their relationship was spent entertaining herself, even traveling to Cuba for vacation, as he is gone, out of the country, in Europe, taking care of business and accepting accolades, without her by his side. He may also have been offended at her pleas to him to help certain of her family members. One article I read (not this book) suggested she had actually been evicted from the hotel and moved to New York City and into another hotel due to an enemy of MacArthur's who wanted to expose him for political reasons. Be it that she was angry with him or she needed money, according to this book, she showed her love letters and managed to get $15,000 from him which she was supposed to use to move back to the Philippines.

In 1937 MacArthur married Jean Faircloth, a marriage that brought an only child into the world a year later - in Manila!

After MacArthur, Isabel did not have an easy life. She didn't move back to the Philippines. She did not succeed to become an actress in American films though she had a number of minor background roles as a servant and minimal speaking parts after the end of their relationship. By coming to MacArthur, she left her entertainment career behind. She had two husbands and died of a sleeping pill overdose that was considered suicide at the age of forty-six.

Isabel's body rests in an unmarked grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles (the burial ground for Hollywood greats such as Bing Crosby and Rita Hayworth) while MacArthur rests in a Norfolk, Virginia mausoleum which is a pilgrimage site.

As Vernadette Vicina Gonzalez brings Isabel back to us in her book, I will attempt to also honor her here as our Mistress of the Month.

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You may also be interested in:

MARITA LORENZ : MISTRESS OF FIDEL CASTRO (and then GENERAL MARCOS PERES JIMENEZ) TURNED CIA COLLABORATOR - MISTRESS OF THE MONTH  appears here in the May 2015 archive

THE STRANGE CASE OF "BLOOD AND GUTS" GENERAL GEORGE PATTON and MISTRESS JEAN GORDON : DID HIS WIFE's CURSE PUSH HER TO SUICIDE? appears here in the  September 2022 archive.

NELSON EDDY INTERVIEW ON JEANETTE MACDONALD'S DEATH

 The reporters called him.... for a statement...they knew there was a story there. Nelson got to be a pal bearer.

I looked at some other sites regarding Jeanette's death and it seems there is reason to believe that Nelson was kept away... or the final hospitalization was bungled in some way. It strikes me that Jeanette was not a healthy woman or strong in body in general. Anyone woman who has had so many pregnancies and miscarriages would have had some permanent damage, I think.

Her story makes me sad.

WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM : NELSON EDDY

From YouTube poster Angela Messino.

The more I read about their love story, the more upset I become.

TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY : NELSON EDDY AT THE TOP OF THE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD MARRIES ANN DENITZ - FRANKLIN

Commentary from Missy:

Nelson Eddy was at the top of the entertainment world in 1938.  He was also waiting for Jeanette MacDonald to go through with filing a divorce from Gene Raymond.  She had every reason to, in love with Nelson or not. 

Excerpt: Page 237 from Sweethearts by Sharon Rich

At year's end, the inevitable motion picture polls were tabulated.  The Brisbane Courier-Mail announced that in a film star popularity contest, covering all of Australia, Jeanette had placed first for women (with Shirley Temple second), and Nelson was second for men (after Robert Taylor).  In the Unite States, Nelson polled first in many fan magazines as top radio star, tio classical singer and top male movie star.  Furthermore, he was acclaimed as the highest =paid singer in the world, and the top wage earner in motion pictures, thanks to his radio and concert activity.  He was not commanding $15000 per concert and $5000 a week for singing a few songs on the Chase and Sanborne show.  Jeanette also won fanzine contests and more important, in a poll of fifty major newspapers across the country culled by the New York Daily News, Jeannette won as most popular actress with 59,608 votes.  (The male winner was Tyrone Power with 89,647 votes.)

( $15000 1938 dollars is about $252,196.49 according to the U.S. Inflation Calculator. $5000 a week is about $84,065.50.)

Commentary from Missy:

Nelson Eddy, as it could be said was the case with Jeanette MacDonald and Gene Raymond, had a domineering mother.  She had resisted Jeanette as a wife for her son at first but came to like her and believe in their romance.  However, she, like the other mothers, had been called into the studio and told to get their offspring in line with the demands of their contracts. 

When would Nelson truly give up on having Jeanette as wife?

When she failed to follow through on a divorce, Nelson called it quits again, raging at Mayer that he did not want to work with Jeanette again.

Excerpt: Page 239

Jeanette reported wearily to the studio on the morning of January 20, 1939.  She had two numbers to finish, then her work on the film was done.  (The film was Broadway Serenade.) She had not seen a morning paper by the time she arrived at the set, nor had anyone volunteered the startling news that was now circulating at the spread like wildfire.  A studio messenger came on to the set to end the speculation  Yes, it was true, Nelson Eddy had eloped with Ann Franklin in Las Vegas yesterday.  The news had come as a surprise to everyone, including Mayer, who was furious.  Jeanette screamed in horror and ran off the set, sobbing. The entire crew was silent in shock. Until now, sympathies among the crew had tended to be with Nelson. Studio workers who perceived what they thought were Jeannette's roller- coaster emotions towards Nelson, felt that he'd had it pretty touch,  But now...

Commentary from Missy:

Jeanette locked herself up in her dressing room. She had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. She was semi-conscience and calling out for Nelson.

Excerpt Page 239:  Suddenly Mayer appeared at the door.  He rushed to see Jeanette and tenderly took her hand.  Crying real tears, Mayer sobbed, "Jeanette baby, I never meant to hurt you!  Like your own father I wanted what was good for you.  Speak to me  Be a good girl and speak to me!" 

When there was no response, he turned to Woody, "It's that baritone's fault.  It's him. He's doing this to my beautiful star:  To Woody's surprise, Mayer picked Jeanette up and carried her to a waiting car...

Jeanette's stomach was pumped..... Gene was ordered to keep a suicide watch...

***

Commentary from Missy:

Upon returning from a tour, Nelson asked Ann for a divorce.  They had married in Vegas by a Justice of the Peace and he had been drinking.  She said no.  

Isabel Eddy, Nelson's mother, handed over his diary - letter that was to Jeanette, in which he claimed he had been, in so many words, snookered into marrying Ann and regretted it. He claims he could not go through with sex with Ann and would never touch another woman.  In truth it is unlikely that he never had another affair and though he and his wife had separate bedrooms it is also unlikely that they never had sex.  His concert tours and film work kept him away from home a lot.  Ann was determined to keep her marriage though she was jealous of his love for Jeanette.  His marriage changed her.  She would put up boundaries she never had before, but he was just more determined to get her back.  Just several months after his marriage, the two were to film 'Bittersweet."  

Ann Franklin - Eddy (born Ann Denitz - her first husband being director Sidney Franklin) asserted her dominance over her legally wed husband, Nelson Eddy.  Born into a  prosperous Jewish family and seven years older than Nelson, she was raised to be a lady but her first marriage had ended after an episode of partner-swapping. She has a son born of Franklin. She said she didn't care what Mayer wanted and would not allow Nelson to work with Jeanette again. He knew otherwise. However, Ann may have also threatened to blackmail Nelson if a divorce lead to telling all the ugly truths in court.  It would seem that Nelson had gotten himself a domineering wife.

Once World War II broke out in Europe Hollywood scandals did not take the headlines as they once had.  Nelson and Jeanette both knew they could never give up on each other completely, though their relationship would take many forms and disguises.  Perhaps their spouses felt the same.  Gene Raymond earned well, it's just that Jeanette earned five times as much.  He might have felt he had some duty as a husband but continued to keep a homosexual life.  Ann Eddy had her marriage to a top Hollywood star to keep, which kept her prestige and living in wealth, even if she didn't have him to herself.

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FOOLED INTO MARRYING A GAY MAN : JEANETTE MACDONALD'S TEARJERKER WEDDING and HER HIDEAWAYS WITH NELSON

Commentary by Missy:

From a Western contemporary perspective, at a time when alternative lifestyles and a range of sexualities and genders are payed out, it's impossible for me to believe that Jeanette MacDonald, who in her early thirties had already had at least two other lovers of some duration, including her business manager, before Nelson Eddy, would not have slept with Gene Raymond, her actor husband to be, before she married him. She reportedly tried to convince herself that she loved him. Her honeymoon with him revealed the truth.

It's not impossible for me to think that the manipulative Louis B. Mayer would have wanted to provide a 'cover' for Gene's homosexuality because it's not possible for me to think that Mayer did not know that Gene Raymond was gay, but did he actually think that Jeanette would not continue to see Nelson - or avoid having sex with other men - when she figured it out?  Gene is often called bi-sexual.  Well, maybe...

According to Sharon Rich, the author of Sweethearts, not only had Jeanette been unhappy with the very idea of marrying Gene, but she may have had an affair with another opera singer co-star on "The Firefly" while Nelson was away on tour. She also regretted that she had married Gene almost at once.  

Nelson had returned from a concert tour and sought her out. The night before her wedding, Nelson showed up and again begged her to reconsider, saying she did not have to do it, that he could handle Mayer and they could go on in their careers without him and MGM.  Finally he gave in to the inevitable but his emotions were raw.

The wedding had the feeling of a movie premier. As Jeanette arrived to the Wilshire Methodist Church, 10,000 plus fans showed up to watch the proceedings from outside the church. Two-hundred police were out there trying to crowd control. MGM pubic relations people were there to inform the reporters so the details could be reported in every newspaper. Motorcycle cops escorted the couple away.

Nelson had been ordered to sing for the wedding...

During the vows he was heard sobbing...

Excerpt: Page 186

Jeanette had a good week left to shoot on The Firefly, then she an Gene joined another newlywed couple, Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers, on a honeymoon cruise to Hawaii.  They sailed on the Lurline and the press was informed that they would vacation for two months.  Before the Lurline docked, however, the Hollywood press was abuzz with a scandal so hot they couldn't print it. Everyone from Mae Mann to Walter Winchell knew the scoop and was itching to spill it, but at a cost to their jobs, their eager lips were sealed.

The Lurline in the 1930's docked in Honolulu - Picture from Wikimedia

Jeanette and Gene had taken two cabins on the Lurline, while Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers shared a double room.  Mary, already an alcoholic, spent much o the voyage in her cups, and it was widely known that she still held a flame for her ex-husband Douglas Fairbanks.  Jeanette, on the other hand, who'd apparently married for love, rarely left her room and was said to be "crying her eyes out.:"And for good reason too: there was a honeymoon going on -- but the ones sleeping together were Gene Raymond and Buddy Rogers. 

Excerpt: Page 189

Jeanette learned of Gene's bisexuality, as it turned out, on their honeymoon.  She was shocked.  A woman who had prided herself on being so careful - doing the right thing, finding the perfect husband for herself - now found that she had been deceived in the most ludicrous way,... The irony of her situation was that, in the eyes of the world, she was considered the epitome of innocent love...  They decided to stay married, ... and the truth is that there were many marriages in Hollywood, so-called 'working relationships," where both parties concentrated on their careers, living separate private lives....

(But her mother had known and had chosen not to tell Jeanette.)

(Nelson made an effort to date others.)

***

In 1938 at a time when Nelson was up nights thinking about Jeanette and his loss of her, Gene was arrested having been caught with another man.  Jeanette made a run for Nelson's where he and his mother were up, apparently so upset she was passing out. Jeanette paid $1000 in bribe (over $20,000 in 2022 money) to not record the arrest.  She did that without consulting the MGM lawyers or fixers. And about six months in, after that arrest, Jeanette filed for divorce, though that would go against the morals clause in her studio contract.  Jeanette decided to follow Nelson on part of his concert tour and sometimes got up on stage to sing a duet with him.

Excerpt: Page 215

Meanwhile the two stars had some time to themselves, Nelson was so pleased at Jeanette's apparent willingness to put him first before her career -- at least temporarily-- that he rapidly made plans for their future together.  He surprised her by handing her the key to a small, newly built house in Burbank at 812 Mariposa.  Set way back from the street it was on a dirt road overlooking the Los Angeles River, next door to the stables where their horses were kept....

...Nelson also took over a hunting lodge in the Angeles Forest... It was a perfect setting --- a forty-five minute drive from Burbank but like entering another world" mountains, pine trees, huge rocks water and sometimes even a bit of snow in the winter.  Their privacy was assured by a gated entry and a ranger station was just across the dirt road.

..Yet  a third hideaway was located closest to home, in Beverly Hills, off Benedict ,,,,  The house couldn't be seen from the street and was protected by both guard and gate.  Nelson had leased "Mists" in 1937, using it as a second home for himself and Isabel (his mother).

***

Once pregnant earlier in their courtship, during the filming of "Sweethearts," Jeanette found herself pregnant for a second time in January of 1938. Nelson and she conspired to find a way to get this baby born without Mayer knowing.  However, she miscarried at about five months, and both she and Nelson were devastated.

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CLARK GABLE SUGGESTS THAT NELSON EDDY BUY GENE RAYMOND OFF - NELSON TRIES ONCE MORE FOR JEANETTE

Commentary by Missy (notice my notes!) :

When Jeanette MacDonald would not call off her wedding to Gene Raymond, a marriage that Louis B. Mayer expected of her, Nelson Eddy and the famous actor Clark Gable became drinking buddies.  The two sometimes went missing for a couple days.  Nelson's mother Isabel Eddy was called in to control him.

To think that these two stars in 1936 were in their early thirties and the studio had their mothers controlling them like they were teenagers!  (They would also call in Gene Norman's mother!)

Filming scenes in which they had to sing romantic and heartbreaking songs almost Jeanette and Nelson in.  They could not pull it off without crying and were eventually threatened with pay suspensions if they didn't stop the crying and get the scene right. The scene used in the film, 'Maytime,' is the result of many takes and many edits.

This image is from 1937 per Wikipedia

Excerpt: Page 173  On filming 'Maytime.'

The "Will You Remember? (Sweetheart) number was a nightmare to film.  Nelson, resigned at last to losing Jeanette forever, could not sing and look at her without crying.  ....

As the year 1936 drew to a close, Nelson made another attempt to get Jeanette back.  He'd never forgotten Clark Gable's brilliant idea about 'buying Gene off. So one Sunday, he impulsively called his banker, and insisted on meeting him to pick up a suitcase of cash - all the money he could get his hands on immediately. Nelson went to see Raymond and offered him $250,000 not to go through with the wedding. (That's in 1936 dollars, According to the U.S. Inflation Calculator in 2022 it would be $5,170,935.25!) To his amazement, Gene agreed. Some funds exchanged hands, with the condition that the rest would be paid after an official announcement came from the studio that the marriage was off.

(Gene returned the money saying that because of Mayer the wedding could not be called off.)

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THE MACHINATIONS OF MEGLOMANIAC LOUIS B. MAYER

According to Sharon Rich, the author of Sweethearts, Louis B. Mayer objected to Jeanette MacDonald going back to Nelson Eddy who he called "that god damn baritone." Mayer called her in and told her it was over between her and Nelson and go back to Gene Raymond.  Apparently, though Nelson blamed her mother, it was Mayer who was behind the marriage. At the end of her life, Jeannette's mother admitted she had been wrong about Nelson and that she'd mess up Jeanette's life. Nelson had begged her mother to agree that Jeanette could marry him, even telling her he would not restrict her visiting with Jeanette or demand that Jeanette stop supporting her...

Excerpt : Page 170

One would think that Mayer would be delighted that his two 'singing sweethearts" were in love.  But Mayer didn't see things that way. "Anticipation is greater than consummation," was Mayer's philosophy, explained Sandy Reiss. "On the screen the dynamics became more powerful.  By keeping them apart, Mayer kept the passion high."  Mayer also feared that if the two married they would soon after land in the divorce courts and he would have no team left...

In an attempt to force Jeannette's hand, Mayer resorted to posting security police by her dressing room so she couldn't meet intimately with Nelson.  Her mother, meantime, monitored her movements away from the studio. When Jeannette still refused to break up with Nelson, Mayer began threatening more that simply her career, "Mayer told Jeanette they'd put Nelson in a cement overcoat," ... "And they would blind him. He's be a blind baritone, and would never see again."

(The author retells stories of other famous stars who bore the wraith of Mayer who put them out of the business, including silent screen star Lillian Gish.)

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