Michael Radford is doing a movie about the imaginary "romance" between Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald

I tried to read Sharon Rich’s book when it was first published in 1994, but it is so badly written I never finished it. And in the decades since, I have read so much contradictory information on Eddy & MacDonald, I don’t know what to believe.

How else can you approach this other than as camp? Will they be casting people who can sing or actors to be dubbed?

Sad that gay people are still being "inned"

"How else can you approach this other than as camp?"

That's the big question, isn't it!

I can't imagine this thing will get funding, as I am the only person left on Earth who remembers that operetta ever existed, or who still likes it.

She married a gay man. Gene Raymond was caught several times throughout his career in "compromising situations." He also resembled Nelson. It was all very "incestuous" to me. I wonder if a movie would even break even since nobody under 50 knows who any of these people were.

R4, Gene Raymond wasn't gay, except according to fangirl "biographers" who feel the need to lie. Nelson was the gay one.

I can't imagine any studio putting money into this project. Who is the audience? Frau fans excepted, the number of people today who remember Eddy and MacDonald must be pretty small (and skewing elderly), and those who remember them fondly even smaller still. The Sharon Rich book is a frustrating read, for though she documents many of her sources, those sources are often people speaking under pseudonyms and repeating second-hand information. There is little qualitative screening of the information. Maybe they were lovers, maybe not. Who knows, and by this point, who cares?

R6, they weren't

Talk about your sweet mysteries of life!

Gene Raymond was at the least bisexual. It is well documented that he was caught cruising men many times.

According to biographies Gene Raymond was physically abusive to McDonald during their marriage.

I loved Gene Raymond in 'Laura'......

What?

Oh....never mind.

Gene Raymond was an inveterate pole smoker.

Sad to know Gene Raymond was abusive, I kind of crushed on him.

Info on Gene Raymond

r14, all that "info" is cobbled from the biased fangirl book. r13, he wasn't. Again, the idea that he was an abuser comes from the fangirls.

R11 that was Gene Kelly.

If they angled it as a cautionary tale about success and disappointment, like a Star Is Born, maybe. Some of their music was lovely, but now hardly in vogue. This old fart can't imagine how anyone could resist it, but then I'm all about melody and hate rap hop.

Since there seem to be so many Michelle Phillips fans on DL, it's interesting to not that Michelle and John lived in a masion (since torn down I believe) in Bel Air that was previously owned by Jeanette.

Maybe the house could be the star and the story could jump back and forth between the two eras. And John and Michelle could have trios with a ghostly Jeannette.

Jeannette: when I'm calling you.ooo.ooo

John: will you answer too.ooo.ooo

The Sharon Rich book makes an allegation that Gene Raymond and a 19-year old actor (later and separately ID'd as Robert Stack) had taken a house together in 1938, after Raymond's marriage to MacDonald. But there is no solid evidence given for this allegation, save one person who somehow "learned" of the arrangement. The book is filled with that kind of stuff, and it is irritating to read.

There is, however, a photo somewhere online, taken at a costume party thrown by the Basil Rathbones circa 1938, in which the young Bob Stack can be seen at the side of Gene and Jeanette (who came as Prince Charming and Snow White). Some years later, Stack also appears in photos congratulating Jeanette after a late 1940s Hollywood Bowl concert. So the couple obviously knew Stack and was on friendly terms with him. If he and Gene Raymond had been lovers, it doesn't seem to me that Ms. MacDonald would be quite so welcoming.

They had threeways.

There is evidence other than Sharon Rich, supporting the idea that the two had a longterm romantic affair. There has been letters and diaries discovered, and the numerous houses and apartments they either owned together, or that were adjoining.

"There is evidence other than Sharon Rich, supporting the idea that the two had a longterm romantic affair."

The "evidence" comes from fangirls

Why is this poster so invested in defending that Gene Raymond was not at least bisexual? I mean, who cares? He's long deceased, there is nothing wrong with being gay or bi or whatever. He is very handsome in that androgynous way (like Valentino, early Gary Cooper and early George Raft) and the old-fashioned gaydar goes off the charts when he is seen in his early films and even later. Anyone could see he is a queen at fifty paces. Seriously.

r24, he may have been bi, who knows, but the claims that he was gay are coming from fangirls who believe that Louis B Mayer FORCED MacDonald to marry Gene and that their marriage was a sham. They do this to build up the non-existent "romance" between Eddy and MacDonald. It was Nelson Eddy who was the gay one and HIS marriage was the one that was a sham.

Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber. Would be boffo at the box office while having "teen appeal."

Nelson Eddy's bf was this guy:

IIRC Strickling files guy posted that Nelson Eddy had more arrests covered up than any other actor at the studio, but Files Guy neglected to specify what the charges were.

Didn’t Shelley Winters have some disturbing anecdote in one of her memoirs about a drunken Nelson Eddy sexually assaulting her when she was young and just starting out as an actress?

Flagrant overacting

r29, according to Shelley, every man in the world hit on her. She wasn't well acquainted with the truth.

R3, my partner introduced me to operetta and I like it. I think he’s probably the last surviving fan of The Desert Song.

Love Lehar, but then I'm a melody man.

Judy certainly never forgot Jeanette MacDonald!

[R20] here - sorry if I gave the impression that I am defending Gene Raymond’s ‘heterosexuality.’ My point is that the book is very sloppy in its own claims of his being gay or bisexual. I have to admit I have not seen many of Raymond’s films, but judging by the way he shows off his pretty impressive body in Flying Down to Rio, and his youthful blond looks, he certainly pings to me, and it would not surprise me if he enjoyed guys, even if he didn’t actually blow his Stack, so to speak.

But he and MacDonald stayed married until her death, long after their careers had peaked, long after she was free from her Metro contract. If it was an arranged marriage or a lavender marriage, I am not in a position to judge. Given the conservative mores of the Hollywood social establishment that they were very much a part of, they may have decided to maintain a veneer of domestic happiness. They would not have been the first to do so, and there are surely many such marriages we may never know the truth about.

What is genuinely strange is that the Jeanette fan club kept going for decades after her death, and his. Raymond was involved with the group for the remainder of his life, some 30 years or so after she died. I don’t know what was in it for him if he really was a gay/bi man in a long term arranged marriage.

And he married again , remaining with his second wife until her death. He is a relatively minor movie figure, so I doubt anyone will ever do a bio of him.

I am shocked to discover that Gene Raymond was both gay and a wife-beater. I'll never watch Match Game the same way again!

The house.

r36, he wasn't

That poster was making a joke about Gene RAYBURN, r38.

^ Sorry, missed the "Match Game" bit