Jeanette MacDonald
She often gets forgotten today, but she was one of the biggest stars alive in the 30s and early 40s. She was famous even before her pairings with Nelson MacDonald either through her pairings with Maurice Chevalier (in films like Monte Carlo and Love Me Tonight) or even not with other male singers (such as with Clark Gable in San Francisco). She was genuinely beautiful, and had a great charisma onscreen.
When she died in 1965, she had one of the grandest funerals in the history of Hollywood, and it was even said that it amrked the death of the Old Hollywood. Not only did her former co-stars attend--Eddy, Chevalier, Allan jones, Spencer Tracy, Joe E. Brown) but so did tow former presidents (Truman and Eisenhower) and several politicians who would become president in time (Nixon and Reagan), as well as many of the greatest stars of old Hollywood.
By this time, however, her piping soprano had gone completely out of popular fashion. When the Oscarcast would include clips from her films in the Seventies, the audience would usually giggle because her operatic singing style (once also affected by stars like Grace Moore, Ann Blyth, Irene Dunne, and Kathryn Grayson) had become so unfashionable and seemed campy.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 1, 2025 8:23 AM
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I could never tolerate her singing voice.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 31, 2025 7:30 PM
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Anyone with that screen soprano (or coloratura?) similarly irked me. I read once where Clark Gable refused to appear with her because of her endless simpering. Director Van Dyke promised Gable that he would tone it down, which he did successfully. "I never will forget. . . Jeannette MacDonald/Just to think of her it gives my heart a pang./I never will forget, how that brave Jeannette/Just stood there in the ruins. . . and sang. A-a-a-and sang!"
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 31, 2025 7:38 PM
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[quote]By this time, however, her piping soprano had gone completely out of popular fashion.
Thank God I left that crummy business when I did.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 31, 2025 7:46 PM
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[quote]Thank God I left that shit business when I did.
Fixed it for you, r3.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 31, 2025 7:52 PM
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Did she ever win a Kennedy Center Honor?
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 31, 2025 10:15 PM
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The Iron Butterfly has a bisexual lover in Nelson Eddy and a "bisexual" husband in Gene Raymond. Raymond beat her up when she was pregnant with Eddy's child (Raymond "could not father a child."), and Eddy then beat Raymond up with vigor.
Of course the stories of Eddy going to the bathhouses and spas and staring at the hot men are always brought up, but in their own ways both he and MacDonald were captives of the studio and L.B. Mayer, who had an obsession with her. He forbade them to marry. No one ever said Eddy disappeared into a room with a man. Only that he would sit or lie and stare, wistfully and in frustration.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 31, 2025 11:07 PM
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That was just the fiction of a crazed fan
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 31, 2025 11:39 PM
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Took me years to appreciate her voice but I eventually did and I admit I'm a huge fan. Have seen all her movies-they’re all free on line. Nelson Eddy is wonderful yes-Wonderful acting/singing especially “Sweethearts” She’s great in San Francisco-such drama and the earthquake effects are brilliant for 1936.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | August 1, 2025 12:29 AM
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She got a “This is your life” in the 1950’s that had some scandal with she and Nelson hooking up and her hubby got pissed.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | August 1, 2025 12:34 AM
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Just sayin-Gene Raymond (Bi or gay) was hot in his day.HOT!
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | August 1, 2025 12:37 AM
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Grandmama Addams was her more attractive sister!
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | August 1, 2025 12:37 AM
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[quote]Grandmama Addams was her more attractive sister!
Now she'a in the soup...
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | August 1, 2025 12:44 AM
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R10 again, it's all the same delusional fan who has spread this crap all over the internet
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | August 1, 2025 12:51 AM
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Arrived to that repulsive queen Gene Raymond.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | August 1, 2025 12:53 AM
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Her trilling voice was what a pretty soprano was supposed to sound like in the 1930s and before. It was celebrated and accepted as much as Rudy Vallee's croon.
Times change.
It's more surprising to me that Kathryn Grayson and, to a lesser extent, Jane Powell, got away with that sound into the 1950s.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | August 1, 2025 1:36 AM
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I'm going to show my boobies..
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | August 1, 2025 1:37 AM
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She kept getting nose jobs
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | August 1, 2025 1:43 AM
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She's absolutely delightful in Lubitsch's [italic]One Hour with You[/italic], with Chevalier, Charlie Ruggles, and Roland Young.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | August 1, 2025 1:44 AM
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Here's Irene Dunne employing the same kind of trilling soprano voice for "Roberta" singing "Lovely to Look At."
It's amazing to think this is what actually made her famous first before her amazing skills at comedy were discovered. (She didn't much care for either of those talents, though--she wanted to be a dramatic serious actress, and only rarely got the chance.)
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | August 1, 2025 1:49 AM
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She and Irene were pals and they enjoyed singing together.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | August 1, 2025 2:02 AM
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I can’t remember where I heard it, but Judy did a version of San Francisco where she trilled “forget” off key. Bless.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | August 1, 2025 2:10 AM
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R24, It was Judy Live at Carnegie Hall.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | August 1, 2025 3:08 AM
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Her best films were the ones before the Nelson Eddy partnership
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 1, 2025 8:23 AM
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