Nelson Eddy
Encyclopedia
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera
and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone
, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano
Jeanette MacDonald
. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby-soxers as well as opera purists, and in his heyday was the highest paid singer in the world.
During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
(one each for film, recording, and radio), left his footprints in the wet cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater, earned three Gold records, and was invited to sing at the third inauguration
of President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career.
, the only child of Caroline Isabel (née Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy. His father was a machinist and toolmaker whose work required him to move from town to town. Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island
, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts
. As a boy, he was a redhead and quickly acquired the nickname "Bricktop." As an adult, his red hair was streaked with silver, so that his hair photographed as blond.
Nelson came from a musical family. His Atlanta-born mother was a church
soloist, and his grandmother, Caroline Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio
singer. His father occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions such as H.M.S. Pinafore
.
Eddy's parents divorced when he was 14, which severely traumatized him. Living in near-poverty, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a clerical job at the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. He later worked as a reporter with the Philadelphia Press
, the Evening Public Ledger and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He also worked briefly as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer Advertising, but was dismissed for constantly singing on the job. Eddy never returned to school but educated himself with correspondence courses. He was bitter that his father refused to provide financial support after the divorce but in later years they had an uneasy reconciliation.
, Antonio Scotti
, Pasquale Amato
, Giuseppe Campanari
, and Werrenrath. He gave recitals for women's groups and appeared in society theatricals, usually for little or no pay.
Having had a job in an iron works factory, he then spent ten years as a newspaper reporter but was fired for paying more attention to music than to journalism. His first professional break came in 1922 when he was singled out by the press after an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, although his name had been omitted from the program.
In 1924, Eddy won the top prize in a competition that included a chance to appear with the Philadelphia Opera Society. Alexander Smallens
, musical director of the Philadelphia Civic Opera and later assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra
, became interested in Eddy's career and coached him. (In a 1936 career profile of Eddy put out by Arthur Judson
Concert Management, Smallens is credited with Nelson's "operatic success.")
By the late 1920s, Eddy was appearing with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company
and had a repertoire of 28 operas, including Amonasro in Aida
, Marcello in La bohème
, Papageno in The Magic Flute
, Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
, both Tonio and Silvio in Pagliacci
, and Wolfram in Tannhäuser
. (William von Wymetal was the group's producer at this time, in association with Fritz Reiner
who later directed the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.) Eddy also performed in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas with The Savoy Company, the oldest theater company in the world devoted exclusively to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in the traditional manner. With Savoy, Eddy sang the leading role of Strephon in "Iolanthe" at the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1922. The next year he played the role of Major-General Stanley in Savoy's production of "Pirates of Penzance." He reprised the role of Strephon with Savoy in 1927 when the theater group moved their performances to the famed Academy of Music. Thirty one years later, he was asked by a Savoy lead playing the role of Strephon in 1958 for Eddy's thoughts and recommendations on how to play the role. Eddy wrote:
Eddy studied briefly with the noted teacher David Scull Bispham, a former Metropolitan Opera
singer, but when Bispham died suddenly, Eddy became a student of William Vilonat. In 1927, Eddy borrowed some money and followed his teacher to Dresden
for European study, which was then considered essential for serious American singers. He was offered a job with a small German opera company. Instead, he decided to return to America, where he concentrated on his concert career, making only occasional opera appearances during the next seven years. In 1928, his first concert accompanist was a young pianist named Theodore (Ted) Paxson, who became a close friend and remained his accompanist until Eddy's death 39 years later.
In the early 1930s, Eddy's principal teacher was Edouard Lippé
, who followed him to Hollywood and appeared in a small role in Eddy's 1935 film Naughty Marietta. In his later years, Eddy frequently changed teachers, constantly trying new vocal techniques. He also had a home recording studio
where he studied his own performances. It was his fascination with technology that inspired him to record three-part harmonies (soprano, tenor
, baritone) for his role as a multiple-voiced singing whale in the animated Walt Disney
feature, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met", the concluding sequence in the 1946 feature film Make Mine Music
.
With the Philadelphia Civic Opera, Eddy sang in the only American performance of Feuersnot
by Richard Strauss
(December 1, 1927) and in the first American performance of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos
(November 1, 1928) with Helen Jepson
. In Ariadne, Eddy sang the roles of the Wigmaker and Harlequin in the original German. He performed under Leopold Stokowski
as the Drum Major
in the second American performance of Alban Berg
's Wozzeck
on November 24, 1931.
At Carnegie Hall
in New York
, Christmas
1931, he sang in the world premiere of Maria egiziaca
(Mary in Egypt), unexpectedly conducted by the composer Ottorino Respighi
himself when famed conductor Arturo Toscanini
fell ill at the last minute. Years later, when Toscanini visited the MGM lot in California
, Eddy greeted him by singing a few bars of Maria Egiziaca.
Eddy continued in occasional opera roles until his film work made it difficult to schedule appearances the requisite year or two in advance. Among his final opera performances were three with the San Francisco Opera
in 1934, when he was still "unknown." Marjory M. Fisher of the San Francisco News wrote of his December 8, 1934 performance of Wolfram in Tannhäuser
, "Nelson Eddy made a tremendously fine impression ... he left no doubt in the minds of discerning auditors that he belongs in that fine group of baritones which includes Lawrence Tibbett
, Richard Bonelli
, and John Charles Thomas
and which represents America's outstanding contribution to the contemporary opera stage." He also sang Amonasro in Aida on November 11, 1934 to similar acclaim. Elisabeth Rethberg
, Giovanni Martinelli
, and Ezio Pinza
were in the cast. However, opera quietly faded from Eddy's schedule as films and highly lucrative concerts claimed more and more of his time.
When he resumed his concert career following his screen success, he made a point of delivering a traditional concert repertoire, performing his hit screen songs only as encores. He felt strongly that audiences needed to be exposed to all kinds of music.
, at a sold-out concert in Los Angeles on February 28, 1933. He scored a professional triumph with 18 curtain calls, and several film offers immediately followed. After much agonizing, he decided that being seen on screen might boost audiences for what he considered his "real work," his concerts. (Also, like his machinist father, he was fascinated with gadgets and the mechanics of the new talking pictures.) Eddy's concert fee rose from $500 to $10,000 per performance.
Eddy signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM), where he would make the first 14 of his 19 feature film
s. His contract guaranteed him three months off each year to continue his concert tours. MGM was not sure how to use him, and he spent more than a year on salary with little to do. His voice can be heard singing "Daisy Belle" on the soundtrack
of the 1933 Pete Smith
short, Handlebars. He appeared and sang one song each in Broadway to Hollywood and Dancing Lady
, both in 1933, and Student Tour in 1934. Audience response was favorable, and he was cast as the male lead opposite the established star Jeanette MacDonald
in a film version of Victor Herbert
's 1910 operetta
Naughty Marietta.
Naughty Marietta was the surprise hit of 1935. Its key song, "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life," became a hit and earned Eddy his first Gold Record. He also sang "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and "I'm Falling in Love with Someone." The film was nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture, received the Photoplay
Gold Medal Award as Best Picture, and was voted one of the Ten Best Pictures of 1935 by the New York film critics. Critics singled out Eddy for praise:
Eddy appeared in seven more MGM films with Jeanette MacDonald
:
Nelson Eddy also starred in films with other leading ladies
:
After Eddy and MacDonald left MGM in 1942, there were several unrealized films that would have reunited the team. Eddy signed with Universal
in 1943 for a two-picture deal. The first was Phantom of the Opera
and the second would have co-starred MacDonald. She filmed her two scenes for Follow the Boys
then both stars severed ties with Universal, as Eddy was upset with how Phantom of the Opera turned out.
Among their later other proposed projects were East Wind
; Crescent Carnival, a book optioned
by MacDonald; and The Rosary
, the 1910 best-seller—which Eddy had read as a teen and pitched to MGM as a "comeback" film for himself and MacDonald in 1948. Under the name "Isaac Ackerman" he wrote a biopic screenplay about Chaliapin
, in which he was to play the lead and also a young Nelson Eddy, but it was never produced. He also wrote two movie treatment
s for himself and MacDonald, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle.
, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Since both he and MacDonald were under contract to RCA Victor between 1935 and 1938, this allowed several popular duets from their films. In 1938, he signed with Columbia Records
, which ended MacDonald-Eddy duets until a special LP album the two made together in 1957. He also recorded duets with his other screen partner Risë Stevens (The Chocolate Soldier) and for albums with, among others, Nadine Conner
, Doretta Morrow, Eleanor Steber
and Jo Stafford
.
Eddy's recordings drew rave reviews during the 1930s and 1940s, but it is a special tribute to his vocal technique that he continued to rate them into the 1960s. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
on October 4, 1964 noted: "Nelson Eddy continues to roll along, physically and vocally indestructible. Proof is his newest recording on the Everest
label, ‘Of Girls I Sing’. At the age of 63 and after 42 years of professional singing, Eddy demonstrates there has not been much change in his romantic and robust baritone — the baritone that made him America's most popular singer in the early '30s".
, even before the United States entered the war. He did his first "war effort" concert on October 19, 1939 with Leopold Stokowski for Polish war relief. In 1942, he became an air raid warden and also put in long hours at the Hollywood Canteen
. In 1943, he went on a two-month, 35,000-mile tour, giving concerts for military personnel in Belém
and Natal
, Brazil; Accra
, Gold Coast
; Aden
; Asmara
, Eritrea
; Cairo
(where he met King Farouk); Teheran, Iran
; Casablanca
; and the Azores
. He also broadcast for the armed forces throughout the war.
(1936), Vicks Open House (1936), The Chase and Sanborn Hour
(1937–1939), and Kraft Music Hall
(1947–1948). He had his own show on CBS
in 1942–1943. Eddy frequently used his radio shows to advance the careers of promising young singers. While his programs often featured "serious" music, they were never straitlaced. It was in a series of comedy routines with Edgar Bergen
and Charlie McCarthy on the Chase and Sanborn Hour that Eddy's name became associated with the song "Shortnin' Bread
", which was also included in the film Maytime.
On March 31, 1933 he performed the role of Gurnemanz in a broadcast of Richard Wagner
's opera Parsifal
with Rose Bampton
, conducted by Leopold Stokowski
. During the 1940s, he was a frequent guest on Lux Radio Theater
with Cecil B. DeMille
, performing radio versions of Eddy's popular films. In 1951, Eddy guest-starred on several episode
s of The Alan Young Show
on CBS
-TV. In 1952, he recorded a pilot
for a sitcom, Nelson Eddy's Backyard, with Jan Clayton
, but it failed to find a network
slot. On November 12, 1952, he surprised his former co-star Jeanette MacDonald when she was the subject of Ralph Edwards
' This Is Your Life
. On November 30, 1952, Eddy was Ed Sullivan
's guest on Toast of the Town.
During the next decade he guest starred on Danny Thomas
's sitcom Make Room for Daddy and on variety programs such as The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
, The Bob Hope Show, The Edgar Bergen Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour
, The Spike Jones Show, The Rosemary Clooney Show, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
, and The Big Record with Patti Page
. He was a frequent guest on talk show
s, including The Merv Griffin Show
and The Tonight Show
with Jack Paar
.
On May 7, 1955, Eddy starred in Max Liebman's 90-minute, live-TV
version of Sigmund Romberg
's The Desert Song
on NBC
-TV. It featured Gale Sherwood
, Metropolitan Opera bass Salvatore Baccaloni
, veteran film actor Otto Kruger
, and the dance team of Bambi Linn
and Rod Alexander.
On December 31, 1966, a few months before his death, Eddy and his nightclub
partner, Gale Sherwood, sang 15 songs on Guy Lombardo
's traditional New Year's Eve
program, telecast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
in New York City.
Variety wrote, "Nelson Eddy, vet of films, concerts, and stage, required less than one minute to put a jam-packed audience in his hip pocket in one of the most explosive openings in this city's nitery history.... Before Eddy had even started to sing, they liked him personally as a warm human being". The act continued for the next 15 years and made four tours of Australia
.
, on January 19, 1939. Her son, Sidney Jr., became Eddy's stepson, but she and Nelson had no children of their own. They were married for 27 years, until Nelson's death. Ann Eddy never remarried after Nelson's death and died on August 28, 1987. She is buried next to Nelson and his mother, Isabel, in Hollywood Forever Cemetery
.
, a sound engineer backstage at MGM from 1933 to 1942, reported in 1981 that though Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald were a screen couple, they "hated each other with a vengeance". A 1979 fictionalized biography of Eddy and MacDonald, Farewell to Dreams, by Sharon Rich
and Diane Goodrich, and a 2001 biography, Sweethearts by Sharon Rich
, claims that MacDonald's marriage to Gene Raymond
was engineered by studio boss Louis B. Mayer
to prevent Eddy from marrying MacDonald. Rich's original source for this information was reputedly Jeanette MacDonald's older sister, actress Blossom Rock
. The Eddy-MacDonald romance appears again in print in The Golden Girls of MGM by Jane Ellen Wayne. In these books, it is reported that Eddy's relationship with MacDonald began in late 1933 and continued, with a few breaks, until her death in 1965. Many of Eddy's personal letters and diary entries indicating a rocky romance with MacDonald were reproduced in Sweethearts.
when he was stricken on stage with a cerebral hemorrhage. His singing partner, Gale Sherwood, and his accompanist, Ted Paxson, were at his side. He died a few hours later in the early hours of March 6, 1967, at the age of 65. He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
, between his mother Isabel Eddy and wife, Ann, who survived him by 20 years.
Music Library in Los Angeles. His personal papers and scrapbooks are at the University of Southern California
Cinema/Television Library, also in Los Angeles.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby-soxers as well as opera purists, and in his heyday was the highest paid singer in the world.
During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
(one each for film, recording, and radio), left his footprints in the wet cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater, earned three Gold records, and was invited to sing at the third inauguration
Inauguration
An inauguration is a formal ceremony to mark the beginning of a leader's term of office. An example is the ceremony in which the President of the United States officially takes the oath of office....
of President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career.
Early life
Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, the only child of Caroline Isabel (née Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy. His father was a machinist and toolmaker whose work required him to move from town to town. Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...
, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
. As a boy, he was a redhead and quickly acquired the nickname "Bricktop." As an adult, his red hair was streaked with silver, so that his hair photographed as blond.
Nelson came from a musical family. His Atlanta-born mother was a church
Church service
In Christianity, a church service is a term used to describe a formalized period of communal worship, often but not exclusively occurring on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sabbatarianism. The church service is the gathering together of Christians to be...
soloist, and his grandmother, Caroline Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
singer. His father occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions such as H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
.
Eddy's parents divorced when he was 14, which severely traumatized him. Living in near-poverty, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a clerical job at the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. He later worked as a reporter with the Philadelphia Press
Philadelphia Press
The Philadelphia Press is a defunct newspaper that was published from August 1, 1857 to October 1, 1920.The paper was founded by John W. Forney. Charles Emory Smith was editor and owned a stake in the paper from 1880 until his death in 1908...
, the Evening Public Ledger and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He also worked briefly as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer Advertising, but was dismissed for constantly singing on the job. Eddy never returned to school but educated himself with correspondence courses. He was bitter that his father refused to provide financial support after the divorce but in later years they had an uneasy reconciliation.
Singing
Eddy developed his talent as a boy soprano in church choirs. Throughout his teens, Eddy studied voice and imitated the recordings of baritones like Titta RuffoTitta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo , born as Ruffo Titta Cafiero, was an Italian opera star who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone" , he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle" Titta Ruffo (9...
, Antonio Scotti
Antonio Scotti
Antonio Scotti was an Italian baritone. He was a principal artist of the New York Metropolitan Opera for more than 33 seasons, but also sang with great success at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Milan's La Scala.-Life:Antonio Scotti was born in Naples, Italy...
, Pasquale Amato
Pasquale Amato
Pasquale Amato was an outstanding Italian operatic baritone. Amato enjoyed an international reputation but attained the peak of his fame in New York City, where he sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1908 until 1921....
, Giuseppe Campanari
Giuseppe Campanari
Giuseppe Campanari Cooke gives his date of birth as 17 November 1858 but this is unlikely given the d.o.b. of his brother Leandro. was an Italian-born operatic baritone and cellist...
, and Werrenrath. He gave recitals for women's groups and appeared in society theatricals, usually for little or no pay.
Having had a job in an iron works factory, he then spent ten years as a newspaper reporter but was fired for paying more attention to music than to journalism. His first professional break came in 1922 when he was singled out by the press after an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, although his name had been omitted from the program.
In 1924, Eddy won the top prize in a competition that included a chance to appear with the Philadelphia Opera Society. Alexander Smallens
Alexander Smallens
Alexander Smallens was a Russian-born American conductor and music director.Smallens was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated to the United States as a child, becoming an American citizen in 1919...
, musical director of the Philadelphia Civic Opera and later assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
, became interested in Eddy's career and coached him. (In a 1936 career profile of Eddy put out by Arthur Judson
Arthur Judson
Arthur Leon Judson was an artists' manager who also managed the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra...
Concert Management, Smallens is credited with Nelson's "operatic success.")
By the late 1920s, Eddy was appearing with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company
Philadelphia Civic Opera Company
The Philadelphia Civic Opera Company was an American opera company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was actively performing between 1924 and 1930. Founded by Philadelphia socialite Mrs. Henry M. Tracy, the company was established partially through funds provided by the city of...
and had a repertoire of 28 operas, including Amonasro in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, Marcello in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Papageno in The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
, both Tonio and Silvio in Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
, and Wolfram in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
. (William von Wymetal was the group's producer at this time, in association with Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
who later directed the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra.) Eddy also performed in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas with The Savoy Company, the oldest theater company in the world devoted exclusively to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in the traditional manner. With Savoy, Eddy sang the leading role of Strephon in "Iolanthe" at the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1922. The next year he played the role of Major-General Stanley in Savoy's production of "Pirates of Penzance." He reprised the role of Strephon with Savoy in 1927 when the theater group moved their performances to the famed Academy of Music. Thirty one years later, he was asked by a Savoy lead playing the role of Strephon in 1958 for Eddy's thoughts and recommendations on how to play the role. Eddy wrote:
Eddy studied briefly with the noted teacher David Scull Bispham, a former Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
singer, but when Bispham died suddenly, Eddy became a student of William Vilonat. In 1927, Eddy borrowed some money and followed his teacher to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
for European study, which was then considered essential for serious American singers. He was offered a job with a small German opera company. Instead, he decided to return to America, where he concentrated on his concert career, making only occasional opera appearances during the next seven years. In 1928, his first concert accompanist was a young pianist named Theodore (Ted) Paxson, who became a close friend and remained his accompanist until Eddy's death 39 years later.
In the early 1930s, Eddy's principal teacher was Edouard Lippé
Edouard Lippé
Edouard Lippé also frequently spelt Eduardo Lippe. American composer, baritone and singing teacher. His major title to fame nowadays rests on the fact that he was baritone Nelson Eddy's first and principal teacher, apparently even financing his pupil's finishing studies in Paris and Dresden...
, who followed him to Hollywood and appeared in a small role in Eddy's 1935 film Naughty Marietta. In his later years, Eddy frequently changed teachers, constantly trying new vocal techniques. He also had a home recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
where he studied his own performances. It was his fascination with technology that inspired him to record three-part harmonies (soprano, tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, baritone) for his role as a multiple-voiced singing whale in the animated Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
feature, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met", the concluding sequence in the 1946 feature film Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....
.
With the Philadelphia Civic Opera, Eddy sang in the only American performance of Feuersnot
Feuersnot
Feuersnot , Op. 50, is a Singgedicht or opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The German libretto was written by Ernst von Wolzogen, based on J. Ketel's report "Das erloschene Feuer zu Audenaerde" in the Oudenaarde Gazette, Leipzig, 1843...
by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
(December 1, 1927) and in the first American performance of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
(November 1, 1928) with Helen Jepson
Helen Jepson
Helen Jepson was an American lyric soprano noted for being a "stunning blond beauty" as well as for her voice....
. In Ariadne, Eddy sang the roles of the Wigmaker and Harlequin in the original German. He performed under Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
as the Drum Major
Drum Major
A drum major is the leader of a marching band, drum and bugle corps, or pipe band, usually positioned at the head of the band or corps. The drum major, who is often dressed in more ornate clothing than the rest of the band or corps, is responsible for providing commands to the ensemble regarding...
in the second American performance of Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
on November 24, 1931.
At Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
1931, he sang in the world premiere of Maria egiziaca
Maria egiziaca
Maria egiziaca is an opera "in three episodes" by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. The libretto, by Claudio Guastallo, is based on a Medieval life of Saint Mary of Egypt by Domenico Cavalca. The work was originally intended as a concert piece although it has been fully staged in some revivals...
(Mary in Egypt), unexpectedly conducted by the composer Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
himself when famed conductor Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
fell ill at the last minute. Years later, when Toscanini visited the MGM lot in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Eddy greeted him by singing a few bars of Maria Egiziaca.
Eddy continued in occasional opera roles until his film work made it difficult to schedule appearances the requisite year or two in advance. Among his final opera performances were three with the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
in 1934, when he was still "unknown." Marjory M. Fisher of the San Francisco News wrote of his December 8, 1934 performance of Wolfram in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, "Nelson Eddy made a tremendously fine impression ... he left no doubt in the minds of discerning auditors that he belongs in that fine group of baritones which includes Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
, Richard Bonelli
Richard Bonelli
right|thumb|Bonelli, ca. 1940sRichard Bonelli was an American operatic baritone active from 1915 to the late 1970s.-Life and career:...
, and John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas was a popular American opera, operetta and concert baritone.-Birth, schooling and stage debut:...
and which represents America's outstanding contribution to the contemporary opera stage." He also sang Amonasro in Aida on November 11, 1934 to similar acclaim. Elisabeth Rethberg
Elisabeth Rethberg
The German soprano Elisabeth Rethberg was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s. Some hailed her as the greatest soprano of her day...
, Giovanni Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli
Giovanni Martinelli was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor. He was particularly associated with the Italian lyric-dramatic repertory, although he performed French operatic roles to great acclaim as well...
, and Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza
Ezio Pinza was an Italian basso opera singer with a rich, smooth and sonorous voice. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas...
were in the cast. However, opera quietly faded from Eddy's schedule as films and highly lucrative concerts claimed more and more of his time.
When he resumed his concert career following his screen success, he made a point of delivering a traditional concert repertoire, performing his hit screen songs only as encores. He felt strongly that audiences needed to be exposed to all kinds of music.
Hollywood
Eddy was "discovered" by Hollywood when he substituted at the last minute for the noted diva, Lotte LehmannLotte Lehmann
Charlotte "Lotte" Lehmann was a German soprano who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven, Puccini, Mozart and Massenet. The Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier was considered her greatest...
, at a sold-out concert in Los Angeles on February 28, 1933. He scored a professional triumph with 18 curtain calls, and several film offers immediately followed. After much agonizing, he decided that being seen on screen might boost audiences for what he considered his "real work," his concerts. (Also, like his machinist father, he was fascinated with gadgets and the mechanics of the new talking pictures.) Eddy's concert fee rose from $500 to $10,000 per performance.
Eddy signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(MGM), where he would make the first 14 of his 19 feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s. His contract guaranteed him three months off each year to continue his concert tours. MGM was not sure how to use him, and he spent more than a year on salary with little to do. His voice can be heard singing "Daisy Belle" on the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
of the 1933 Pete Smith
Pete Smith (film producer)
Pete Smith was a film producer and narrator of "short subject" films from 1931 to 1955....
short, Handlebars. He appeared and sang one song each in Broadway to Hollywood and Dancing Lady
Dancing Lady
Dancing Lady is a 1933 musical film starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, and featuring Franchot Tone, the fourth of eight collaborations between Crawford and Gable. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, produced by John W. Considine Jr. and David O. Selznick, and was based on the novel of the...
, both in 1933, and Student Tour in 1934. Audience response was favorable, and he was cast as the male lead opposite the established star Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
in a film version of Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's 1910 operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
Naughty Marietta.
Naughty Marietta was the surprise hit of 1935. Its key song, "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life," became a hit and earned Eddy his first Gold Record. He also sang "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and "I'm Falling in Love with Someone." The film was nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture, received the Photoplay
Photoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
Gold Medal Award as Best Picture, and was voted one of the Ten Best Pictures of 1935 by the New York film critics. Critics singled out Eddy for praise:
- "A new star emerged on the Capitol screen." - New York Daily NewsNew York Daily NewsThe Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
.
- "The screen has found a thrilling thrush, possessed not only of a rare vocal tone, but of a personality and form and features cast in the heroic mould." - New York American.
- "Eddy is a brilliant baritone, masculine, engaging and good looking." - Richard Watts, Jr.Richard Watts, Jr.Richard Watts, Jr. was an American theatre critic.Born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Watts was educated at Columbia University. He began his writing career as the film critic for the New York Herald Tribune before assuming the post of the newspaper's drama critic in 1936.After spending World War...
, in the New York HeraldNew York HeraldThe New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
.
Eddy appeared in seven more MGM films with Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
:
- Rose MarieRose Marie (films)The 1924 Broadway musical Rose-Marie has been the basis of three MGM films of the same title. The best-known film adaptation was released in 1936; however, a silent version was released in 1928 and another film was released in 1954. All three versions are set in the Canadian wilderness...
, 1936, is probably his most-remembered film. Eddy sang "Song of the Mounties" and "Indian Love CallIndian Love Call"Indian Love Call" is a song from Rose-Marie, a 1924 operetta-style Broadway musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II...
" by Rudolf FrimlRudolf FrimlRudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...
. His definitive portrayal of the steadfast Mountie became a popular icon, frequently spoofed in cartoonCartoonA cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s and TV skitSketch comedyA sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
s, and even generating travesties on stage (Little Mary SunshineLittle Mary SunshineLittle Mary Sunshine is a musical that parodies old-fashioned operettas and musicals. The book, music, and lyrics are by Rick Besoyan. The musical should not be confused with the 1916 silent film of the same name ....
, 1959) and film (Dudley Do-RightDudley Do-RightDudley Do-Right, created by Alex Anderson, is the eponymous hero of a segment on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show which parodied early 20th century melodrama and silent film in the form of the Northern genre....
, 1999). When the Mounties retired their classic red jackets and hat in 1970, except for ceremonial attire, hundreds of newspapers accompanied the story with a photo of Nelson Eddy as Sgt. Bruce in Rose Marie, made 34 years earlier. - Maytime, 1937, is regarded as one of Eddy's best films. "Will You Remember" by Sigmund RombergSigmund RombergSigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
brought Eddy another Gold Record. The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that the film [was] "the most entrancing operetta the screen has given us.... [i]t affirms Nelson Eddy's preeminence among the baritones of filmdom".
- The Girl of the Golden WestThe Girl of the Golden West (1938 film)The Girl of the Golden West is a 1938 musical western film. It was adapted from the play of the same name by David Belasco, better known for providing the plot of the opera La fanciulla del West by Giacomo Puccini...
(1938) had an original score by Sigmund RombergSigmund RombergSigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
and reused the David BelascoDavid BelascoDavid Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...
stage plot also employed by Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
for La Fanciulla del WestLa fanciulla del WestLa fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
.
- SweetheartsSweethearts (film)Sweethearts is a 1938 musical romance directed by W.S. Van Dyke, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. The screenplay, by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, uses the “play within a play” device: a contemporary Broadway production of the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta is the setting for...
, 1938, was MGM's first three-strip TechnicolorTechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
feature, incorporating Victor HerbertVictor HerbertVictor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...
's 1913 stage score into a modern script by Dorothy ParkerDorothy ParkerDorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
. It won the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture of the Year.
- New Moon, 1940, based on Sigmund RombergSigmund RombergSigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's 1927 Broadway hit, became one of Eddy's most popular films, although in 1978 it was included in the book The Fifty Worst Films of All TimeThe Fifty Worst Films of All TimeThe Fifty Worst Films of All Time is a 1978 book by Harry Medved, with Randy Dreyfuss and Michael Medved. This book represents choices for the 50 worst sound films ever made, in alphabetical order...
. His key songs were "Lover, Come Back to MeLover, Come Back to Me"Lover, Come Back to Me" is a popular song. The music was written by Sigmund Romberg with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II for the Broadway show The New Moon, where the song was introduced by Evelyn Herbert and Robert Halliday...
", "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise", "Wanting You", and "Stout Hearted Men".
- Bitter SweetBitter Sweet (1940 film)Bitter Sweet is a 1940 Technicolor American musical film directed by W. S. Van Dyke, based on the operetta by Noel Coward and previously filmed in 1933; see Bitter Sweet . It was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Cinematography and the other for Best Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons and...
, 1940, was a TechnicolorTechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
film version of Noël CowardNoël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's 1929 operettaBitter SweetBitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
. The love theme was "I'll See You AgainI'll See You Again"I'll See You Again" is a song by the English songwriter Sir Noel Coward.It originated in Coward's 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet, however soon emerged as a standard in its own right and became one of Coward's best known compositions...
." Eddy played a VienneseViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
singing teacher who elopes with his pretty EnglishEnglish peopleThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
pupil and takes her to live in ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
- I Married an AngelI Married an AngelI Married An Angel is a musical comedy by Rodgers and Hart. It was adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright János Vaszary, entitled Angyalt Vettem Felesegul. The book was by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with music by Rodgers and lyrics by Hart. The story concerns a wealthy banker who,...
, 1942, adapted from the Rodgers and HartRodgers and HartRodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart...
stage musical about an angel who loses her wings on her wedding night, suffered from censorship problems. Eddy sang "Spring Is HereSpring Is Here"Spring is Here" is a 1938 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the musical I Married an Angel , where it was introduced by Dennis King and Vivienne Segal.-Notable recordings:...
" and the title song.
Nelson Eddy also starred in films with other leading ladies
Leading lady
Leading lady is an informal term for the actress who plays a secondary lead or supporting role, usually a love interest, to the leading actor in a film or play. It is not usually applied to the leading actress in the performance if her character is the protagonist.A leading lady can also be an...
:
- RosalieRosalie (film)Rosalie is an MGM film adaptation of the 1928 stage musical of the same name. The film was released in December 1937. The film follows the story of the musical but replaces most of the Broadway score with new songs by Cole Porter...
, 1937, with Eleanor PowellEleanor PowellEleanor Torrey Powell was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.-Early life:...
, offered a score by Cole PorterCole PorterCole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
. In his first solo-starring film, the script called for Eddy to portray a football-playing West Point pilot who pursues a princess-in-disguise to Europe. Eddy recorded the title song. - Let Freedom Ring, 1939, with Virginia BruceVirginia BruceVirginia Bruce was an American actress and singer.-Career:Born Helen Virginia Briggs in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she went with her family to Los Angeles intending to enroll in the University of California when a friendly wager sent her seeking film work. She got it as an extra in Why Bring That...
, was a WesternWestern (genre)The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
. Eddy got to beat up rugged Oscar winner Victor McLaglenVictor McLaglenVictor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen was an English boxer and World War I veteran who became a successful film actor.Towards the end of his life he was naturalised as a U.S. citizen.-Early life:...
and preserve freedomFreedom (political)Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
and the American wayAmerican wayThe American way of life is an expression that refers to the lifestyle of people living in the United States of America. It is an example of a behavioral modality, developed from the 17th century until today...
from bad guys, a popular theme just before World War II. - BalalaikaBalalaikaThe balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
, 1939, with Ilona MasseyIlona MasseyIlona Massey was a film, stage and radio performer.-Early life and career:...
, was based on the 1936 English operetta by George PosfordGeorge PosfordGeorge Posford, né Benjamin George Ashwell , was an English composer.-Works:Musical theatre* Goodnight, Vienna * Balalaika ; co-composed with Bernard Grün...
and Bernard Grün. Eddy is a princePrincePrince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
in disguise, in love with a commonerCommonerIn British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the Sovereign nor a peer. Therefore, any member of the Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince Harry of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title,...
during the Russian Revolution. The title song became one of his standards. - The Chocolate SoldierThe Chocolate Soldier (film)-Cast:* Nelson Eddy as Karl Lang, aka Vassily Vassilievitch* Risë Stevens as Maria Lanyi, Karl's Wife* Nigel Bruce as Bernard Fischer, Critic* Florence Bates as Madame 'Pugsie' Helene* Dorothy Raye as Magda...
, 1941, with Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
star Risë StevensRisë StevensRisë Stevens is a retired American operatic mezzo-soprano.-Professional life:Stevens studied at New York's Juilliard School for three years. She went to Vienna, where she was trained by Marie Gutheil-Schoder and Herbert Graf. She made her début as Mignon in Prague in 1936 and stayed there until...
, was a stylish musical adaptation of Ferenc MolnárFerenc MolnárLanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...
's The GuardsmanThe GuardsmanThe Guardsman is a 1931 film based on the play Testőr by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young and ZaSu Pitts...
. Eddy played a dual role and turned in one of his best performances. - Phantom of the OperaPhantom of the Opera (1943 film)Phantom of the Opera is a 1943 Universal horror film starring Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Claude Rains, directed by Arthur Lubin, and filmed in Technicolor. The original music score was composed by Edward Ward....
, 1943, was Eddy's first film after he left MGM at the end of his seven-year contract. This lavish Technicolor musical also starred Claude RainsClaude RainsClaude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
as the Phantom and Susanna FosterSusanna FosterSuzanne DeLee Flanders Larson was an American film actress best known for her leading role as Christine in the 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera....
as Christine. - Knickerbocker HolidayKnickerbocker HolidayKnickerbocker Holiday is a musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson ; it was directed by Joshua Logan. Among the songs introduced was the "September Song", now considered a pop standard.- History :...
, 1944, was based on the popular stage musical by Kurt WeillKurt WeillKurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Maxwell AndersonMaxwell AndersonJames Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
. It co-starred Charles CoburnCharles CoburnCharles Douville Coburn was an American film and theater actor.-Biography:Coburn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Scots-Irish Americans Emma Louise Sprigman and Moses Douville Coburn. Growing up in Savannah, he started out doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs,...
(singing the classic "September SongSeptember Song"September Song" is an American pop standard composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson, introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical Knickerbocker Holiday. It has since been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists...
") and Constance DowlingConstance DowlingConstance Dowling was an American model turned actress of the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life and career:...
. - Make Mine MusicMake Mine MusicMake Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....
, 1946, was a Walt DisneyWalt DisneyWalter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
animated feature compilation. Eddy provided all the singing and speaking voices for the touching final segment, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the MetMetropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
," later released as a short, Willie, the Operatic Whale, by RKORKO PicturesRKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
in 1954. Using a technique based on his technical experiments with his home recording equipment, Eddy was able to sing sextets with himself on the soundtrack, providing all the voices from bass to soprano. - Northwest Outpost, 1947, co-starred Ilona Massey. Rudolf FrimlRudolf FrimlRudolf Friml was a composer of operettas, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer...
provided the songs for a story of Fort RossFort Ross, CaliforniaFort Ross is a former Russian establishment on the Pacific Coast in what is now Sonoma County, California, in the United States. It was the hub of the southernmost Russian settlements in North America in between 1812 to 1841...
, a Russian settlement in the Wild West of California. It was made at Republic Studios and turned out to be Eddy's final film.
After Eddy and MacDonald left MGM in 1942, there were several unrealized films that would have reunited the team. Eddy signed with Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
in 1943 for a two-picture deal. The first was Phantom of the Opera
Phantom of the Opera (1943 film)
Phantom of the Opera is a 1943 Universal horror film starring Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Claude Rains, directed by Arthur Lubin, and filmed in Technicolor. The original music score was composed by Edward Ward....
and the second would have co-starred MacDonald. She filmed her two scenes for Follow the Boys
Follow the Boys
Follow the Boys , also known as Three Cheers for the Boys, is a musical film made by Universal Pictures as an all-star cast morale booster to entertain the troops abroad and the civilians at home. The film was directed by A. Edward "Eddie" Sutherland and produced by Charles K. Feldman...
then both stars severed ties with Universal, as Eddy was upset with how Phantom of the Opera turned out.
Among their later other proposed projects were East Wind
East Wind
East Wind Community is an intentional community located in the Missouri Ozarks. Founded in 1973, it is a secular and democratic community in which members hold all communities assets in common. Each member is also given food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and a monthly discretionary...
; Crescent Carnival, a book optioned
Option (films)
In the film industry, an option is a contractual agreement between a potential film producer, such as a movie studio, a production company or an individual, and a writer or third party who holds ownership of a screenplay...
by MacDonald; and The Rosary
The Rosary
The Rosary is a novel by Florence L. Barclay. It was first published in 1909 by G.P. Putnam's Sons and was a bestselling novel for many years running, reaching the number one spot in 1910. A recent edition published in 2002 has a new introduction by Sharon Rich and comments by Jeanette MacDonald...
, the 1910 best-seller—which Eddy had read as a teen and pitched to MGM as a "comeback" film for himself and MacDonald in 1948. Under the name "Isaac Ackerman" he wrote a biopic screenplay about Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, in which he was to play the lead and also a young Nelson Eddy, but it was never produced. He also wrote two movie treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
s for himself and MacDonald, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle.
Recordings
Eddy made more than 290 recordings between 1935 and 1964, singing songs from his films, plus opera, folk songs, popular songs, Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Since both he and MacDonald were under contract to RCA Victor between 1935 and 1938, this allowed several popular duets from their films. In 1938, he signed with Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, which ended MacDonald-Eddy duets until a special LP album the two made together in 1957. He also recorded duets with his other screen partner Risë Stevens (The Chocolate Soldier) and for albums with, among others, Nadine Conner
Nadine Conner
Nadine Conner was an American operatic soprano, radio singer and music teacher.She was born in Compton, California as Evelyn Nadine Henderson, and was the descendent of some of the earliest non-Hispanic settlers in California.Diagnosed as a teenager with pulmonary disease, her doctor suggested she...
, Doretta Morrow, Eleanor Steber
Eleanor Steber
Eleanor Steber was an American operatic soprano. Steber is noted as one of the first major opera stars to have achieved the highest success with training and a career based in the United States.-Biography:...
and Jo Stafford
Jo Stafford
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...
.
Eddy's recordings drew rave reviews during the 1930s and 1940s, but it is a special tribute to his vocal technique that he continued to rate them into the 1960s. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
The Los Angeles Herald Examiner was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published Monday through Friday in the afternoon, and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. The afternoon Herald-Express and the morning Examiner, both of which had been publishing in...
on October 4, 1964 noted: "Nelson Eddy continues to roll along, physically and vocally indestructible. Proof is his newest recording on the Everest
Everest Records
Everest Records was a stereophonic record label based in Bayside, Long Island started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958. It was devoted mainly to classical music.-History:...
label, ‘Of Girls I Sing’. At the age of 63 and after 42 years of professional singing, Eddy demonstrates there has not been much change in his romantic and robust baritone — the baritone that made him America's most popular singer in the early '30s".
War work
Like many performers, Eddy was active in "war work" during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, even before the United States entered the war. He did his first "war effort" concert on October 19, 1939 with Leopold Stokowski for Polish war relief. In 1942, he became an air raid warden and also put in long hours at the Hollywood Canteen
Hollywood Canteen
The Hollywood Canteen operated at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California between October 3, 1942 and November 22, 1945 as a club offering food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen, usually on their way overseas...
. In 1943, he went on a two-month, 35,000-mile tour, giving concerts for military personnel in Belém
Belém
Belém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station...
and Natal
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte
-History:The northeastern tip of South America, Cabo São Roque, to the north of Natal and the closest point to Europe from Latin America, was first visited by European navigators in 1501, in the 1501–1502 Portuguese expedition led by Amerigo Vespucci, who named the spot after the saint of the day...
, Brazil; Accra
Accra
Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...
, Gold Coast
Gold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...
; Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
; Asmara
Asmara
Asmara is the capital city and largest settlement in Eritrea, home to a population of around 579,000 people...
, Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
; Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
(where he met King Farouk); Teheran, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
; Casablanca
Casablanca
Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...
; and the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. He also broadcast for the armed forces throughout the war.
Radio and television
Eddy began his more than 600 radio appearances in the mid-1920s. The first may have been on December 26, 1924 at station WOO in Philadelphia. Besides his many guest appearances, he hosted The Voice of FirestoneThe Voice of Firestone
The Voice of Firestone, is a long-running radio and television program of classical music. The show featured leading singers in selections from opera and operetta. Originally titled The Firestone Hour, it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network December 3, 1928 and was later also shown on...
(1936), Vicks Open House (1936), The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour
The Chase and Sanborn Hour was the umbrella title for a series of US comedy and variety radio shows, sponsored by Standard Brands' Chase and Sanborn Coffee, usually airing Sundays on NBC from 8pm to 9pm during the years 1929 to 1948....
(1937–1939), and Kraft Music Hall
Kraft Music Hall
The Kraft Music Hall was a popular variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, which aired on NBC radio and television from 1933 to 1971....
(1947–1948). He had his own show on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
in 1942–1943. Eddy frequently used his radio shows to advance the careers of promising young singers. While his programs often featured "serious" music, they were never straitlaced. It was in a series of comedy routines with Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen
Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...
and Charlie McCarthy on the Chase and Sanborn Hour that Eddy's name became associated with the song "Shortnin' Bread
Shortnin' Bread
"Shortnin' Bread" is a song by James Whitcomb Riley.-History:...
", which was also included in the film Maytime.
On March 31, 1933 he performed the role of Gurnemanz in a broadcast of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's opera Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
with Rose Bampton
Rose Bampton
Rose Bampton was a celebrated American opera singer who had an active international career during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her professional career performing mostly minor roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1929 but later switched to singing primarily leading soprano roles in 1937...
, conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
. During the 1940s, he was a frequent guest on Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...
with Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
, performing radio versions of Eddy's popular films. In 1951, Eddy guest-starred on several episode
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
s of The Alan Young Show
The Alan Young Show
The Alan Young Show is an American radio and television series presented in diverse formats over a nine-year period and starring Canadian-English actor Alan Young.-Radio:...
on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
-TV. In 1952, he recorded a pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
for a sitcom, Nelson Eddy's Backyard, with Jan Clayton
Jan Clayton
Jan Clayton was a film, musical theatre, and television actress.-Career:...
, but it failed to find a network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
slot. On November 12, 1952, he surprised his former co-star Jeanette MacDonald when she was the subject of Ralph Edwards
Ralph Edwards
Ralph Livingstone Edwards was an American radio and television host and television producer.-Early career:Born in Merino, Colorado , Edwards worked for KROW-AM in Oakland, California while he was still in high school...
' This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
. On November 30, 1952, Eddy was Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
's guest on Toast of the Town.
During the next decade he guest starred on Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...
's sitcom Make Room for Daddy and on variety programs such as The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
, The Bob Hope Show, The Edgar Bergen Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour
The Colgate Comedy Hour
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show stars many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou...
, The Spike Jones Show, The Rosemary Clooney Show, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show
The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is an American variety series hosted by Dinah Shore, and broadcast on NBC from October 1956 to June 1963. The series was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors and its theme song, sung by Shore, was "See the U.S.A...
, and The Big Record with Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...
. He was a frequent guest on talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
s, including The Merv Griffin Show
The Merv Griffin Show
The Merv Griffin Show is an American television talk show, starring Merv Griffin. The series ran from October 1, 1962 to March 29, 1963 on NBC, September 20, 1965 to September 26, 1969 in first-run syndication, from August 18, 1969 to February 11, 1972 at 11:30 PM ET weeknights on CBS and again in...
and The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
with Jack Paar
Jack Paar
Jack Harold Paar was an author, American radio and television comedian and talk show host, best known for his stint as host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962...
.
On May 7, 1955, Eddy starred in Max Liebman's 90-minute, live-TV
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
version of Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...
's The Desert Song
The Desert Song
The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of...
on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
-TV. It featured Gale Sherwood
Gale Sherwood
Gale Sherwood was a Canadian singer and actress best known as the singing partner of Nelson Eddy from 1953 until his death in 1967.Sherwood was born in Hamilton, Ontario and graduated from High School in 1945....
, Metropolitan Opera bass Salvatore Baccaloni
Salvatore Baccaloni
Salvatore Baccaloni was an Italian operatic bass, often regarded as the greatest buffo artist of the 20th century.- Life and career :Baccaloni was born in Rome...
, veteran film actor Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger was an American actor who began his career in 1915. His career was most prolific during the 1930s and 1940s.-Career:...
, and the dance team of Bambi Linn
Bambi Linn
Bambi Linn is an American dancer, choreographer, and actress.Linn trained extensively with noted choreographer Agnes de Mille. At the age of seventeen, she made her Broadway debut in the original production of Oklahoma!...
and Rod Alexander.
On December 31, 1966, a few months before his death, Eddy and his nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
partner, Gale Sherwood, sang 15 songs on Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
's traditional New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
program, telecast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria is a luxury hotel in New York. It has been housed in two historic landmark buildings in New York City. The first, designed by architect Henry J. Hardenbergh, was on the Fifth Avenue site of the Empire State Building. The present building at 301 Park Avenue in Manhattan is a...
in New York City.
Nightclub act
The advent of television made inroads in the once-lucrative concert circuits, and, in the early 1950s, Eddy had to consider future career options, eventually deciding to form a nightclub act, which premiered in January 1953 with singer Gale Sherwood, his partner, and Ted Paxson, his accompanist.Variety wrote, "Nelson Eddy, vet of films, concerts, and stage, required less than one minute to put a jam-packed audience in his hip pocket in one of the most explosive openings in this city's nitery history.... Before Eddy had even started to sing, they liked him personally as a warm human being". The act continued for the next 15 years and made four tours of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Personal life
Eddy married Ann Denitz Franklin, former wife of noted director Sidney FranklinSidney Franklin (director)
Sidney Franklin was an American film director and producer. His brother Chester Franklin also became a director during the silent film era best known for helming the early Technicolor film Toll of the Sea....
, on January 19, 1939. Her son, Sidney Jr., became Eddy's stepson, but she and Nelson had no children of their own. They were married for 27 years, until Nelson's death. Ann Eddy never remarried after Nelson's death and died on August 28, 1987. She is buried next to Nelson and his mother, Isabel, in Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
.
Eddy/MacDonald romance
John Kenneth HilliardJohn Kenneth Hilliard
John Kenneth Hilliard was an American acoustical and electrical engineer who pioneered a number of important loudspeaker concepts and designs. He helped develop the practical use of recording sound for film, and won an Academy Award in 1935...
, a sound engineer backstage at MGM from 1933 to 1942, reported in 1981 that though Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald were a screen couple, they "hated each other with a vengeance". A 1979 fictionalized biography of Eddy and MacDonald, Farewell to Dreams, by Sharon Rich
Sharon Rich
Sharon Rich has written eight books and edited and written over sixty magazine articles about 1930s singing stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. She was close friends for many years with Jeanette's older sister, actress Blossom Rock...
and Diane Goodrich, and a 2001 biography, Sweethearts by Sharon Rich
Sharon Rich
Sharon Rich has written eight books and edited and written over sixty magazine articles about 1930s singing stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. She was close friends for many years with Jeanette's older sister, actress Blossom Rock...
, claims that MacDonald's marriage to Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond was an American film, television, and stage actor of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to acting, Raymond was also a composer, writer, director, producer, and decorated military pilot.-Stage and movie career:...
was engineered by studio boss Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...
to prevent Eddy from marrying MacDonald. Rich's original source for this information was reputedly Jeanette MacDonald's older sister, actress Blossom Rock
Blossom Rock
Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald , also known or credited as Blossom Rock, Blossom MacDonald or Marie Blake, was an American actress of stage and television...
. The Eddy-MacDonald romance appears again in print in The Golden Girls of MGM by Jane Ellen Wayne. In these books, it is reported that Eddy's relationship with MacDonald began in late 1933 and continued, with a few breaks, until her death in 1965. Many of Eddy's personal letters and diary entries indicating a rocky romance with MacDonald were reproduced in Sweethearts.
Death
In March 1967 Eddy was performing at the Sans Souci Hotel in Palm Beach, FloridaPalm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
when he was stricken on stage with a cerebral hemorrhage. His singing partner, Gale Sherwood, and his accompanist, Ted Paxson, were at his side. He died a few hours later in the early hours of March 6, 1967, at the age of 65. He is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
, between his mother Isabel Eddy and wife, Ann, who survived him by 20 years.
Papers
Eddy's meticulously annotated scores (some with his caricatures sketched in the margins) are now housed at Occidental CollegeOccidental College
Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...
Music Library in Los Angeles. His personal papers and scrapbooks are at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
Cinema/Television Library, also in Los Angeles.
Sources
- Barclay, Florence L., The RosaryThe RosaryThe Rosary is a novel by Florence L. Barclay. It was first published in 1909 by G.P. Putnam's Sons and was a bestselling novel for many years running, reaching the number one spot in 1910. A recent edition published in 2002 has a new introduction by Sharon Rich and comments by Jeanette MacDonald...
(with new introduction by Sharon RichSharon RichSharon Rich has written eight books and edited and written over sixty magazine articles about 1930s singing stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. She was close friends for many years with Jeanette's older sister, actress Blossom Rock...
and comments by Jeanette MacDonaldJeanette MacDonaldJeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
and Nelson Eddy), Bell Harbour Press, 2005. This 1910 #1 best seller featured two singers in a "Jane EyreJane EyreJane Eyre is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published in London, England, in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. with the title Jane Eyre. An Autobiography under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was released the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York...
" plot, and the heroine's nickname was, in fact, Jeanette. Eddy chose it as a possible film vehicle for himself and MacDonald in 1948. This edition features a new introduction with excerpts from their written correspondence of that year, in which the film project was discussed. - Eddy, Nelson, "All Stars Don't Spangle" treatment for himself and MacDonald reprinted in its entirety in Mac/Eddy TodayMac/Eddy TodayMac/Eddy Today is the collectible, glossy magazine devoted to the lives and careers of 1930s movie stars Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Published since 1977 by the Mac/Eddy Club, Mac/Eddy Today has been called "The most beautiful magazine of its kind" by Elayne Blythe, founder of the Film...
magazine, issue #50. - Kiner, Larry, Nelson Eddy: A Bio-Discography, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1992. A near-complete list of every recording and radio show of Eddy's, including song titles, photos and other important facts.
- Knowles (Dugan), Eleanor, The Films of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Booksurge LLC, 2006. 646 pages, 591 photos. Contains detailed film credits, plots, and backgrounds for the two stars' 41 films, also complete music lists for each film, biographies of the two stars, and a complete discography.
- Rich, Sharon, Sweethearts: The Timeless Love Affair Onscreen and Off Between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson EddySweethearts: The Timeless Love Affair Onscreen and Off Between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson EddySweethearts: The Timeless Love Affair Onscreen and Off Between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy is biographical book by Sharon Rich. First published in hardback in 1994 by Donald I. Fine, Inc., Sweethearts was a selection of the Entertainment Book Club. It was revised and updated in 2001, with an...
, Bell Harbour Press, 2001. 560 pages, about 100 photos, over 50 pages of documentation. A candid biography in which Eddy's graphic love letters to MacDonald are startling, but their relationship is meticulously documented at times on a near-daily basis. Using eyewitness accounts from contemporary letters, this biography provides needed insight into why Eddy made certain professional decisions in the 1940s and 1950s. - Rich, Sharon, Nelson Eddy: The Opera YearsNelson Eddy: The Opera YearsNelson Eddy: The Opera Years is a biography by Sharon Rich, with a chapter featuring Jeanette MacDonald's opera career.Before he became a movie star, Nelson Eddy was an opera star...
, Bell Harbour Press, 2001. A very comprehensive overview of Eddy's early career. This photo-filled book includes compilations of virtually every review written about him from 1922 until 1935, clippings from his personal scrapbooks with his handwritten notations, all early interviews, many rare photographs and all his operas (including some tenor and bass roles). A bonus chapter includes MacDonald's opera career (1943–45) and their operatic scenes together in the lost "ToscaToscaTosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
" Act II from the movie Maytime. There are also excerpts from an unproduced movie script written by Nelson on the life of Feodor ChaliapinFeodor ChaliapinFeodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, in which he had planned to play dual roles—Chaliapin and himself. - Lillo, Antonio. 2000. "Bees, Nelsons, and Sterling Denominations: A Brief Look at Cockney Slang and Coinage". Journal of English Linguistics 28 (2): pp. 145–172.
External links
- Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Home Page
- Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy: A Tribute
- Nelson Eddy: The Baritone
- Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy Interactive Biography
- Photographs and literature
- Nelson Eddy Sings Kingdom Songs of Jehovah's Witnesses
- Nelson Eddy singing "A Perfect Day" (composed 1910 by Carrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Jacobs-BondCarrie Minetta Jacobs-Bond was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter who composed some 175 pieces of popular sheet music from the 1890s through the early 1940s....
)