Nelson Eddy
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Nelson Ackerman Eddy (born June 29, 1901; died March 6, 1967) was an American singer 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. Although he was a classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the 8 films in which he costarred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald, especially for his role as the Mountie who sings "Indian Love Call" to her in Rose Marie.
Long before screaming fans mobbed Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, or the latest hip-hop stars, a tall, blond opera singer named Nelson Eddy inspired similar public frenzy in film fans of the 1930s. He had the good fortune to arrive on screen at exactly the moment when popular tastes and the restrictive Production Code were changing the ideal screen hero. International seducers and gangster anti-heroes were losing their charm. The tall, blond New Englander presented something brand new: an all-American gentleman — brave, open, trustworthy, idealistic, and with a gentle sense of humor—all the qualities that female audiences valued and that male audiences wanted to see in themselves. Hollywood was smart enough to let him play variations of himself on screen while he delivered splendid renditions of everything from opera to folk songs.
During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for film, recording, and radio), planted 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.
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[edit] Family Background
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of William Darius Eddy and Isabel Kendrick 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 Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio singer. His ancestry on his mother’s side of the family was Russian Jewish, while he was pure New England English on his father’s side. His father, William Darius Eddy, occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions like H.M.S. Pinafore.
Eddy's parents divorced when he was fourteen. The teenager moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. Eddy's uncle got the teenager a clerical job at the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. But the restless, ambitious boy soon found work 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 let go for constantly singing on the job.
[edit] Early Singing Background
Throughout his teens, Nelson was singing and studying voice at every opportunity and imitating recordings of great baritones like Titta Ruffo, Scotti, Amato, Campanari, and Werrenrath. He followed the track of many young singers, doing free and low-paying recitals for women's groups and appearing in the then-popular society theatricals.
His first professional break came in 1922 when he was singled out by the press for an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, although his name had been omitted from the program.
In 1924, Nelson won 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 Nelson's career and gave him "serious coaching." (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, Nelson was appearing with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company and had a repertoire of 28 operas, including Amonasro in Aida, Marcello in La Bohême, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, both Tonio and Sylvio in I 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 at the Broad Street Theatre.
Nelson 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, Nelson 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 7 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 performance. It was his fascination with technology that inspired him to record 3-part harmonies (soprano, tenor, baritone) for his role as a multiple-voiced singing whale in the animated Walt Disney feature, "The Whale that Sang 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 (12/1/27) and in the first American performance of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (11/1/28) with Helen Jepson. In Ariadne, Eddy sang the roles of the Wigmaker and Harlekin in the original German. He performed under Leopold Stokowski as the Drum Major in the second American performance of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck on 11/24/31.
At Carnegie Hall in New York, Christmas 1931, he sang in the world premiere of Maria Igiziaca (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 Igiziaca.
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 12/8/34 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 11/11/34 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 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. Film fans who came to hear “Will You Remember” and “Stout Hearted Men” left with Mozart, Verdi, and Wagner ringing in their ears, many becoming new audiences for “classical,” music and countless young people were inspired to seek careers in serious music.
[edit] Hollywood
In 1933, the tall, blond Eddy was "discovered" by Hollywood when he substituted at the last minute for the noted diva, Lotte Lehmann, at a sold-out concert in Los Angeles on February 28. He scored a professional triumph with 18 curtain calls. 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 was right about the power of films: his concert fee soon 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 films. His contract guaranteed him 3 months off each year to continue his concert tours. However, 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 1933, and Student Tour, 1934. Audience response was apparently favorable, because 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:
- “A new star emerged on the Capitol screen.” -New York Daily News.
- “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 in the New York Herald.
Besides Naughty Marietta, Eddy appeared in seven more MGM films with Jeanette MacDonald:
Rose Marie, 1936, is probably his most-remembered film. Eddy sang “Song of the Mounties” and “Indian Love Call” by Rudolf Friml. His definitive portrayal of the steadfast Mountie became a popular icon, frequently spoofed in cartoons and TV skits, and even generating travesties on stage (Little Mary Sunshine, 1959) and film (Dudley Do-Right, 1999). When the Mounties retired their classic red jackets and hat in 1970, 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 Romberg brought Eddy another Gold Record. The New York Times thought Maytime “the most entrancing operetta the screen has given us….it affirms Nelson Eddy's preeminence among the baritones of filmdom.”
The Girl of the Golden West, 1938, had an original score by Sigmund Romberg and reused the David Belasco stage plot also employed by opera composer Giacomo Puccini for La Fanciulla del West.
Sweethearts, 1938, was MGM’s first 3-strip Technicolor feature, incorporating Victor Herbert’s 1913 stage score into a modern script by Dorothy Parker. A delightful comedy, it won the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture of the Year.
New Moon, 1940. Sigmund Romberg’s 1927 Broadway hit became one of Eddy’s most popular films. His key songs were “Lover Come Back to Me,” “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,” “Wanting You,” and another rousing march, “Stout Hearted Men,” often associated with him.
Bitter Sweet, 1940, was a Technicolor film version of Noël Coward’s 1929 stage operetta. The love theme was “I’ll See You Again.” Eddy plays a Viennese singing teacher who elopes with his pretty English pupil and takes her to live in Vienna.
I Married an Angel, 1942, adapted from the Rodgers & Hart stage musical about an angel who loses her wings on her wedding night, suffered from censorship problems. Eddy sang “Spring Is Here” and the title song.
Nelson Eddy also starred in films with other leading ladies:
Rosalie, 1937, with Eleanor Powell, offered a score by Cole Porter. 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, 1937, with Virginia Bruce, was a western. Nelson got to beat up rugged Oscar winner Victor McLaglen and preserve freedom and the American Way from bad guys, a popular theme just before World War II.
Balalaika, 1939, with Ilona Massey, based on the 1936 English operetta by George Posford and Bernard Grün. Eddy is a prince in disguise, in love with a commoner during the Russian Revolution. The title song became one of his standards.
The Chocolate Soldier, 1941, with Metropolitan Opera star Risë Stevens, was a stylish musical adaptation of Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman. He played a dual role and turned in one of his best performances.
Phantom of the Opera, 1943, was Eddy’s first film after he left MGM at the end of his 7-year contract. This lavish Technicolor musical also starred Claude Rains as the Phantom and Susanna Foster as Christine.
Knickerbocker Holiday, 1944, was based on the popular stage musical by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson. It costarred Charles Coburn (singing the classic “September Song”) and Constance Dowling.
Make Mine Music, 1946, was a Walt Disney animated feature compilation. Eddy provided all the singing and speaking voices for the touching final segment, “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met,” later released as a short, Willie, the Operatic Whale, by RKO 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, costarred Ilona Massey. Rudolf Friml provided the songs for a story of Fort Ross, 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 Nelson Eddy and Jeanette 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 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, The Rosary, the 1910 best seller--which Eddy had read as a teen and pitched to MGM as a "comeback" film for himself and Jeanette in 1948. Under the name "Issac 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 treatments for himself and Jeanette, "Timothy Waits for Love" and "All Stars Don't Spangle." In 1954 Eddy pulled out yet another proposed team film to be made in England when he learned MacDonald was investing her own funds. He had invested in 1944's Knickerbocker Holiday, had lost money.
[edit] Recordings
Eddy made more than 290 recordings between 1935 and 1964, singing songs from his films, plus opera, folk songs, popular songs, Gilbert and Sullivan, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Since both he and screen partner Jeanette 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 Nadine Conner, Virginia Haskins, Doretta Morrow, Gale Sherwood, 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 10/4/64 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.”
[edit] War Work
Like many performers, Eddy was active in “war work” during World War II, even before the United States entered the war. He did his first "war effort" concert on 10/19/39 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 Belem, Brazil; Natal; Accra, Gold Coast; Central Africa; Aden; Asmara, Eritrea; Cairo (where he met King Farouk); Teheran, Persia (now Iran); Casablanca; and the Azores. He also broadcast for the armed forces throughout the war.
[edit] Marriage
Eddy married Ann Denitz Franklin, former wife of noted director Sidney Franklin, on January 19, 1939. Her son, Sidney Jr, became Eddy's stepson, but they had no children of their own. They were married for 27 years, until his 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 2001 biography about Eddy and MacDonald, 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 Jeanette MacDonald's older sister Blossom Rock. The Eddy-MacDonald romance has been now verified in other books such as The Golden Girls of MGM by Jane Ellen Wayne. Eddy's relationship with MacDonald began in late 1933 and continued, with a few breaks, until her death in 1965. Many of his personal letters and diary entries are reproduced in Sweethearts, providing insight into his character and disproving some critics' claims that he was emotionally "wooden." Of particular interest is the influence his personal relationship with MacDonald had on his professional career.
[edit] Radio & 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 Firestone (1936), Vicks Open House (1936), The Chase & 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 straight-laced. It was in a series of comedy routines with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the Chase & Sanborn Hour that Nelson's name became associated with the song "Shortnin' Bread.”
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 Theatre with Cecil B. DeMille, performing radio versions of Eddy’s popular films.
In 1951, Eddy guest-starred on several episodes of The Alan Young Show on CBS-TV. In 1952, he taped a pilot for a sitcom, Nelson Eddy's Backyard, with Jan Clayton, but it failed to find a network slot. On 12 November 1952, he surprised his former costar Jeanette MacDonald when she was the subject of Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life. On 30 November 1952, he was Ed Sullivan's guest on Toast of the Town.
During the next decade he guested on Danny Thomas's sitcom Make Room for Daddy, and on variety programs such as The Bob Hope Show, The Edgar Bergen Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Spike Jones Show, The Rosemary Clooney Show, The Dinah Shore Show, and The Big Record with Patti Page. He was a frequent guest on talk shows, including The Merv Griffin Show and The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
On 7 May 1955, Eddy, in splendid voice, 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 Lynn and Rod Alexander.
On December 31, 1966, a few months before his death, Nelson 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.
[edit] 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. He made an astonishing choice, to form a nightclub act. It premiered in January 1953 with singer Gale Sherwood as his partner and Ted Paxson as 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, including 4 tours of Australia.
[edit] Finale
Eddy visibly aged after the death of Jeanette MacDonald in January 1965. He had told Jack Parr on "The Tonight Show" that "I love her," and he broke down when interviewed after her death. According to Bob Hunter, Eddy's accompanist during his final Australian tour, Eddy sang a special song to MacDonald in every performance of his nightclub act.
In March 1967, Eddy was performing at the Sans Souci Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, when he was stricken on stage with a cerebral hemorrhage. His singing partner of 14 years, Gale Sherwood, and his accompanist of 37 years, Ted Paxson, were at his side. He died a few hours later in the early hours of March 6th. He is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, next to his wife, Ann, who survived him by 20 years.
Eddy’s meticulously annotated scores (some with his caricatures sketched in the margins) are now housed at Occidental College Music Library in Los Angeles. His personal papers and scrapbooks are at the University of Southern California Cinema/Television Library, also in Los Angeles.
[edit] References
- Eddy, Nelson, "All Stars Don't Spangle" treatment reprinted in its entirety in Mac/Eddy Today magazine, issue #50.
- Barclay, Florence L. The Rosary, new introduction by Sharon Rich, comments by Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Bell Harbour Press, 2005. This 1910 #1 best seller featured two singers in a "Jane Eyre" plot, and the heroine's nickname was, in fact, Jeanette. Eddy chose it as a possible film vehicle for himself and MacDonald in 1948.
- Kiner, Larry, Nelson Eddy: A Bio-Discography, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ, 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 Eddy, 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 Years, 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 Jeanette MacDonald's opera career (1943-45) and their operatic scenes together in the lost "Tosca" Act II from Maytime. Also, there are excerpts from an unproduced movie script written by Nelson on the life of Feodor Chaliapin, in which he had planned to play dual roles--Chaliapin and himself.
