Louis B. Mayer
Mayer in 1953
Born	Lazar Meir (1884-07-12)July 12, 1884 Minsk, Russian Empire
Died	October 29, 1957(1957-10-29) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Film producer Studio executive
Years active	1915–1950
Spouse	Margaret Shenberg (m.1904-1947; divorced) Lorena Danker (m.1948-1957; his death)

Louis Burt Mayer (July 12, 1884^[1] – October 29, 1957) born Lazar Meir (Russian: Лазарь Меир) was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its golden years. Known always as Louis B. Mayer and often simply as "L.B.", he believed in wholesome entertainment and went to great lengths so that MGM had "more stars than there are in the heavens".

Early life[link]

He was born Lazar Meir, possibly on July 12, 1884, to a Jewish family in Minsk, Russian Empire.^[1][2] His parents were Jacob Meir and Sarah Meltzer and he had two sisters—Yetta, born in 1878, and Ida, born in 1883. Mayer first moved with his family to Rhode Island, where they lived from 1887 to 1892 and where his two brothers were born—Rubin, in April 1888,^[3] and Jeremiah, in April 1891.^[4] Then, they moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and Mayer attended school there. He and his brothers often faced anti-Semitic bullies and Mayer was constantly involved in fights.^[5] His father started a scrap metal business, J. Mayer & Son. In 1904, the 19-year-old Mayer left Saint John for Boston, where he continued for a time in the scrap metal business, married, and took a variety of odd jobs to support his family when his junk business lagged.

Early career[link]

Mayer renovated the Gem Theater, a rundown, 600 seat burlesque house in Haverhill, Massachusetts,^[6] which he reopened on November 28, 1907 as the Orpheum, his first movie theater. To overcome the unfavorable reputation that the building once had in the community, Mayer decided to debut with the showing of a religious film. Years later, Mayer would say that the premiere at the Orpheum was From the Manger to the Cross,^[7] although most sources place the release date of that film as 1912.^[8] Within a few years, he owned all five of Haverhill's theaters, and, with Nathan H. Gordon, created the Gordon-Mayer partnership that controlled the largest theater chain in New England.^[9]

In 1914, the partners organized their own film distribution agency in Boston. Mayer paid D.W. Griffith $25,000 for the exclusive rights to show The Birth of a Nation (1915) in New England. Although Mayer made the bid on a film that one of his scouts had seen, but he had not, his decision netted him over $100,000.^[10] Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland in 1916 to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City.

Two years later, Mayer moved to Los Angeles and formed his own production company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. The first production was 1918's Virtuous Wives.^[11] A partnership was set up with B. P. Schulberg to make the Mayer-Schulberg Studio. Mayer's big breakthrough, however, was in April 1924 when Marcus Loew, owner of the Loew's chain, merged Metro Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn's Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Mayer Pictures into Metro-Goldwyn. Loew had bought Metro and Goldwyn some months before, but could not find anyone to oversee his new holdings on the West Coast. Mayer, with his proven success as a producer, was an obvious choice. He was named head of studio operations and a Loew's vice president, based in Los Angeles, reporting to Loew's longtime right-hand man Nicholas Schenck. He would hold this post for the next 27 years. Before the year was out, Mayer added his name to the studio with Loew's blessing, renaming it Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Loew died in 1927, and Schenck became president of Loew's. Mayer and Schenck hated each other intensely; Mayer reportedly referred to his boss, whose name was pronounced "Skenk," as "Mr. Skunk" in private.^[12] Two years later, Schenck agreed to sell Loew's — and MGM — to William Fox, which angered Mayer. But despite his important role in MGM, Mayer was not a shareholder, and had no standing to challenge the sale. So he instead used his Washington connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay the merger on antitrust grounds. During the summer of 1929, Fox was severely injured in an auto accident. By the time he recovered, the stock market crash had wiped out his fortune, destroying any chance of the deal going through even if the Justice Department had lifted its objections. Nonetheless, Schenck believed Mayer had cost him a fortune and never forgave him, causing an already frigid relationship to get even worse.

MGM boss[link]

With Joan Crawford at the premiere of Torch Song (1953)

As a studio boss, Louis B. Mayer built MGM into the most financially successful motion picture studio in the world and the only one to pay dividends throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although he initially got along well with production chief Irving Thalberg, their relationship soon frayed over philosophical differences. Thalberg preferred literary works over the crowd-pleasers Mayer wanted. He ousted Thalberg as production chief in 1932 while Thalberg was recovering from a heart attack and replaced him with independent producers, e.g. David Selznick, until Thalberg's death in 1936, when Mayer became head of production as well as studio chief. He became the first person in American history to earn a million-dollar salary. For nine years from 1937, when he earned $1,300,000—equivalent to $21,016,667 today^[13]—Mayer was the highest-paid man in the United States.^[14]

Under Mayer, MGM produced many successful films with high earning stars, including Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland and many others. Mayer was ruthless when negotiating to keep his actors' salaries low, even using blackmail to pay Gable below his worth,^[15] although Katharine Hepburn referred to him as a "nice man" and claimed she personally negotiated many of her contracts with Mayer. Elizabeth Taylor described Mayer as a monster,^[16] but other actors, such as Robert Taylor,^[15] Jane Powell,^[17] Greer Garson,^[18] and Hedy Lamarr,^[19] viewed him as a father figure.

Later years and fall from power[link]

By 1948, due to the introduction of television and changing public tastes, MGM suffered a considerable dropoff in its success. The glory days of MGM as well as other studios were also over because of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948), a Supreme Court decision that severed the connection between film studios and the movie theater chains that showed their films (though it would be another six years before Loew's sold majority control of MGM).

Under orders to control costs and hire "a new Thalberg," Mayer hired writer and producer Dore Schary as production chief. Schary, who was 20 years Mayer's junior, preferred message pictures in contrast with Mayer's taste for "wholesome" films.

By 1951, MGM had gone three years without a major Academy Award, which provoked further conflict between Mayer and Schenck. Believing that Mayer could not turn the tide, Schenck fired Mayer from the post he had held for 27 years, replacing him with Schary. The firing reportedly came after Mayer called New York and issued an ultimatum--"It's him or me" (or "It's either me or Schary", depending on the source). Mayer tried to stage a boardroom coup but failed and largely retired from public life.

Personal life[link]

Mayer had two daughters from his first marriage to Margaret Shenberg. The eldest, Edith (Edie) Mayer (b. August 14, 1905 - d.1987), whom he would later become estranged from and disinherit, married producer William Goetz (who became president of Universal Pictures). The younger daughter, Irene Gladys Mayer (1907–1990), married producer David O. Selznick.

Mayer lived on Saint Cloud Road in the East Gate Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California.^[20]

Active in Republican Party politics, Mayer served as the vice chairman of the California Republican Party from 1931 to 1932, and as its state chairman between 1932 and 1933.

As a delegate to the 1928 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Louis B. Mayer supported Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Mayer became friends with Joseph R. Knowland, Marshall Hale, and James Rolph, Jr. Joseph Schenck was an alternate delegate at the convention. L.B. was a delegate to the 1932 Republican National Convention with fellow California Republicans Joseph R. Knowland, James Rolph, Jr. and Earl Warren. Mayer endorsed the second term of President Herbert Hoover.

Mayer also loved boats and racehorses, and owned a number of each.

Thoroughbred horse racing hobby[link]

Mayer owned or bred a number of successful thoroughbred racehorses at his 504-acre (2.0 km²) ranch in Perris, California, 72 miles (116 km) east of Los Angeles.

In the 2005 biography, Lion of Hollywood, author Scott Eyman wrote that: "Mayer built one of the finest racing stables in the United States" and that he "almost single-handedly raised the standards of the California racing business to a point where the Eastern thoroughbred establishment had to pay attention." Among his horses was Your Host, sire of Kelso, the 1945 U.S. Horse of the Year, Busher, and the 1959 Preakness Stakes winner, Royal Orbit. Eventually Mayer sold off the stable, partly to finance his divorce in 1947. His 248 horses brought more than $4.4 million. In 1976, Thoroughbred of California magazine named him "California Breeder of the Century".

Death and legacy[link]

Louis B. Mayer died of leukemia on October 29, 1957.^[21] He was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. His sister, Ida Mayer Cummings, and brothers Jerry and Rubin are also interred there.

• The primary screening facility for Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television—the Mayer Theatre—is named after him. Mayer permitted the university's sports teams to use the MGM lion as their mascot.^[22]
• The main theatre at Santa Clara University bears his name.
• Mayer was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1990.
• A street in Laval, Quebec a suburb of Montreal, Quebec holds the name of Louis-B-Mayer.
• The Louis B. Mayer Research Laboratories building at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute opened in 1988.
• Former MGM Studio Lot in Culver City, is now Sony Pictures Studios.

Mayer has been portrayed numerous times in film and television including:

• Mommie Dearest (by Howard Da Silva)
• RKO 281 (by David Suchet)
• De-Lovely (by Peter Polycarpou)
• The Aviator (by Stanley DeSantis)
• The Last Tycoon (by Robert Mitchum)
• Barton Fink (by Michael Lerner as Jack Lipnick)
• Hollywoodland
• Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (by Al Waxman)
• Cats Don't Dance (by George Kennedy as the voice of L.B. Mammoth)
• Harlow (by Jack Kruschen)
• Gable and Lombard (by Allen Garfield)
• The Big Knife
• The Scarlet O'Hara War (by Harold Gould)
• The Three Stooges(2000) (by David Baldwin)

Jacqueline Susann portrayed Mayer in Valley of the Dolls as Cyril H. Bean, referred to by his employees as "The Head".

Mayer has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.^[23]

See also[link]

• Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
• Selig Polyscope Company

Notes and References[link]

Bibliographic References[link]

• Eyman, Scott, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer (Simon & Schuster, 2005) ISBN 0-7432-0481-6
• Charles Highman, Louis B. Mayer MGM and the Secret Hollywood (Pan Books, 1993) ISBN 0-330-33314-3
• Gabler, Neal (1988). An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Crown. ISBN 0-385-26557-3. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Louis B. Mayer

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Louis B. Mayer

• Time Magazine, LOUIS B. MAYER: Lion Of Hollywood
• Louis B. Mayer at the Internet Movie Database
• Louis B. Mayer at Find a Grave

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)

Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson (known professionally as Susanna Foster) (December 6, 1924^[1] – January 17, 2009^[2]) was an American film actress best known for her leading role as Christine in the 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Early life[link]

Foster was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[3] She was taken to Hollywood at the age of twelve by MGM, who sent her to school and groomed her for an acting and singing career. Two of her classmates at this school were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. She claimed the high point of being at MGM was meeting her idol Jeanette MacDonald and Clark Gable, who treated her like "the Queen of England."^[4] Foster was originally slated to star in the MGM production of B Above High C, a film that was never made. The movie's title referred to the top of her vocal register.^[5] MGM offered her the lead in National Velvet, which she declined because there "wasn't any singing in it".^{[citation needed]} This in part, led to MGM dropping her. It later would become Elizabeth Taylor's breakthrough role.

Career[link]

After hiring agent Milo Marchetti, Foster was signed by Paramount Pictures where she began to study voice for the first time with Marchetti's sister Gilda. She soon would go on to make her first film at fourteen years of age where she was introduced as 'Susanna Foster' in The Great Victor Herbert (1939) opposite Mary Martin and Allan Jones.^[5]

After seeing Foster in The Great Victor Herbert, William Randolph Hearst flew her to his 67,000-acre (270 km²) estate Wyntoon for a private recital for him and Marion Davies. The following year for Paramount she appeared in There's Magic in Music opposite Allan Jones and Glamour Boy opposite Jackie Cooper. She then signed with Universal Studios, where she portrayed the ingénue in the 1943 film version of the Gothic melodrama Phantom of the Opera opposite Nelson Eddy and Claude Rains. The film garnered two Academy Awards and was Universal's biggest money-maker that year. Hearst columnist Louella Parsons, who had the power and reputation to make or break stars, stated, “Susanna Foster establishes herself as one of the great stars of today.” She became so popular the studio set her on a meteoric rise with back-to-back pictures during the years 1943 to 1945, including Star Spangled Rhythm, Top Man, This Is the Life, The Climax, Bowery to Broadway, Frisco Sal, and That Night With You.

Despite the meteoric rise that delivered a wondrous prosperity to her poverty-stricken family and a dozen movies for Universal and Paramount on her resume, she abruptly quit the film business in 1945. She also turned down a joint concert tour with Nelson Eddy, which she later regretted.^[4]

She soon would attempt to rescue her two younger teenage sisters by selling her mink coat and renting the home of actress Jean Arthur, who was living in Monterey, California at the time. Desperate to hold onto its star, Universal sought to make her dream of grand opera come true, financing a six-month tour of a post war Europe in 1946 with Dusolina Giannini.

On her return from Europe, she was pressed by Universal to appear as guest soloist for the White House Press Photographer’s Ball with President Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance. After the performance, Truman and Roosevelt praised Foster with their turn at the microphone. She shared the table with Roosevelt, Truman, and his daughter Margaret. With Margaret being only ten months Foster’s senior and an aspiring singer herself, she was thrilled to meet the musical guest.

Back in New York, she accepted the lead role in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s production of Naughty Marietta headed by Rodgers and Hammerstein associate Edwin Lester. In 1948 she married her leading man Wilbur "Wib" Evans, a renowned baritone 20 years her senior.^[6] The couple performed in operettas and stage musicals, touring extensively. After a debilitating and tragic miscarriage, their first son Michael was born 8 weeks premature in December 1950.

Evans was soon chosen as Mary Martin’s co-star in London’s South Pacific,^[7] the show that gave Sean Connery his start as a dancing and singing sailor.^[8] During the London engagement is when their second son was born, brought into the world by Queen Elizabeth’s doctor, John Peel, who also attended in the births of others to the Royal family, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Philip was named in honor of the Queen’s husband Prince Philip.^[9]

Later life[link]

Foster did make several attempts at a comeback. In 1962, Arthur Lubin, the director of her hit film Phantom of the Opera offered her several spots on TV shows at the time including Mr. Ed of which he was producer. One of the stipulations was that she would have to relocate to Los Angeles with her two boys. Evans reportedly became enraged, immediately taking Foster to court suing for custody of the two boys. It was a public fight with articles in many of the New York and Philadelphia papers, with one headline declaring "Wilbur Evans Calls Ex-Wife Beatnik."

Evans lost the custody suit but was successful in keeping his ex-wife from living further than "100 miles of Columbus Circle" in New York City. Ironically, Evans would soon withhold payments for rent, alimony and child support, disappearing from the lives of his two boys. Soon, Foster and her two boys Michael and Philip were evicted and lived for a time in several hotels on the upper west side of Manhattan. Foster found work as a receptionist for several Wall Street firms and an answering service operator. She would often work 80 hours a week trying to make a home for her two boys. For the bulk of this time they lived in a small one bedroom apartment on West 82nd street in New York City. This was when the boys became "latchkey kids" and "things went terribly down hill from there" as Foster would later tell a reporter.

In 1985 Philip lapsed into hepatic coma (liver failure) on Foster's living room floor and died three days later in the Van Nuys Hospital. Her surviving son, Michael, brought her back to the East Coast, where she spent the last five years of her life living at the Lillian Booth Actors Home.^[4]

Death[link]

Susanna Foster died unexpectedly at 5:30 a.m. EST on January 17, 2009(2009-01-17) (aged 84). She had been residing at The Lillian Booth Actor's Home in Englewood, New Jersey since 2003.^[2]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Susanna Foster at the Internet Movie Database
• The Susanna Foster Chronicles, the story of Susanna Foster and her family as blogged by her son Michael David Evans
• Susanna Foster at the CinéArtistes (French)
• Susanna Foster at Find a Grave

Scott Eyman (born March 2, 1951) is an American author and book editor of the Palm Beach Post and contributor for The New York Observer. His books specialize in the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is the author of Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille, (2010), Louis B. Mayer: Lion of Hollywood (Simon and Schuster, 2005), Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (2001), Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise (2000), and The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 (1997).

Robert Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with Eyman, was published on 23 September 2008.

External links[link]

• Articles for The New York Observer
• Book review: 'Empire of Dreams' by Scott Eyman, Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2010
• Review of "Empire of Dreams," Scott Eyman's biography of Cecil B. DeMille, The Washington Post, October 24, 2010
• Scott Eyman at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography, Scott Eyman website

This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Discussion about the problems with the sole source used may be found on the talk page. (February 2012)

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2012)

James Sayers (or Sayer) (1748 - April 20, 1823) was an English caricaturist.

He was born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the son of a merchant captain. He began as clerk in an attorney's office, and was for a time a member of the borough council. In 1780 his father's death provided him with a small fortune, and he went to London. As a political caricaturist he supported William Pitt the Younger. His plate of "Carlo Khan's triumphal entry into Leadenhall Street" was admitted by Charles James Fox, against whom it was directed, to have damaged his public image. Sayer was always at his best when attacking Fox, whose strong features he portrayed with remarkable power, always so as to make them convey expressions of defiant impudence or anger. Pitt, not known as a patron of the arts, provided Sayer with a place as marshal of the Exchequer court. He died in Curzon Street, Mayfair.

Sayer's "Carlo Khan" has been frequently reproduced. But he can only be judged with confidence after examining the collection in the British Museum, or other public libraries. His drawings, made originally with pencil on oil paper, were etched for him by the Brethertons. They were then sold in collections of the size of a large octavo copybook, under such titles as Illustrious Heads (1794) or Outlines of the Opposition (1795). Sayer left a complete gallery of small full-length pictures of the public men of his time, slightly caricatured. In his large plates he is inferior to James Gillray, and he never has the grace of Thomas Rowlandson, but he was closer to the truth than either.

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (March 2010)

Nelson Eddy
from the film Sweethearts (1938)
Born	Nelson Ackerman Eddy (1901-06-29)June 29, 1901 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Died	March 6, 1967(1967-03-06) (aged 65) Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Cause of death	Cerebral hemorrage
Resting place	Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Occupation	Baritone, film star
Spouse	Ann Denitz Franklin (1939–1967)

Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) 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.^[1]

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.

Early life[link]

Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Singing[link]

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 Ruffo, Antonio Scotti, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe Campanari, and Reinald 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."^{[citation needed]} 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.

Hollywood[link]

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, 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 films. 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:

• "A new star emerged on the Capitol screen." - New York Daily News.^{[citation needed]}

• "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.^{[citation needed]}

• "Eddy is a brilliant baritone, masculine, engaging and good looking." - Richard Watts, Jr., in the New York Herald.^{[citation needed]}

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, 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 Romberg brought Eddy another Gold Record. The New York Times 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".^{[citation needed]}
• The Girl of the Golden West (1938) had an original score by Sigmund Romberg and reused the David Belasco stage plot also employed by Giacomo Puccini for La Fanciulla del West.

Eddy and MacDonald from the trailer for Sweethearts (1938)

• Sweethearts, 1938, was MGM's first three-strip Technicolor feature, incorporating Victor Herbert's 1913 stage score into a modern script by Dorothy Parker. It won the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture of the Year.

• New Moon, 1940, based on Sigmund Romberg'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 Time. His key songs were "Lover, Come Back to Me", "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise", "Wanting You", and "Stout Hearted Men".

• Bitter Sweet, 1940, was a Technicolor film version of Noël Coward's 1929 operetta. The love theme was "I'll See You Again." Eddy played 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 and 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, 1939, with Virginia Bruce, was a Western. Eddy 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, was 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. Eddy 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 seven-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 co-starred 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, co-starred 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 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 treatments for himself and MacDonald, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle.^{[citation needed]}

Recordings[link]

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 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".^{[citation needed]}

War work[link]

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 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.

Radio and television[link]

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 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 episodes 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 shows, 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.^[2]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Nightclub act[link]

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".^{[citation needed]} The act continued for the next 15 years and made four tours of Australia.

Personal life[link]

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 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.

Eddy/MacDonald romance[link]

John Kenneth Hilliard, 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".^[3][4] 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.^{[citation needed]}

Death[link]

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, 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.

Papers[link]

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.

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Barclay, Florence L., The Rosary (with new introduction by Sharon Rich and 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. 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 Today 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 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 MacDonald's opera career (1943–45) and their operatic scenes together in the lost "Tosca" Act II from the movie Maytime. There are also 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.
• 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[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nelson Eddy

• Nelson Eddy at the Internet Movie Database
• 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-Bond)
• Nelson Eddy at Find a Grave