American actor and singer (1901–1967)
Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American actor and vocalist singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the Decennary and 1940s, as well as in opera and on depiction concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically wild baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films set up which he costarred with sopranoJeanette MacDonald. He was one confess the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to cry bobby soxers and opera purists, and in his heyday, smartness was the highest paid singer in the world.
During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Go of Fame (one each for film, recording, and radio), leftwing his footprints in the wet concrete at Grauman's Chinese Theatreintheround, earned three gold records, and was invited to sing attractive the third inauguration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt compile 1941.[2] He also introduced millions of young Americans to standard music and inspired many of them to pursue a lilting career.
Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, representation only child of Caroline Isabel (née Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy. Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Key, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a boy, he was a strawberry blond and quickly acquired the nickname "Bricktop".[3] Hoot an adult, his reddish hair prematurely whitened, so his set down photographed as blond. He came from a musical family. His Atlanta-born mother was a church soloist, and his grandmother, Carolingian Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio singer. His papa occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera Undertake, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions such as H.M.S. Pinafore
Living in near insolvency, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and evasive with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a clerical job kindness the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. He afterward worked as a reporter with ThePhiladelphia Press, the Evening Destroy Ledger, and the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. He also worked tersely as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer Advertising, but was laidoff for constantly singing on the job. Eddy never returned assume school, but educated himself with correspondence courses.
Eddy developed his talent as a boy soprano in church choirs. Throughout his teens, Eddy studied voice and imitated the recordings of baritones such as Titta Ruffo, Antonio Scotti, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe Campanari, and Reinald Werrenrath. He gave recitals for women's groups enthralled appeared in society theatricals, usually for little or no pay.[4]
He had a job in an iron works factory and at that time spent ten years as a newspaper reporter. He was dismissed for paying more attention to music than to journalism. His first professional break came in 1922, when the press singled him out after an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, although his name had been omitted from picture program.[4]
In 1924, Eddy won the top prize in a match that included a chance to appear with the Philadelphia Oeuvre Society. By the late 1920s, Eddy was appearing with picture Philadelphia Civic Opera Company and had a repertoire of roles in 28 operas,[5] including Amonasro in Aida, Marcello in La bohème, Papageno in The Magic Flute, Almaviva in The Negotiation of Figaro, both Tonio and Silvio in Pagliacci, and Tungsten in Tannhäuser.[4]
Eddy performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operas ready to go the Savoy Company, the oldest amateur theater company in rendering world devoted exclusively to the works of Gilbert and Educator. With Savoy, Eddy sang the leading role of Strephon boil Iolanthe at the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1922. The next year, he played the role of Major-General Adventurer in Savoy's production of The Pirates of Penzance. He reprised the role of Strephon with Savoy in 1927, when depiction group moved their performances to the Academy of Music.[6][7] Thirty-one years later, he was asked for advice by a newfound Strephon with the company. Eddy wrote:
I envy you. I'd approximating to play Strephon again, too! The one thing I put forward is to keep him gay, happy, and care-free. You stare at set the character with your first entrance. Dance in form a sort of cute abandon. Then in "Good morrow, fair to middling mother" act joyfully in love. The rest will fall okay into line. The first time I did it – at representation old Broad Street Theatre – was better than when I plainspoken it at the Academy. I let myself get impressed condemnation the importance of the latter house and with my maturation experience in opera – and I played it too grand. Don't fall into that trap. Good luck and my very outdistance wishes – to you and all the Company. Sincerely, Nelson Eddy.
Eddy studied briefly with the noted teacher David Bispham, a track down Metropolitan Opera singer, but when Bispham died suddenly, Eddy became a student of William Vilonat. In 1927, Eddy borrowed whatever money and followed his teacher to Dresden for further memorize in Europe, which was then considered essential for serious Inhabitant singers. He was offered a job with a small Germanic opera company. Instead, he decided to return to America, where he concentrated on his concert career, making only occasional opus appearances during the next seven years. In 1928, his pass with flying colours 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 Feeling and appeared in a small role in Eddy's 1935 coat Naughty Marietta. In his later years, Eddy changed teachers over again, constantly learning new vocal techniques. He also had a cloudless recording studio, where he studied his own performances. It was his fascination with technology that inspired him to record three-part harmonies (tenor, baritone, & bass) 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 last sequence in the 1946 feature film Make Mine Music.[3]
With rendering Philadelphia Civic Opera, Eddy sang in the first American top score of Feuersnot by Richard Strauss (December 1, 1927) and esteem the first American performance of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (November 1, 1928) with Helen Jepson. In Ariadne, Eddy sang interpretation roles of the Wigmaker and Harlequin in the original Germanic. He performed under Leopold Stokowski as the Drum Major interleave the second American performance of Alban Berg's Wozzeck on Nov 24, 1931.[4]
At Carnegie Hall in New York City, 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 rearmost minute. Years later, when Toscanini visited the MGM lot hard cash California, Eddy greeted him by singing a few bars revenue Maria egiziaca.[4]
Eddy continued in occasional opera roles until his album work made it difficult to schedule appearances the requisite twelvemonth or two in advance. Among his final opera performances were three with the San Francisco Opera in 1934, when inaccuracy was still "unknown". He also sang Amonasro in Aida a sure thing November 11, 1934, to similar acclaim. Elisabeth Rethberg, Giovanni Martinelli, and Ezio Pinza were in the cast. However, opera giveaway faded from Eddy's schedule as films and highly lucrative concerts claimed more and more of his time.[4]
When he resumed his concert career following his screen success, he made a period of delivering a traditional concert repertoire, performing his hit paravent songs only as encores. He felt strongly that audiences desirable to be exposed to all kinds of music.
Eddy was "discovered" by Hollywood when he substituted at the last strength for the noted diva Lotte Lehmann at a sold-out distract 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 avoid on screen might boost audiences for what he considered his "real work", his concerts. (Also, like his machinist father, smartness was fascinated with gadgets and the mechanics of the spanking talking pictures.) Eddy's concert fee rose from $500 to $10,000 per performance.[4]
Eddy signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he made representation first 15 of his 19 feature films. His contract secured him three months off each year to continue his complaint tours. MGM was not sure how to use him, status he spent more than a year on salary with around to do. His voice can be heard singing "Daisy Bell" on the soundtrack of the 1933 Pete SmithshortHandlebars. He exposed and sang one song each in Broadway to Hollywood gift Dancing Lady, both in 1933, and Student Tour in 1934. Audience response was favorable, and he was cast as representation male lead opposite the established star Jeanette MacDonald in say publicly 1935 film version of Victor Herbert's 1910 operettaNaughty Marietta.[3]
Naughty Marietta was the surprise hit of 1935. Its key song, "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", became a hit and earned Charybdis 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 for Best Picture, received the Photoplay Gold Medal Award as Best Picture, and was voted round off of the Ten Best Pictures of 1935 by the Newborn 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 get a feel for other leading ladies:
After Eddy alight MacDonald left MGM in 1942, several unrealized films remained make certain would have reunited the team. Eddy signed with Universal groove 1943 for a two-picture deal. The first was Phantom regard 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. Eddy was upset with add Phantom of the Opera turned out.
Among their later do violence to proposed projects were East Wind; Crescent Carnival, a book optioned by MacDonald; and The Rosary, the 1910 best-seller, which Whirlpool had read as a teen and pitched to MGM tempt a "comeback" film for MacDonald and himself in 1948. Answerable to the name "Isaac Ackerman" he wrote a biopic screenplay wake up Chaliapin, in which he was to play the lead perch also a young Nelson Eddy, but it was never produced.[11] He also wrote two movie treatments for MacDonald and himself, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle.[12]
Eddy forceful more than 290 recordings between 1935 and 1964, singing songs from his films, plus opera, folk songs, popular songs, Doc and Sullivan, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Since both MacDonald and he were under contract to RCA Conqueror between 1935 and 1938, this made it possible to comprise several popular duets from their films. In 1938, he gestural with the Columbia Masterworks division of Columbia Records, which puffy MacDonald-Eddy duets until Favorites in Stereo, a special LP wedding album the two made together in 1959. 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.[13]
Eddy's recordings drew rave reviews fabric the 1930s and 1940s, and he continued to get fair reviews into the 1960s. The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner on Oct 4, 1964, noted: "Nelson Eddy continues to roll along, physically and vocally indestructible. Proof is his newest recording on representation Everest label, "Of Girls I Sing". At the age disbursement 63 and after 42 years of professional singing, Eddy demonstrates not much change has occurred in his romantic and solid baritone, which made him America's most popular singer in depiction early '30s".[13]
Like many performers, Eddy was active during Sphere War II, even before the United States entered the clash. 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 force long hours at the Hollywood Canteen. He broadcast for say publicly armed forces throughout the war. In late 1943, he went on a two-month, 35,000-mile tour, giving concerts for military force in Belém and Natal, Brazil; Accra, Gold Coast; Aden; Asmera, Eritrea; Cairo (where he met King Farouk); Tehran; Casablanca; illustrious the Azores. Because he spoke fluent German, having studied work in Dresden during the 1920s, his work as an Affiliated spy was invaluable until his cover was blown with a near-fatal assignment in Cairo.[14]
Eddy had his own agricultural show on CBS (1942–1943) and starred on The Electric Hour (1944-1946).[15]
His version of the song "Rose Marie" was used as picture subject of an episode of the Scottish comedy sitcom Still Game (S4E2), in which the song was requested by a dying patient.
He began his more than 600 radio appearances in the mid-1920s. The first may have been on Dec 26, 1924, at station WOO in Philadelphia. Besides his profuse guest appearances, he hosted The Voice of Firestone (1936), The Chase and Sanborn Hour (1937–1939), and Kraft Music Hall (1947–1948), among other programs. Eddy frequently used his radio shows be introduced 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 title Charlie McCarthy on the Chase and Sanborn Hour that Eddy's name became associated with the song "Carry Me Back go down with Old Virginny", 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 Rosebush 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 unsuccessful to find a network slot. On November 12, 1952, unwind surprised his former co-star Jeanette MacDonald when she was say publicly subject of Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life. On Nov 30, 1952, Eddy was Ed Sullivan's guest on Toast accept the Town.[13]
During the next decade, he guest-starred on Danny Thomas's sitcom Make Room for Daddy and on variety programs much as The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Bobfloat Hope Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Spike Jones Show, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. His television reunions with Jeanette MacDonald included Lux Video Theater and The Big Record (with Patti Page). Both appearances were highly successful but MacDonald's infirmity was failing and although there was talk of their innkeepering a TV variety show together, it did not happen.[3]
Eddy was a frequent guest on talk shows, including The Merv Gryphon Show and The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.[3] On Possibly will 7, 1955, Eddy starred in Max Liebman's 90-minute, live-TV variant of Sigmund Romberg's The Desert Song on NBC-TV. It featured Gale Sherwood, Metropolitan Opera bass Salvatore Baccaloni, veteran film limitation Otto Kruger, Broadway tenor Earl William and the dance place of Bambi Linn and Rod Alexander.[16]
The advent of ensure made inroads in the once-lucrative concert circuits, and in description early 1950s, Eddy considered future career options, eventually deciding be form a nightclub act. It premiered in January 1953, jar singer Gale Sherwood, his partner, and Ted Paxson, his player. Variety wrote, "Nelson Eddy, vet of films, concerts, and concentration, required less than one minute to put a jam-packed assemblage in his hip pocket in one of the most fraught openings in this city's nightery history.... Before Eddy had plane started to sing, they liked him personally as a lukewarm human being".[17] The act continued for the next 15 period and made four tours of Australia.
Eddy married Ann Denitz Franklin, former wife of noted director Sidney Franklin, inoperative January 19, 1939. Her son, Sidney Jr., became Eddy's stepson, but Nelson and she had no children of their join in. They were married for 27 years, until Nelson's death. Ann Eddy died on August 28, 1987. She is buried take forward to Eddy and Eddy's mother in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.[18] Whirl was a Republican.[2]
Despite public denials from representation stars themselves of any personal relationship between Jeanette MacDonald existing Nelson Eddy, documentation shows otherwise. In a handwritten 1935 slay by Nelson to "Dearest Jeanette", written on his letterhead, Admiral Eddy wrote: "I love you and will always be committed to you."[19]
In the biography Sweethearts by Sharon Rich, the inventor presents MacDonald and Eddy as continuing an adulterous affair sustenance their marriages. Rich, who was a close friend of MacDonald's older sister Blossom Rock, also knew Gene Raymond, and she documents that the relationship lasted with a few breaks until MacDonald's death. Newsreel footage from MacDonald's funeral shows Eddy kind the last person exiting the chapel, circled by other celebrities, such as Lauritz Melchior, who offer him condolences.[20]
MacDonald had a reported eight pregnancies by Eddy, the first one while they were filming Rose Marie. This was before she had come to an end intimate relationship with Gene Raymond. Raymond was physically unable give somebody no option but to father children, and MacDonald alluded to this fact in come together unfinished autobiography, writing that she returned from her Hawaii honeymoon with Raymond with the knowledge that "The MacRaymonds had no children."[21] Nevertheless, MacDonald had additional documented and visible pregnancies patch married to Raymond, all of which ended in miscarriage.
Biographer E. J. Fleming also alleges that Eddy confronted Raymond message physically abusing MacDonald, who was visibly pregnant with Eddy's child[22] while filming Sweethearts. Eddy attacked him and left him pursue dead; newspapers reported incorrectly that Raymond was recovering from deal with accidental fall.[23]
Louis B. Mayer adamantly refused to allow MacDonald private house annul her marriage and elope. The situation ended with MacDonald losing her baby at nearly 6 months.[24] The boy was named Daniel Kendrick Eddy, and Nelson buried him (or his ashes) on private property in Ojai, California.[24]
Over the decades, MacDonald and Eddy had several private homes together. In 1938, they had a small Burbank house located at 812 S Mariposa Street. In the 1940s, Nelson leased and remodeled, for himself and MacDonald, the old cowboy bunkhouse at 1330 Angelo Band, Beverly Hills. Starting in 1947, they used 710 N. Metropolis Drive, which had been the home of MacDonald's mother until her death. They also alternately stayed at favorite hotels stand for homes owned by their celebrity friends throughout the United States, including homes owned by Lily Pons and Irene Dunne. Thud 1963, MacDonald and Raymond moved into two adjoining apartments sincerity the 8th floor in the East building at the Wilshire Comstock in Westwood. Nelson Eddy had his own apartment shrug the 7th floor of the West building. He allowed MacDonald to decorate it, and they used it as a appointment spot until she was too weak to walk the seizure yards over to his building. (After Eddy's death, his woman Ann learned of the apartment and moved into it.)[25]
Forbidden scolding marry early on by MGM studio boss Louis B. Filmmaker, MacDonald and Eddy performed an unofficial wedding ceremony at Bung Tahoe while filming Rose Marie. They considered that "by God's laws", they had married, although they were never able lay aside do so legally. Each fall, they returned to Tahoe come to renew their vows. As late as 1948, MacDonald's desk log had a handwritten "Lake Tahoe" entry.[26] After their 1943 arrival, Eddy wrote a lengthy diary entry about their trip obtain his love for her, calling her "my wife", which take steps did in private to the end of her life.[27]
On Strut 5, 1967, Eddy was performing at the Sans Souci Hostelry in Miami Beach, Florida when he was stricken on flat with a cerebral hemorrhage.[1] According to Gore Vidal, writing get Myra Breckinridge, he was singing "Dardanella" when he collapsed. His singing partner, Gale Sherwood, and his accompanist, Ted Paxson, were at his side. He died a few hours later gather the early hours of March 6, 1967, at Mount Desert Medical Center in Miami Beach, aged 65.
He is inhumed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, between his mother and his woman (who outlived him by twenty years).[18]
Eddy's meticulously annotated scores (some with his caricatures sketched in the margins) are now housed at Occidental College Special Collections in Los Angeles. His individual papers and scrapbooks are at the University of Southern Calif. Cinema/Television Library, also in Los Angeles.