Trivia of Jeanette MacDonald

 Trivia of Jeanette MacDonald (18 June 1903 - 14 January 1965)

*She was younger sister of actress Blossom Rock (Edith MacDonald) who famous as Grandmama Addams on the popular The Addams Family (1964) TV show.MacDonald never missed watching the show each week for that reason.

*In 1919, she took singing lessons with composer Wassili Leps and landed a job in the chorus of Ned Wayburn's The Demi-Tasse Revue, a musical entertainment presented between films at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway. A year later, she appeared in two musicals: Jerome Kern's Night Boat as a chorus replacement, and Irene on the road as the second female lead; future film star Irene Dunne played the title role during part of the tour.She also played in broadway Boom Boom in 1929, with her name above the title; the cast included young Archie Leach, who would later become Cary Grant.

*Famed film director Ernst Lubitsch was looking through old screen tests of Broadway performers and spotted MacDonald. He cast her as the leading lady in The Love Parade (1929), which starred Maurice Chevalier.It was a landmark of early sound films, and received a Best Picture nomination.

*She went to Europe where she met Irving Thalberg and his wife Norma Shearer (whom she loaned both her hairdresser and chauffeur). She got the lead in Thalberg's property The Merry Widow (1934).This was the only film teaming Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in which they never sang together.Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier did not get along on this film. He called her a "prude" and she called him "a bottom pincher".Their relationship had been deteriorating for some time, and this was the last film they appeared in together after The Love Parade (1929) and Love Me Tonight (1932).

*Naughty Marietta (1935) was the first of eight movies that Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy made together, as "America's Singing Sweethearts."Jeanette and Nelson got to sing their first duet which was Ah Sweet Mystery of Life. A really fabulous melody and lyric from a golden age of song writing.

*While co-starring with MacDonald in San Francisco (1936), Clark Gable told co-workers that Jeanette was "such a holier-than-thou pain in the ass" that he used to deliberately order raw onions with his lunch whenever he knew they'd be shooting kissing scenes because she had repeatedly complained about his breath. Gable objected to her singing at him, and would eat garlic before their kissing scenes just to annoy her.They did not get along at all during filming, and avoided each other completely off the set.

*Jeanette MacDonald and actor Gene Raymond were married from 1937 until her death in 1965. "Smilin' Through (1941) was their only film together. Every year after her death in 1965, he attended the Jeanette MacDonald International Fan Club convention in Los Angeles. He shared stories with her fans and friends, a thing he once said he would do "'till Jeanette and I are together again."