Jeanette MacDonald

Jeanette Anna MacDonald (June 18, 1903 – January 14, 1965) was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow and One Hour With You) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime).

MacDonald was born Jeannette Anna McDonald on June 18, 1903, at her family's Philadelphia home at 5123 Arch Street.

In November 1919, MacDonald joined her older sister Blossom in New York.

She took singing lessons with 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.

In 1920, 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, and Helen Shipman played the title role during the other part of the tour.

In 1921, MacDonald played in Tangerine as one of the "Six Wives."

In 1922, she was a featured singer in the Greenwich Village revue Fantastic Fricassee, for which good press notices brought her a role in The Magic Ring the next year.

MacDonald played the second female lead in this long-running musical which starred Mitzi Hajos.

In 1925, MacDonald again had the second female lead opposite Queenie Smith in Tip Toes, a George Gershwin hit show.

The following year, 1926, found MacDonald still in a second female lead in Bubblin' Over, a musical version of Brewster's Millions.

She finally landed a starring role in Yes, Yes, Yvette in 1927.

Planned as a sequel to producer H.H. Frazee's No, No, Nanette, the show toured extensively, but failed to please the critics when it arrived on Broadway.

MacDonald also played the lead in her next two plays: Sunny Days in 1928 in her first show for the producers Lee and J.J. Shubert, for which she received rave reviews; and Angela (1928), which the critics panned.

Her last play was Boom Boom in 1929, with her name above the title; the cast included young Archie Leach, who would later become Cary Grant.

While MacDonald was appearing in Angela, film star Richard Dix spotted her and had her screen-tested for his film Nothing but the Truth.

The Shuberts, however, would not let her out of her contract to appear in the film, which starred Dix and Helen Kane (the "Boop-boop-a-doop girl").

In 1929, 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, his first sound film, which starred Maurice Chevalier.

In the first rush of sound films during 1929 and 1930, MacDonald starred in six films—the first four for Paramount Studios.

Her first, The Love Parade (1929), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Maurice Chevalier, was a landmark of early sound films, and received a Best Picture nomination.

MacDonald's first recordings for RCA Victor were two hits from the score: "Dream Lover" and "March of the Grenadiers."

During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour with You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records.

She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television.

MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to film-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers.

The Vagabond King (1930) was a lavish two-strip Technicolor film version of Rudolf Friml's hit 1925 operetta.

1930 was an extremely busy year for Paramount and MacDonald.

Paramount on Parade was an all-star revue, similar to other mammoth sound revues produced by major studios to introduce their formerly silent stars to the public.

MacDonald's footage singing a duet of "Come Back to Sorrento" with Nino Martini was cut from the release print due to copyright reasons with Universal Studios, which had recently acquired the copyright to the song for an upcoming movie, King of Jazz.

Let's Go Native was a desert-island comedy directed by Leo McCarey, co-starring the likes of Jack Oakie and Kay Francis.

Monte Carlo became another highly regarded Lubitsch classic, with British musical star Jack Buchanan as a count who disguises himself as a hairdresser in order to woo a scatterbrained countess (MacDonald).

MacDonald introduced "Beyond the Blue Horizon," which she recorded three times during her career, including performing it for the Hollywood Victory Committee film Follow the Boys.

In hopes of producing her own films, MacDonald went to United Artists to make The Lottery Bride in 1930.

She was the youngest of the three daughters of Anna May (née Wright) and Daniel McDonald, a factory foreman and a salesman for a contracting household building company, respectively, and the younger sister of character actress Blossom Rock (born Edith McDonald), who was most famous as "Grandmama" on the 1960s TV series The Addams Family.

She was of Scottish, English, and Dutch descent.

The extra N in her given name was later dropped for simplicity's sake, and A added to her surname to emphasize her Scottish heritage.

She began dancing lessons with local dance instructor Caroline Littlefield, mother of American ballerina/choreographer Catherine Littlefield, when very young, performing in juvenile operas, recitals, and shows staged by Littlefield around the city, including at the Academy of Music.

She later took lessons with Al White and began touring in his kiddie shows, heading his "Six Little Song Birds" in Philadelphia at the age of nine.

Broadway star Dennis King reprised his role as 15th-century French poet François Villon, and MacDonald was Princess Katherine.

She sang "Some Day" and "Only a Rose."

The UCLA Film and Television Archive owns the only known color print of this production.