Person Biography:
Jeanette MacDonald was the third daughter of Daniel and Anne MacDonald, born into a family that would go on to have a significant impact on the world of entertainment. Her younger sister, Blossom, would become a character actress at MGM, and Jeanette would follow in her footsteps, moving to New York in 1920 to pursue a career in the chorus.
Jeanette's early career was marked by a string of musical productions, and in 1928, Paramount tested her, but ultimately rejected her. However, a year later, Ernst Lubitsch saw her test and picked her to play opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade (1929). This marked the beginning of a long and successful partnership between the two, with Jeanette going on to star in a number of musicals alongside Chevalier.
Despite the success of her early films, the musical genre began to decline, and Paramount dropped Jeanette in 1931. She then went to Europe, where she met Irving Thalberg and his wife Norma Shearer. She was cast in Thalberg's property The Merry Widow (1934),and her next MGM vehicle, Naughty Marietta (1935),brought her together with Nelson Eddy.
For her next project, Jeanette insisted that Clark Gable should co-star, but he initially refused, saying, "I just sit there while she sings. None of that stuff for me." The movie, of course, was San Francisco (1936). During World War II, Jeanette often performed USO shows, and she hoped to enter the world of grand opera, taking lessons and giving concert recitals.
Jeanette's last public appearance was at the funeral of Louis B. Mayer, where she sang "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life". She had suffered from heart ailments and, after an arterial transplant in 1963, died of a heart attack in Houston in 1965. Her funeral was attended by a number of Hollywood celebrities, including Mary Pickford, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Irene Dunne, and Ronald Reagan, and was marked by a recording of "Ah, Sweet Mystery" being played for the emotional but polite crowd.
