Nelson Eddy Collection

Nelson Eddy
(1901 – 1967)

Nelson Eddy was born in 1901 to a musical family. His mother and grandmother sang in church, and his machinist father moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence, RI, opera house and performed in HMS Pinafore and other productions. The itinerant life of a machinist did not sit well with his mother, and when Nelson was 14, she sought a divorce and moved the lad to Philadelphia to be near her brother.

To help make ends meet, Nelson dropped out of school to work in various jobs while educating himself through correspondence courses. He was a typical hard working lad, although he was fired from one position for singing too much on the job.

Like his forebears, Nelson got his start singing in church, but the new voice recording technology exposed him to the great baritones like Tita Ruffo, Guiseppe Campanari Reinhold Werrenrath and Pasquale Amato. He was soon doing his best to imitate what he heard, and began giving recitals for local women’s groups. His first "big break" came in a 1922 society musical where he was singled out in the reviews, even though his name did not appear in the program.

In 1924, he joined a singing competition where the prize was a chance to perform with the Philadelphia Opera Society. The company’s assistant director, Alexander Smallens, took an interest in the young man, and helped him to coach him through the beginnings of his singing career. By the late 1920’s, Nelson had a repertoire of 28 operas and performed with the Philadelphia Opera Society and the Savoy Company.

In 1927, he borrowed money to travel to Europe to train, part of the "coming of age" process expected of American singers. He was offered a job with a small German opera company, but chose to return to America to pursue a concert career. During this period, he continued to perfect his craft and studied with several different teachers to learn new vocal techniques. He followed one, Edouard Lippé, to Hollywood, where the movies were learning to talk and needed Nelson to sing for them.

His "big break" in Hollywood came when the diva Lotte Lehmann had to bow out of a sold out concert appearance. Eddy substituted for her and was called back for 18 curtain calls. Concerned that appearing in pictures would detract from his concert career, Nelson finally signed with MGM (with a clause allowing him to take three months off each year for his "real work" of concert singing).

The studio was not sure what to do with the singer at first until he was cast in the surprise hit Naughty Marietta (1935). Critics across the country gushed over his performance, but the real take-away from the film was the chance to perform with established star Jeanette MacDonald.

Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald musicals would become cliché in time. They would appear in seven MGM pictures together, including Rose Marie (1936), which featured "Song of the Mounties" and "Indian Love Call". While their on-screen chemistry is undeniable, their off-screen relationship depends on the source you are listening to. At least one MGM worker has reported the Eddy and MacDonald "hated each other with a vengeance", while there are also reports that they were indeed sweethearts off the set. Supposedly, studio boss Louis B. Mayer engineered Jeanette’s marriage to Gene Raymond to prevent her from marrying Nelson Eddy.

Which is not to say that Eddy’s success was based on his collaboration with Jeanette MacDonald. He made a dozen musicals without her as well as more than 600 radio appearances. In his passion to continually improve his singing, he had a recording studio built in his home so that he could hear and critique his own performances. He also had his weekly appearances on The Chase and Sanborn Hour and Kraft Music Hall recorded so that he could listen to them later. He was a frequent guest on Lux Radio Theater where he would sing and reprise his movie roles.