Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald

by Edward Baron Turk

Book Overview

Jeanette MacDonald, the movie musical's first superstar, was an American original whose onscreen radiance mirrored a beguiling real-life personality. Based in large part on the author's exclusive access to MacDonald's private papers, including her unpublished memoir, this vivid, often touching biography transports us to a time when lavish musical films were major cultural events and a worldwide public eagerly awaited each new chance to fall under...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520222539
• ISBN13: 9780520222533
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 540 Pages
• Weight: 1.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Hollywood Diva: A Biogrphy Of Jeanette Macdonald

The book was very hard to put down, I loved it from the beginning to the end. I was brought up on her songs with Nelson Eddy when I was a kid. There was nothing that I dlsliked about the book. This book should be read by seniors and yes the younger crowd too. To learn of what kind of person she was . this book is a keeper. Renee

Well researched truth

This is a wonderful book, well researched and documented, about the greatest star ever to grace the Silver Screen. It portrays her as human, determined, disciplined and loving. If you want the real story of Jeanette MacDonald, read this and not the trashy fiction put out by another author who has created a real 'cash cow' with her lies about Jeanette. And to all of that author's fans, who want so desperately to believe in a doomed love affair, 'Wake up and smell the coffee!' This woman does not admire Jeanette or Nelson nor does she respect them. They are simply her meal ticket and she is eating quite well!

"Diva" Hits a High Note!

Edward Baron Turk's brilliantly realized biography of the singer-actress Jeanette MacDonald, "Hollywood Diva" is worth the long wait.For years fans of the beloved red-haired, green-eyed soprano, have longed for a complete and concise biographical work. "Diva" is all that and more.Turk has conducted scores of interviews and gleamed through mountains of papers including MacDonald's own unpublished autobiography, to accurately reflect his subject. The reader comes away both educated and enlightened not to mention very impressed with the woman who dazzled and delighted millions in virtually every medium of show business.Jeanette MacDonald was much more than one-half of the classic screen team of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. She starred in nearly 30 motion pictures, broke records performing on stage and in concert, not to mention realizing her dream of starring in Grand Opera. Nightclubs, radio, television, and recordings were fields that benefitted from the special MacDonald touch, and while she may have appeared to do it effortlessly, this book reveals the incredible energy and work that she put into everything she did. Every facet of her life she gave more than 100% to and fans of the star will come away impressed anew with her tireless dedication to her art. Those to whom MacDonald is a name from the far past will want to go out and explore her career by watching her films and discovering what many of us have said for decades - Jeanette MacDonald is one of the greats!Turk perfectly balances his story by not placing MacDonald on an unreachable pedestal but portraying his subject as a real person, replete with faults, ferocious in her determination to never give less than her best. Nowhere does this apply more than to her personal life. Mr. Turk's handling of the marriage between MacDonald and actor Gene Raymond is a lesson to everyone in every kind of relationship. Their nearly 28 year marriage had periodic difficulties but ultimately what stands out is the real, deep-rooted, and very moving love that the couple shared, something not easily achieved in the milieu of Hollywood.While some would prefer to believe that MacDonald and Eddy were an "item", Turk disproves that myth completely. The MacDonald-Eddy team were pure on-screen magic but off-screen were merely friends. Naysayers would like to believe that author Turk treats Eddy in a less than respectful manner in this tome but nothing could be further from the truth.MacDonald was married only once. She didn't indulge in the affairs nor have the sometimes tawdry personal life that others of her generation may have had. She was a professional and that is a sometimes rare commodity in show business."Hollywood Diva" is must reading for anyone with even a slight interest in the history of the entertainment industry. You'll laugh, cry, learn, and grow. When a book can accomplish all of that, as well as portraying a real person as someone to admire and respect, then it is indeed something

THE BIGGEST STAR OF THE CENTURY!

Jeanette MacDonald was born in West Philadelphia on June 18th, 1903 with a brass spoon in her mouth. She was poor and had two elder sisters, 10 and 12 years older. In 1964, when she died, two former presidents attended her funeral and two men who would later become presidents. In 1939, she was the biggest female star in the world bar none. Directors and producers would fall in-love with her. One after the other. They wanted to marry her! This would happen over and over again. Including Louis B. Mayer. Turk does an outstanding job of doing exhaustive research. Privy to her private memoirs and correspondence. I've read 100 biographies of "big shots". But this one was incredible. On Broadway in the late twenties. A Sex Goddess in the early thirties who self-admittedly stated that she spent more time taking her clothes on and off during her films than acting. A Virgin Goddess in the late Thirties. A 180 turnaround. She was extrordinarily ambitious. Nothing could stop her. Yet she was extraordinarily kind and generous to all alike. Unless...you took unfair advantage of her. I have read the four-volume biography of Robert E. Lee. He was kind and tender like MacDonald. And he was ambitious. But not he wasn't anywhere ambitious like her. How these two traits, great ambition and great kindness can reside in any human brain still remains a mystery to me after reading this book. But that she was. She emanated Power and Kindness. Also great Virtue. She just bulldozed her way through everything! I found this biography more fascinating than those of FDR, Eisenhower, Marshall, Beckett, Churchill, Patton, et all. But Turk gives it to us straight. I have never believed that anybody could be like this. She would give you the shirt off her back. She would do pranks. She would make fun. Extremely generous. Yet...extremely hard-working to the point of unbelievability. Strong as a brick house. Ambitious beyond belief. Yet she always kept her integrity in tack. I didn't think that this constellation of traits could spell out success. But you couldn't cross the line with her in regards to her career. And boy was she smart. I can see how all these "power-house" directors and producers could fall so totally in-love with her without even a kiss. Read this book. And try to understand this woman. It will be very hard. A director made an anti-semetic remark about another actress in a play. She fired him on the spot. She took on Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, later to become friends with both. She seemed to have "I'm Going to Be a Star" etched in her brain. Whether it be in opera, acting, comedy, and whatever you can think of. But she would NEVER compromise her principles. This is all good news for males and females who believe in these cynical times that "Nice Guys Finish Last". In the other biographies that I have read of highly successful people, luck had a great deal to do with it. She went beyond luck and was qouted has stating in

Meticulously researched bio of a brilliant Hollywod star.

Mr. Turk writes with both affection and authority about the life of one of the most popular Hollywood musical movie stars of the "Golden Age." His detailed research does not override the bio's pure readability. Ms. MacDonald's career was enormously successful throughout the late twenties and into the 1940's; her popularity has endured well beyond her untimely passing in 1965...all from the sheer force of an endearing personality and unparalled talent, which was never tarnished by scandal or hollow opportunism. David Lapin, credited by Mr. Turk as having introduced him to the talent of MacDonald, has noted: "Edward Baron Turk's "Hollywood Diva" is the most complete and satisfying biographical treatment of Ms. MacDonald's life and career that I have ever read; and I've followed her career for over 35 years." Accented by several lavish and rare photographs, documented by first hand interviews with colleagues and personal acquaintences who best knew Ms. MacDonald, her life story is fleshed out beyond her famous association with Nelson Eddy. The narrative spans the range of her career from her early films with costars Maurice Chevalier and Ramon Navarro to her later work with her husband and true love, Gene Raymond in 'Smilin' Through." Her earlier love interests and professional relationships with her directors and movie studio chiefs...and especially with her devoted fans, help the reader relate to Ms. MacDonald almost as a personal friend...not an untouchable Hollywood icon. Jeanete MacDonald's stage and concert career, through which her fans enjoyed her pure lyric soprano first hand, helps us understand why she was indeed a "diva" , but one which, thanks to Hollywood, everyman could appreciate.

This is the only modern biography of an important film star

Edward Turk Baron has done a great job in recounting the life of Macdonald, a complex diva to say the least, and very misunderstood by more recent generations, most of whom haven't even seen her movies.Many of us are younger, and have happened upon Macdonald by accident, at night on the late show, or (more rarely), at a revival at a theatre specializing in retro movies. There's something very moving about Jeanette Macdonald's voice and movie persona, something that no other actress has quite captured. Baron gives us both the woman, and the professional diva, and offstage it seems she was at least as stunning as she was onscreen. It was particularly gratifying to read a serious analysis of her life and work, since there's been some truly silly puffery about her supposed romance with Nelson Eddy. A mesmerizing read about a truly magnetic star, and woman.