Lendle

Nelson Eddy was a tall, handsome baritone from the opera and concert stage.

Jeanette MacDonald was a beautiful redhead, a soprano who began her career in a Broadway chorus, then was drafted to Hollywood when the movies started to talk…and sing.

Together at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, they were “America’s Singing Sweethearts,” starring in a series of classic musicals that endeared them to audiences during the 1930s and decades beyond. NAUGHTY MARIETTA, ROSE MARIE, MAYTIME, SWEETHEARTS and NEW MOON are among the films that their legions of fans enjoy to this day.

Off-screen, however, the MacDonald/Eddy relationship was not always as amiable as their public might have fantasized. Rumors persisted of their on-set quarrels, as well as a torrid romance, even though both would marry others.

NELSON AND JEANETTE, Michael B. Druxman’s two-character stage play, takes an affectionate, insightful look at the two beloved stars, joining them in the early 1960s, as they think back on their careers, struggling to decide whether they should work together in one last film. They reminisce about the good times and the bad, recalling Louis B. Mayer, Clark Gable, Maurice Chevalier, Allan Jones, John Barrymore and others, as they sing the songs for which they’re warmly remembered.