Jeanette MacDonald

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Jeanette MacDonald (June 18, 1903-1964), a British singer and actress best known for her 1930s musical films (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow, and One Hour With You), and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie and Maytime) and her husband, Bernie MacDonald (June 18, 1903 – January 14, 1965) and Marionette Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime) and Nelson Eddy

She appeared in 29 feature films, four of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour with You, Naughty Marietta, and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold medals in the 1930s and 1940s.

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

MacDonald was one of the twentieth century's most popular sopranos, bringing opera to film-going audiences and spawning a generation of singers.

Early years

Jeannette Anna McDonald was born in 1903 at 5123 Arch Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest of Anna May (née Wright) and Daniel McDonald, a factory foreman and a salesman for a contracting household building firm, as well as the younger sister of character actress Blossom Rock (born Edith McDonald), who appeared on the 1960s television series "Addams Family." She was of Scottish, English, and Dutch descent. The extra N in her given name was later stripped for simplicity's sake, and A was added to her surname to emphasize her Scottish roots. When she was young, performing in juvenile operas, recitals, and, shows staged by Littlefield, including at the Academy of Music, she began dancing lessons with local dance instructor Caroline Littlefield. She later took lessons with Al White and began touring in his kiddie shows, leading his "Six Little Birds" in Philadelphia at the age of nine.

Personal life

When MacDonald was born, her father was already worried about her. Despite the fact that he had hoped for a son who would live himself, he advised his three children to do this instead. MacDonald was the only daughter in the family to inherit both her father's red hair and blue-eyes, but she still admired her siblings' beauty, including Blossom's dimples and her elder sister Elsie's (1893-1970) blonde hair and blue eyes. Elsie could play the piano and taught toddler MacDonald a variety of popular waltzes and Stephen Foster's compositions. MacDonald discovered that she was an extrovert who enjoyed socializing with colleagues and some others, but that "I] wanted people to watch and applaud me as much as I needed food and drink." "I paused ever so little," the girl's first appearance in the local church as a child, and then, when I knew they needed prodding, I erupted clapping my hands and said to the congregation, "Now everybody's got to clap!"

MacDonald cited the number thirteen as her lucky number. Her characters had always had a name beginning with M, the first letter of her surname's name and the 13th letter of the English alphabet, a ritual on which she had to insist. Thirteen became a regular number in her life, including the thirteen-year absence between her international tours in Europe; MacDonald's first film, The Love Parade, was the number one box-office draw for thirteen weeks; and husband Gene Raymond's birthday was August 13.

MacDonald would never lip-sync on set, but rather chanting along with song playbacks during filming, which Lew Ayres discovered when he starred alongside her in Broadway Serenade, whereupon he was given earplugs after the volume stifled him.

Her wellbeing was a recurring problem throughout MacDonald's career. MacDonald, age 26, has since suffered a heart attack, according to her handwritten letter from August 1929. She suffered from stage fright throughout her life to the point that her therapist told her that all of the audience members were lettuce. She could not carry a pregnancy to term due to her heart disease; she had blackouts and fainting spells; she was constantly in and out of hospitals and trying different therapies (one being massage therapy) which only worked for a short time. MacDonald became a Religious Scientist a few years ago, a few years before her death. She will not be able to film early morning filming shoots due to her colleagues' annoyance.

MacDonald was a Republican but she avoided writing about politics largely because she was reluctant to comment on politics. "As at any focal point, there are some belligerents," she said as questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee about whether she had heard any reports about Communist activity in Hollywood, "but they are no more numerous than in any other group." Neither she nor Gene Raymond were ever scheduled or arrested for a HUAC hearing, but MacDonald was quoted as saying, "Let he who has sin casts the first stone" in response to what her opinion was on the investigations. "I sing for Democrats and Republicans, black and white, everybody," she told her boss Charles Wagner during the 1940 presidential election, "I sing for Democrats and Republicans, black and white, and no one can't discuss politics."

During her appearance in Tangerine, MacDonald met Jack Ohmeis (1901-1967). He was an architecture student at New York University and the son of a successful bottle manufacturer. His family was skeptical about the friendship, mistakenly assuming that MacDonald was a gold-digger, but they accepted her after they met. A year later, she and Ohmeis became engaged, but their future plans and aspirations led them to separate ways; another contributing factor in the breakup was MacDonald's father's sudden death. Unfortunately, the Ohmeis family would lose a considerable amount of money after the Wall Street Crash, so MacDonald loaned money to Jack and repaid her as soon as he could, which was as late as the 1950s. Irving Stone (1901-1968) from 1926 to 1928; they met in Chicago in The Magic Ring. Stone, a Milwaukee native, was the nephew of the Wisconsin Boston Store's founder and spent time in the family business. Little information about Stone's love with MacDonald was revealed before he discovered hundreds of pages of handwritten love letters written to him about his death in his apartment three years after his death.

MacDonald eventually dated Robert Ritchie (died 1972), 12 years her senior, who claimed to be the son of a deceased millionaire. They went to Hollywood with MacDonald's family, and he became MGM's press agent. Since Ritchie was on MacDonald's side while her European tour and lived together, rumors that they were engaged and/or secretly married, rumors circulated that they were engaged and/or secretly married—MacDonald even called her "JAR" (Jeanette Anna Ritchie) instead of her "darling husband" when he appeared in his return address. Despite Ritchie's family's assertion that he was married to MacDonald, but that the marriage was not annulled in 1935, he never confirmed it. He later moved to Europe as an MGM representative, responsible for recruiting Greer Garson, Hedy Lamarr, and Luise Rainer.

In 1937, MacDonald married Gene Raymond. MacDonald accepted a date at her family's dinner table two years ago at a Hollywood party two years ago; she met him at a Hollywood party two years ago. Despite the close family ties, Raymond's mother did not like MacDonald, attempting to snub her a few times (such as arranging her son with Janet Gaynor as a plus one at a charity ball) but did not attend the wedding. The Raymonds lived in a 21-room Mock Tudor mansion, with their pet dogs and their horse White Lady, which Raymond gave to MacDonald as a birthday gift; after MacDonald's death, The Mamas and Papas' John Phillips briefly owned Twin Gables with their horse White Lady. MacDonald was always worried about her husband's self-confidence; his film career was unstable; RKO Pictures eventually dropped out his contract when he had two films to make with them in the 1950s. MacDonald expressed her admiration for his help, but she wished that their triumph would be equal.

Raymond was often mistaken for Nelson Eddy by MacDonald's followers and passersby, who later admitted that she never liked the idea; occasionally Gene was even compelled by signing Nelson's name; but no one will ever know the agonies she suffered on such occasions. "I wanted to see him receive as much acclaim as I did," a narrator said in those days. When she reunited with Chevalier in 1957, she asked her why she had left film, to which she replied, "Because for exactly 20 years I've played my best part, by his [Raymond's] side." "I'm perfectly fine."

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Acting career

MacDonald joined Blossom in New York in November 1919. She began singing lessons with Wassili Leps and gained a role in Ned Wayburn's The Demi-Tasse Revue, a musical performance awaited between films at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway. Helen Shipman appeared in two musicals: Jerome Kern's Night Boat as a chorus replacement and Irene on the road as the second female lead; and future film actress Irene Dunne appeared as the second female lead during part of the tour. MacDonald was one of the "Six Wives" in Tangerine in 1921. She appeared in the Greenwich Village revue Fantastic Fricassee in 1922, for which good press notices earned her a spot in The Magic Ring this year. MacDonald was the second female protagonist in this long-running musical starring Mitzi Hajos. MacDonald had the second female lead opposite Queenie Smith in Tip Toes in 1925, a George Gershwin hit show.

MacDonald remained in his second female lead in Bubblin' Over, a musical version of Brewster's Millions, for the second year, 1926. In 1927, she found herself in Yes, Yes, Yvette, her first appearance. Planned is a sequel to producer H.H. The show, No. No. Nanette, toured extensively, but it failed to please the critics when it arrived on Broadway. MacDonald was also in charge of two shows: Sunny Days in 1928, which received rave reviews; and Angela (1928), which the critics panned. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom in 1929, with her name above the date; the cast included young Archie Leach, who would later become Cary Grant.

Although MacDonald was on display in Angela, film actress Richard Dix spotted her and had him screen-tested for his film Nothing but the Truth. The Shuberts, on the other hand, would not let her out of her contract to appear in the film, which starred Dix and Helen Kane (the "boop-a-doop girl"). Ernst Lubitsch, the legendary film director, was going through old screen tests of Broadway actors and discovered MacDonald in 1929. In The Love Parade, his first sound film starring Maurice Chevalier, he portrayed her as the leading lady.

MacDonald appeared in six films between 1929 and 1930, the first four for Paramount Studios. 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 Award. "Dream Lover" and "March of the Grenadiers" were MacDonald's first recordings for RCA Victor, two hits from the score. The Vagabond King (1930) was a lavish two-strip Technicolor film version of Rudolf Friml's hit 1925 operetta. Dennis King, a Broadway actor, revived his role as François Villon, a French poet in the 15th century, and Princess Katherine MacDonald was Princess Katherine. She performed "Some Day" and "Only a Rose" and "Some Day." The UCLA Film and Television Archive owns the only known color print of this series.

Paramount and MacDonald had a very busy year in 1930. Parade on Parade was an all-star revue, similar to other mammoth sound revues, allowing their formerly silent stars to the public. MacDonald's video of "Come Back to Sorrento" with Nino Martini was cut from the print magazine due to copyright problems with Universal Studios, which had recently obtained the copyright to the song for a new film, King of Jazz. Let's Go Native was a desert-island comedy directed by Leo McCarey, co-starring Jack Oakie and Kay Francis. Monte Carlo was another well-regarded Lubitsch masterpiece, with British musical artist Jack Buchanan masquering as a hairdresser in an effort to court a scatterbrained population (MacDonald). MacDonald performed "Beyond the Blue Horizon," a film she appeared in three times during her career, including in the Hollywood Victory Committee's Follow the Boys.

MacDonald, who wanted to make her own films, went to United Artists to make The Lottery Bride in 1930. Despite Rudolf Friml's music, the film was not as popular. MacDonald next signed a three-picture contract with the Fox Film Corporation, a contentious move in Hollywood; every other studio was much better off the ground, from their budgets to the wonderful spectacle of their films.

Oh, for a Man!

(1930) was more successful; MacDonald played a temperamental opera singer who plays Wagner's "Liebestod" and was portrayed in a tragic film about an Irish robbery starring Reginald Denny. Don't Bet on Women, a non-musical drawing-room comedy in which a playboy (Edmund Lowe) bets his happily married neighbor (Roland Young) that he can seduce his friend's wife (MacDonald). Annabelle's Affairs (1931) was a farce, with MacDonald as a sophisticated New York playgirl who doesn't recognize her own miner husband, played by Victor McLaglen. Despite being lauded by reviewers at the time, only one reel of this film has survived.

MacDonald took a break from Hollywood in 1931 to embark on a European concert tour, appearing at the Empire Theatre in Paris (Mistinguett and Morris Gest were reported to have attended the dinner parties with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and French newspaper critics), and was invited to dinner parties with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and French newspaper critics. She returned to Chevalier's two films were released the following year. Both George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch directed One Hour with You in 1932, and the French production of the same actors was simultaneously shot in French, but with a French supporting cast. There is no surviving print of Une Heure près de toi (One Hour With You) available as of today. Love Me Tonight (1932), directed by Rouben Mamoulian (1932), was considered by several film critics and writers to be the best film musical ever produced. In sung dialogue, Starring Chevalier plays a humble tailor in love with a princess portrayed by MacDonald. The original score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart included the words "Mimi," "Lover" and "Isn't It Romantic" in the text.

MacDonald returned to Europe in 1933, but the company remained in the region after being signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The Cat and the Fiddle (1934), her first MGM film based on Jerome Kern's hit, was The Cat and the Fiddle (1934). Ramón Novarro, her co-star, appeared on The Ramón Novarro. The plot of unmarried couples shacking up just barely broke through the new Production Code guidelines, which went into operation in 1934. Despite a Technicolor film, which was the first use of the new three-color Technicolor process other than Disney cartoons, the film was not a huge hit. It cost $142,000. Director Ernst Lubitsch reunited Maurice Chevalier and MacDonald in a lavish recreation of the 1905 Franz Lehár operetta in The Merry Widow (1934). Critics and opera enthusiasts in major U.S. cities and Europe loved the film, but it was not able to generate much money outside of urban areas, losing $113,000. It had a massive budget of $1.6 million, partially because it was shot simultaneously in French as La Veuve Joyeuse, with a French supporting cast and some minor plot changes.

Naughty Marietta (1935), directed by W. S. Van Dyke, was MacDonald's first film in which she collaborated with newcomer baritone Nelson Eddy. Victor Herbert's 1910 score includes songs such as "Ah!" "I'm Falling in Love with Someone," "Tramp, Tramp," and "Italian Street Song" all soared in fame. The film received an Academy Award for sound recording and Best Picture. It was named one of the Top Pictures of 1935 by New York film critics, as Best Picture of 1935 (beating out Mutiny on the Bounty), and was one of the first to be nominated to the National Film Registry in 2004.

MacDonald earned gold records for "Ah!

"Italian Street Song" and "Women's Mystery of Life" are two of Life's "sweet mysteries of life." MacDonald appeared in two of the year's highest-grossing films. MacDonald, a haughty opera diva who learns her younger brother (pre-fame James Stewart) has killed a Mountie and is hiding in the northern woods in Rose-Marie (1936). In the Canadian wilderness, Nelson Eddy and she sang Rudolf Friml's "Indian Love Call" to each other (actually filmed at Lake Tahoe). Mountie's definitive portrayal by Eddy made him a well-known figure. Photographs of Eddy in his Rose Marie uniform appeared in thousands of American newspapers when the Canadian Mounties briefly retired their distinctive hat in 1970. W.S. was also responsible for San Francisco (1936). Van Dyke. MacDonald played a hopeful opera singer opposite Clark Gable as the extra-virtile entrepreneur of a Barbary Coast gambling establishment, and Spencer Tracy as his boyhood chum who has become a priest and gives the moral hints in this tale.

Filming began in 1936, co-starring Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, and Paul Lukas, directed by Irving Thalberg. Following Thalberg's untimely death in September, production was suspended and the half-finished film was scrapped. A new script with a different plotline and supporting actors (including John Barrymore, whose MacDonald's friendship was strained due to his alcoholism). The'second' Maytime (1937), the year's top-grossing film, is regarded as one of the finest film musicals of the 1930s. Sigmund Romberg's "Will You Remember" gave MacDonald another gold record.

The Firefly (1937) was MacDonald's first solo-starring film at MGM, with her name only above the title. Rudolf Friml's 1912 stage score was borrowed, as well as a new song, "The Donkey Serenade," which was based on Friml's "Chanson" piano piece. This historic vehicle was built during a previous revolution in Napoleonic times, with real-life Americans rushing to fight in the continuing revolution in Spain. The co-star of MacDonald, tenor Allan Jones, who demanded the same care as she did, as well as an equal number of close-ups, was tenor Allan Jones, who demanded that she receive the same treatment as she would. After MacDonald's engagement and marriage to Gene Raymond, the MacDonald/Eddy team split up, but none of their solo films grossed as well as the team's, and an unimpressed Mayer used this to explain why Jones didn't include Eddy in the upcoming project. The result, "The Girl of the Golden West (1938) was released, but the two stars had little screen time together, and the main song, "Obey Your Heart," was never performed as a duet. The film featured an original score by Sigmund Romberg and reused the familiar David Belasco stage plan by opera composer Giacomo Puccini for La fanciulla del West).

Mayer had promised MacDonald the first Technicolor film and had a blast on it, and he delivered Sweethearts (1938), co-starring Eddy. The co-stars were more relaxed onscreen and singing together in comparison to the previous film. Victor Herbert's 1913 stage score was turned into a modern backstage story narrated by Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell. MacDonald and Eddy, along with a husband-and-wife Broadway musical-comedy crew, were given a Hollywood job. Sweethearts was named Best Picture of the Year by the Photoplay Gold Medal Award for their best picture of the year. Mayer has canceled plans for the team to co-star in Let Freedom Ring, a 1936 model first announced for them. Only Eddy appeared, while MacDonald and Lew Ayres co-starred in Broadway Serenade (1939) as a young musical couple who clashed with her parents when their careers flourishes, while the former artists are still alive. MacDonald's appearance was subpoenaed, and choreographer Busby Berkeley, who had been hired away from Warner Bros., was asked to produce an over-the-top finale in an attempt to raise the film's quality. In a number of major cities, Broadway Serenade did not entice audiences, with Variety stating that New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles' cinema attendances were "slow," and "sour."

Following Broadway Serenade's surprise elopement with Ann Franklin, MacDonald left Hollywood on a concert tour and refused to renew her MGM contract, not coincidentally right. Months later, she summoned Bob Ritchie from London to assist her in renegotiating. After initially insisting that she wanted to film Smilin' Through with James Stewart and Robert Taylor, MacDonald's response grew and decided to film New Moon (1940) with Eddy, one of MacDonald's most popular films. The plot and the songs were provided by composer Sigmund Romberg's 1927 Broadway hit, "Love, Come Back to Me," "One Kiss," and "Wanting You," plus Eddy's interpretation of "Stout Hearted Men"; Bitter Sweet (1940), a Technicolor film version of Nol Coward's 1929 stage operetta, was followed by Coward, who was distraught of it, writing in his diary about how "vulgar" he discovered it. Through (1941) was MacDonald's third Technicolor film, starring Brian Aherne and Gene Raymond. Following World War I's devastation, MGM argued that it should resonant with audiences during World War II, but it didn't make a buck. MacDonald was in two roles: Moonyean, a Victorian girl who was mistakenly killed by a jealous lover, and Kathleen, her niece, who falls in love with the murderer's son.

I married an Angel (1942) was based on a Rodgers & Hart stage play about an angel who loses her wings on her wedding night. During filming, Anita Loos' script suffered severe censorship cuts, making the end less enjoyable. "Spring Is Here" and the title song were performed by MacDonald. It was the team's last film to be made. After a humiliating break with Mayer, Eddy opted out his MGM deal (with just one film to make) and moved to Universal, where he signed a million-dollar, two-picture contract. MacDonald stayed in one last film, Cairo (1942), a cheaply budgeted spy comedy co-starring Robert Young as a reporter and Ethel Waters as a maid, who MacDonald personally ordered. L.B. was a year ago, beginning in 1942. Mayer fired four of MGM's highest-paid actors; Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and Jeanette MacDonald. MacDonald was the only one of the four actors whose Mayer would rehire.

MacDonald appeared in Follow the Boys (1944), an all-star extravaganza about Hollywood stars entertaining the troops, after opening the Metropolitan Opera's membership program. Marlene Dietrich, W.C. Fields, Sophie Tucker, and Orson Welles were among the more than 40 guests. In a studio film scene singing "Beyond the Blue Horizon" to a blind soldier, MacDonald is seen during a concert singing "Beyond the Blue Horizon" and "I'll See You in My Dreams" to a blind soldier. After five years off the screen for two films, she returned to MGM. José Iturbi, her love interest, appeared in three Daring Daughters (1948) as her love interest. MacDonald is a playwright who has a lively daughter (Jane Powell, Ann E. Todd, and Elinor Donahue) continue to search for her ex, but she has secretly remarried. The hit parade featured the song "The Dickey Bird." The Sun Comes Up (1949) teamed MacDonald with Lassie in an adaptation of a short story by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. MacDonald played a widow who has lost her son, but she has a softball for orphanage Claude Jarman Jr. It would be her last film.

She has shot a comeback film, as well as financing and paying a screenwriter. One of Nelson Eddy's potential film reunions was supposed to be produced in England, but Eddy pulled out after he learned MacDonald was investing her own money. When in reality, MacDonald's heart disease made the proposal uninsurable, Eddy preferred to publicly condemn it as poor. A reunion with Maurice Chevalier was also considered. The Rosary, The Desert Song, and a remake of The Vagabond King were among Eddy's thwarted films, as well as two movie treatments, Timothy Waits for Love and All Stars Don't Spangle. Protests continued to pour in, and producer Ross Hunter suggested MacDonald in his 1963 comedy The Thrill of It All, but she turned down. In the film version of The Sound of Music, 20th Century Fox toyed with the possibility of MacDonald (Irene Dunne was briefly considered) for the role of Mother Abbess. It never advanced beyond the discussion stages partially due to MacDonald's deteriorating health.

According to an annual survey of film vendors, MacDonald was one of the top-selling box-office draws of 1936, and many of her films were among the top-20 moneymakers of the year. MacDonald, in addition, was one of the top ten box-office attractions in the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1942. MacDonald spent her 39-year career on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for films and recordings) and planted her feet in the wet concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater.

MacDonald toured in summer-stock productions of Bitter Sweet and The King and I in the mid-1950s. On July 19, 1954, she opened Bitter Sweet at the Iroquois Amphitheater, Louisville, Kentucky. The King and I appeared at the Starlight Theatre on August 20, 1956. She collapsed while performing there. It was officially listed as heat prostration, but in truth, it was a heart seizure. She began limiting her appearances, and Bitter Sweet's Retaliation in 1959 was her last professional stage appearance.

In Ferenc Molnár's The Guardsman, MacDonald and her husband Gene Raymond toured. On January 25, 1951, the Erlanger Theater in Buffalo, New York, opened, and the performance continued in 23 Northeastern and Midwestern cities until June 2, 1951. Despite less-than-enthusiastic remarks from critics, the show drew full houses for about every performance. To encourage MacDonald to perform some songs, the leading role of "The Actress" was changed to "The Artist." Although this pleased her followers, the show was sadly ended before it reached Broadway.

There were conversations about a Broadway revival in the 1950s. MacDonald was approached in the 1960s about appearing on Broadway in a musical version of Sunset Boulevard. In his autobiography, Harold Prince visits MacDonald's Bel Air home to discuss the proposed scheme. Hugh Martin, the composer, also wrote "Wasn't It Romantic," a musical by the same name.

MacDonald has appeared in a few nightclubs. She performed and danced at The Sands and The Sahara in Las Vegas in 1953, The Coconut Grove in Los Angeles in 1954, and then at The Sahara in 1957, but she never felt fully comfortable in their smoky atmospheres.

Music career

MacDonald started in 1931 and continued into the 1950s, and they performed on regular concert tours of film. She appeared on both France and England in 1931, when she first European tour was in 1931. In 1939, her first American concert tour was held in 1939, right after the completion of Broadway Serenade. On April 19, 1939, MacDonald opened the Mayo Civic Auditorium in Rochester, Minnesota, to a standing audience. She appeared at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall several times. MacDonald co-founded the Army Emergency Relief Fund and raised funds on concert tours when America entered World War II in 1941. When she was home in Hollywood, she held an open house at her house on Sunday afternoons for GIs. On one occasion, at the behest of Lt. Ronald Reagan, she was singing for a large group of men in San Francisco who were set to ship out to the South Pacific for a fierce battle. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" closed the book, and 20,000 voices joined in, bringing the country's 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to a close. She auctioned off encores for donations and raised almost $100,000 for the troops (not adjusted for inflation). President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who named MacDonald and Eddy as two of his favorite film actors, gave her a medal. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's command appearances at the White House were also memorable.

MacDonald, who went from opera to film, yearned to reimagine herself in opera, unlike Nelson Eddy, who went from opera to film. She began training with Lotte Lehmann, one of the best opera singers of the early twentieth century. "I was really curious how a glamorous movie actress, certainly spoilt by the adornment of a limitless world, would be able to devote herself to another, a higher level of art," Lehmann wrote. I had the surprise of my life. Jeanette may not have been more diligent, a more serious, and a more trustworthy individual than Jeanette. The lessons, which had started with a hint of skepticism, turned into a joy for me. She studied Marguerite with me and lieder. These were the ones that shocked me the most. Jeanette is certainly a natural and popular lieder singer if time has allowed it."

At His Majesty's Theatre in Montreal, MacDonald made her opera debut singing Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. She resurgent herself in Quebec City (May 12 and 17), Ottawa (May 20 and 17), and Windsor (May 24). The Chicago Opera Company's first appearance (November 4, 11, 11, 1944) was in the same role as her father, Karen Johnson. She appeared in Gounod's Faust with the Chicago Opera as well as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust. Juliette debuted in two performances of Roméo et Juliette (July 10 and 25), as Juliette in Faust in the summer of 1945. She appeared in two more productions of Roméo et Juliette in November and one of Faust in Chicago. She appeared at Faust with the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company at the Academy of Music on December 12, 1951.

"Her Juliet is breathtakingly beautiful to the eye and dulcet to the ear," the Chicago Tribune's music critic wrote. "From where I sit at the opera, Jeanette MacDonald's Marguerite was one of the season's best shows of the season... her Marguerite was more refined than her Juliet, a strong trill, and a Gallic inflection that understood Gounod's phrasing."

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