"[Eddy] ripped off [MacDonald's] blouse and described to her in graphic detail what he was going to do to her to make sure she never forgot she was his. Then he threw her down on the bed and raped her (my underlining)." from the book, page 116.
Where do I begin? Sweethearts purports to tell the "timeless love affair" between Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald, which seems rather odd when one participant -- according to this book -- actually raped the other. Although decades later the author addressed this bombshell on a blog post, it certainly should have been addressed more thoroughly in the book itself. What's amazing is that Ms. MacDonald seems to have no real reaction to being raped! Whether it was an actual rape or not is worth debating, but "rape" is the word the author uses.
It reminds one of old style soap opera plots where women would get raped and later on fall in love with their rapists, plots that were eventually and thankfully discarded by modern soap writers, especially women.
This section (as are many sections) of the book is also confusing. Did Eddy not go to bed with MacDonald for a long time (apparently "raping" her out of frustration) because he put her on a pedestal and didn't wish to despoil her -- despite knowing that she was not a virginal girl scout -- or because she was, as is later implied, supposedly frigid?
In any case, Sweethearts suggests in occasionally tedious detail that MacDonald [Love Me Tonight] and Eddy [Phantom of the Opera], although married to other people, were actually in love with each other, but one thing or another kept them apart. First, MacDonald quite sensibly refused to give up her career. Then, after both were married to others, Eddy's wife, Ann, threatened to destroy the both of them if Eddy left her. MacDonald tried hard to get divorced from actor Gene Raymond [Million Dollar Weekend] -- who was, according to this book, more interested in men than in MacDonald -- but this never occurred, either. Finally, when both were virtually seniors, Ann agreed to a divorce, but when Eddy found out how much it would cost him he told his supposed beloved MacDonald that "he would never marry her." And so on.
Frankly, as I read Sweethearts, which does have its entertaining sections, it came off to me as a Hollywood story somehow genetically combined with a Harlequin romance, a good old-fashioned "bodice-ripper" with misunderstandings, reconciliations, stolen kisses, unfortunate spouses, passionate trysts, and all the rest, told with rather purple prose that is almost comical. I'm not necessarily saying that the book is fiction, but it reads like it is.
The chief problem for me is that I found far too much of the book to be seriously unsubstantiated. Most of the more incredible information supposedly comes from many letters written by Nelson Eddy's mother, Isabel, or are taken from her unpublished memoirs. Apparently Isabel quoted at length from her son's diary, putting long, long sections in her letters and her memoirs. Well, maybe ...
It's somewhat amusing that there's been a mild Internet war amongst MacDonald-Eddy fans, some of whom think the book is a load of crap and others who swear by it, even its most dubious passages.
I don't know anything about Gene Raymond's private life, but I do know that if the book is true, he wouldn't be the first gay or bisexual man to be married to a famous movie star. We all know that affairs are very commonplace in Hollywood (and elsewhere). And Eddy and MacDonald could indeed have had secret feelings for one another. But after reading all 450 pages of this eventually laborious tome, I have to say my mind is not made up.
The funny thing is that I have always thought of MacDonald and Eddy as being relatively sexless, so the notion that they carried on this torrid, long-standing, on and off, horribly tortured love affair seems mildly comical, although if even half of the book is true I 'd have to say their relationship caused them much more misery than joy. What's worse, both of them come off as drama queens who only made everything worse. According to the book, Eddy also wanted to date a 15-year-old girl and flirted with Scientology. Oy vey!
Oh, along the way there are notes about the films they made together or apart and there is some interesting information there. The book has a not very revealing introduction by a man who claims to be Eddy's illegitimate son (sometimes his first name is spelled "Jon," other times "John"). The author, Sharon Rich, was a Eddy/MacDonald fan club president.
Verdict: Your call. Just as exhausting as it is seemingly exhaustive. **.
