Nelson Eddy

Biography

Birth name
Nelson Ackerman Eddy
Nickname
Nels
The Baritone
The Singing Capon (given to him somewhat sardonically by critics)
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Mini biography

The only career he ever considered was singing. His parents were singers, his grandparents musicians. Unable to afford a teacher, he learned by imitating opera recordings. At age 14 he worked as a telephone operator in a Philadelphia iron foundry. He sold newspaper advertising and performed in amateur musicals. Dr. Edouard Lippe coached him and loaned him the money to study in Dresden and Paris. He gave his first concert recital in 1928 in Philadelphia. In 1933 he did eighteen encores for an audience which included an assistant to Louis B. Mayer who signed him to a seven-year contract. After MGM acting lessons and initial trials, his first real success came as the Yankee scout to Jeanette MacDonald's French princess in Naughty Marietta (1935), a huge boxoffice success made on a small budget. Eddy and MacDonald were paired twice more (Rose Marie, Maytime) when Metropolitan star Grace Moore was unavailable; they became an institution. Their last work together was in 1942. Critics nearly always panned his acting. He did have a large radio following (his theme song: "Short'nin Bread"). In 1959 Eddy and MacDonald issued a recording of their movie hits which sold well. In 1953 he had a fairly successful nightclub routine with Gale Sherwood which ran until his death in 1967. He and his wife Anne Denitz had no children.
IMDb mini-biography by
Ed Stephan
Spouse
Ann Denitz Franklin (1939 - 6 March 1967) (his death)
Trivia

Suffered a fatal stroke while performing in concert.

Hosted his own weekly radio show in the 1950s

Interred at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever), Hollywood, California, USA, Section B, across the street from the Cathedral Mausoluem and a bit to the right.

Distantly related to U.S. President Martin Van Buren.

He had one child, Jon, with ex-girlfriend Maybelle Marston, born sometime in the early 1930s.

He had a step-son, Sidney Franklin Jr.

Was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a national music fraternity.

He was an accomplished sculptor, and often crafted bronze statues of his co-stars and directors. The statue he made of Susanna Foster was used in her film Phantom of the Opera (1943).

There is a street in Hollywood Forever cemetery now named for him.