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Jeanette MacDonald Autobiography: The Lost Manuscript.

Jeanette MacDonald’s unfinished book, written around 1960, includes a color photo section and represents a near-final draft. Every page is marked with her handwritten notes—comments, corrections, and cross-outs—offering a rare glimpse into her thought process. Her collaborator was Fredda Dudley Balling, a prominent figure in Hollywood magazine publishing. The book also contains revealing correspondence from Balling, detailing the challenges of working with Jeanette—both her complex temperament and her declining health—and the later struggle to publish the manuscript after Jeanette’s death, despite opposition from her husband, Gene Raymond. Sharon Rich provides extensive annotations, including a running timeline and fact-checking commentary to clarify or correct claims made—or omitted—in the manuscript. Jeanette candidly discusses her troubled marriage and honeymoon, her near-divorce in 1948, and several additional breakups with Gene Raymond during the 1950s. It was written roughly two years after Jeanette and Nelson Eddy made one final attempt to obtain divorces. All parties had reportedly agreed to terms, but when Jeanette and Nelson arrived at a New York attorney’s office to sign the papers, they discovered that Nelson’s wife had changed her demands at the last minute—insisting on all of his money and future royalties. Unable to accept those terms, Nelson withdrew, and Jeanette’s health deteriorated soon afterward.

Review

“An important history of Hollywood. The print quality was good and clear with several pages of glossy color photos. many of the black and white photos were unusual and not normally included in other publications.”

“I found the book interesting in that it was written in her own words; and how she suffered in that her health suffered, and that she was fooled about her husband, and that she truly loved Nelson Eddy.”

“It’s always fascinating to see what a celebrity has to say about their time in the limelight even if it’s seen through a gauze towards rewriting history. This is another fascinating insight into the world of Jeanette during her heyday.”

“This autobiography as told by jeanette macdonald is very fragile – like like jeanette herself..so talented and so far above in Hollywood of the 30’s.. miss macdonald tells us this version of her life..yet one feels there is much more to her story..by some annotations and some splices of certain sentences..but very good information on her childhood and early career..excellent read.”