Modern Screen (Dec 1934 - Nov 1935)

NELSON/EWS TRUE LIFE HE'S A NEW SCREEN IDOL AND HERE'S YOUR CHANCE TO READ HOW HE GOT THAT WAY! An DRUMS — drums — church solos — Gilbert and Sullivan operettas — drums . . . The singing Nelson Eddy was born on a July 29th, in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of Isabel Kendrick and William D. Eddy, with the beating of drums, the anthems of choral singing a part of his heritage. It may sound as though the small Nelson had been born either to the Comanche Indians or into a professional world of entertainers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As a matter of fact, so alien was any idea of theatrical life in any of its aspects to any one of the Eddys that Nelson has been poor man, rich man, newspaper man, advertising man, iron worker — all but beggarman and thief — before his golden baritone came into its rich and .rightful own. For Nelson is of Puritan strain, of old New England heritage on his father's side, of Dutch descent on his mother's. The Methodist Church, the Ten Commandments, long Sundays of the Old Testament — the iron virtues of those stiffspined forebears of his, forged and welded the strong unmeltable metal of his character which has brought Nelson Eddy to the high place he occupies today. It is necessary to one's understanding of a man to discover who or what has been the dominant force in his life, the ruling influence. In the life of Nelson Eddy his mother has been, and still is, that force. A mother-complex, the Freudians would say. Well, why not ? For Nelson's mother has been more than a mother in the biological and affectionate sense of the word. She has been a fellow-worker, an ardent sympathizer, a faithful believer and a staunch companion along every path he has ' trod. She has shared his dreams, partaken of his deeds. And when, at tea the other day in his spacious and beautiful Beverly Hills home, he went to the foot of the stairs and called, 'Mom! Ma-ma!" and a young, animated woman came running down to pour the tea, you felt that the little toy was calling, with a man's voice, the one who had made success possible for him in the past and sweet to him in the present. NELSON EDDY said, meeting his mother's eyes which are like his own forget-me-not blue ones, "I probably am the happiest man in the world. If I had it all to do over again I would BY GLADYS HALL do just what I have done. I have no regrets. I have no nostalgia for 'the things that might have been.' The world is, to me, a workshop and a playroom with toys, tools and things which are simply inexhaustible. And the only 'secret' to it all is to keep in tune with the elemental force — call it God or what you will — to realize that it is better to be good than to be bad." Nelson's heritage on his father's side is sturdy New England stock. He said, "My ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower, however. They missed it by ten years. Result, I have no grandfather's clock! The original Eddy, so far as I can trace, was christened John Eddye. He came over from England and settled in Massachusetts. A bit later, when Governor Winthrop paid the colony a tour of inspection with the object of listing the various trades and vocations of the colonists, he found bakers, chandlers, farmers and fishermen, mechanics, dentists. But when he came to John Eddye, he was stumped. For John Eddye had no job. He wrote him down, finally, as 'John Eddye, gentleman !' "My mother's mother was of Dutch descent. Mother was born in Atlanta, Georgia — and she was a well-known oratorio singer of her day." I'VE SAID that the small Nelson was born to the tap of drums, the beat of rhythm, the wings of song. He was. Both his mother and his father were musical. His father was, at one time, drum major in the Second Regiment Band of the Rhode Island National Guard. His grandfather played the drum and previously had drummed for fiftyfive years in another famous American band. As a small boy Nelson acted as mascot for the outfit. .He also played the drum in a school orchestra which consisted of drum and piano — when they could get a pianist! And he used to rat-a-tat-tat for his small schoolmates as they entered and departed from school. He said to me, "Drums have always played more of less of a part in my subconscious." (Remember how he sang the stirring "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" in "Naughty Marietta"?) His childhood was threaded with the notes and octaves of music. His mother was, at one time, soprano soloist in a church in Providence and he, until his voice broke, was bov soprano soloist at Grace Church in the same city. All during his little-boy years his (Continued on Page 83) 29