She took singing lessons with Wassili Leps[11] and landed a job in the chorus of Ned Wayburn's The Demi-Tasse Revue, a musical entertainment presented between films at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway.

Her first, 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 nomination.

[30] Monte Carlo became another highly regarded Lubitsch classic, with British musical star Jack Buchanan as a count who disguises himself as a hairdresser in order to woo a scatterbrained countess (MacDonald).

MacDonald introduced "Beyond the Blue Horizon," which she recorded three times during her career, including performing it for the Hollywood Victory Committee film Follow the Boys.

Annabelle's Affairs (1931) was a farce, with MacDonald as a sophisticated New York playgirl who does not recognize her own miner husband, played by Victor McLaglen, when he turns up five years later.

[41] In The Merry Widow (1934), director Ernst Lubitsch reunited Maurice Chevalier and MacDonald in a lavish version of the classic 1905 Franz Lehár operetta.

The film was highly regarded by critics and operetta lovers in major U.S. cities and Europe, but failed to generate much income outside urban areas, losing $113,000.

[47] In this tale of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, MacDonald played a hopeful opera singer opposite Clark Gable as the extra-virile proprietor of a Barbary Coast gambling joint, and Spencer Tracy as his boyhood chum who has become a priest and gives the moral messages.

[55] The film featured an original score[56] by Sigmund Romberg,[57] and reused the popular David Belasco stage plot[54] (also employed by opera composer Giacomo Puccini for La fanciulla del West).

Only Eddy starred, whereas MacDonald and Lew Ayres co-starred in Broadway Serenade (1939) as a contemporary musical couple who clash when her career flourishes while his founders.

MacDonald's performance was subdued, and choreographer Busby Berkeley, just hired away from Warner Bros., was called upon to add an over-the-top finale in an effort to improve the film.

[60] Broadway Serenade did not entice audiences in a lot of major cities,[61] with Variety claiming that New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles' cinema attendances were "sad," "slow,"and "sour.

"[61] Following Broadway Serenade, and not coincidentally right after Nelson Eddy's surprise elopement with Ann Franklin, MacDonald left Hollywood on a concert tour and refused to renew her MGM contract.

[64] Composer Sigmund Romberg's 1927 Broadway hit provided the plot and the songs: "Lover, Come Back to Me," "One Kiss," and "Wanting You," plus Eddy's version of "Stout Hearted Men."

[76] 20th Century Fox also toyed with the idea of MacDonald (Irene Dunne was briefly considered) for the part of Mother Abbess in the film version of The Sound of Music.

[78] During her 39-year career, MacDonald earned two stars 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.

[90] On one occasion, at the request of Lt. Ronald Reagan, she was singing for a large group of men in San Francisco who were due to ship out to the fierce fighting in the South Pacific.

"When Jeanette MacDonald approached me for coaching lessons," wrote Lehmann, "I was really curious how a glamorous movie star, certainly spoiled by the adoration of a limitless world, would be able to devote herself to another, a higher level of art.

These included The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Rose Marie, Maytime,[101] Sweethearts, Bitter Sweet, Smilin' Through, and The Sun Comes Up, plus other operettas and musicals such as Victor Herbert's Mlle Modiste, Irene,[102] The Student Prince, Tonight or Never with Melvyn Douglas, A Song for Clotilda, The Gift of the Magi, and Apple Blossoms.

Other radio shows included The Prudential Family Hour, Screen Guild Playhouse, and The Voice of Firestone, which featured the top opera and concert singers of the time.

[116] On sets, MacDonald would never lip-sync, instead singing along to song playbacks during filming, which Lew Ayres discovered when he starred alongside her in Broadway Serenade, whereupon he was supplied with earplugs after the volume nauseated him.

[86] Due to her heart condition, she could not carry a pregnancy to term; she had blackouts and fainting spells, became stressed to the point of not being able to eat, and was frequently in and out of hospitals and trying different treatments (one being massage therapy),[120] which only worked for a limited time.

"[123] Neither she nor Gene Raymond were ever considered or subpoenaed for a HUAC hearing;[124] in a radio interview, MacDonald was quoted as saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" in response to what her opinion was on the investigations.

[124] She fired her manager Charles Wagner for anti-Semitic abuse of her Jewish friend Constance Hope,[125] and declared during the 1940 presidential election, "I sing for Democrats and Republicans, black and white, everyone, and I just can't talk politics.

[119] MacDonald eventually dated a Wall Street rep named Robert Ritchie (died 1972[108]), 12 years her senior,[133] who claimed that he was the son of a fallen millionaire.

[139] Despite the strong relationship, 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),[140] and did not attend the wedding.

[142] MacDonald often worried about her husband's self-esteem; his acting career was constantly shaky, and RKO Pictures eventually sold out his contract when he had two movies left to make with them in the 1950s.

[149] Along with close family and widower Raymond, it was notably attended by a handful of MacDonald's costars (such as Eddy, Allan Jones, Chevalier, Joe E. Brown, Spencer Tracy, Lloyd Nolan, etc.

[160] She hired and fired other ghostwriters and wrote a manuscript solo but it was rejected by the publisher for being "too genteel";[161] MacDonald refused to include many personal details about Eddy and she deleted already typed pages admitting to one single pregnancy that ended in miscarriage.

)[177] Forbidden to marry early on by MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, MacDonald and Eddy performed a mock wedding ceremony at Lake Tahoe while filming Rose Marie.