Then and Now: An appearance by a 1930s film star - PostBulletin.com

Singer and film star Jeanette MacDonald would entertain, and the two men who gave the auditorium complex to the city, Drs. Will and Charlie Mayo, would be in attendance with their wives.

It was April 19, 1939, and the Mayos had returned early from their annual winter sojourn in Arizona, in large part because Will Mayo was not feeling well. He had begun to have stomach issues after a trip to Mexico that winter, and it was decided that he needed to be examined back home at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, according to Sean Kettelkamp, a researcher at the History Center of Olmsted County.

Will and Hattie Mayo returned to Rochester on April 16, followed by Charlie and Edith three days later.

It meant that for the first time, the Mayo brothers would be in attendance at the auditorium, which had opened just a month earlier. The dedication event had been held on March 8, with the brothers in Arizona listening via radio hookup.

MacDonald’s concert was titled “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters,” and featured both classical and popular songs. The singer had just completed work on her latest movie, “Broadway Serenade,” which, coincidentally, was opening that week at Rochester’s Time Theatre.

“I think you’ll like it, it’s very modern,” MacDonald said of the new film in a pre-concert press appearance at the Kahler Hotel.

The business at hand, however, was her first American concert tour, showing off MacDonald’s pure soprano voice and her command of everything from show tunes to opera.

She arrived in Rochester from a previous engagement in Peoria, Ill., and was greeted by Mayor Paul Grassle. In a brief Post Bulletin interview, MacDonald said she enjoyed gardening and old-time music.

“I guess I’m just an old-fashioned girl at heart,” she said.

The PB even printed MacDonald’s daily healthy eating menu, which included her “very favorite dish,” liver and sweetbread.

Her concert program, performed before a capacity crowd of 2,900 (for perhaps the first time ever in Rochester, police had to chase away ticket-scalpers), included pieces by Brahms and Grieg, Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home," and Debussy’s “Les Fantoches.” She sang in German and French, as well as English.

MacDonald was, according to the Post Bulletin reviewer, “versatile, vivacious and generous beyond expectations.”

After the concert, MacDonald received a bouquet from the Mayos. In a thank-you note, she wrote, “The flowers are so lovely! My sincere thanks to you.”

As MacDonald left town the next morning, Dr. Will was examined at the clinic, and X-rays revealed a mass in his stomach. On April 21, he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. As Kettelkamp notes, the diagnosis was not publicly revealed. Bulletins from Saint Marys said only that Dr. Will had undergone a major abdominal operation.

A month later, Dr. Charlie came down with pneumonia while visiting Chicago. He was hospitalized there, and his condition worsened.

Dr. Charlie died on May 26. Dr. Will died on July 28.

Within just months of that Jeanette MacDonald celebratory concert in the auditorium they gave to their hometown, both brothers were dead.

Thomas Weber is a former Post Bulletin reporter who enjoys writing about local history.

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