Gene Raymond

For his contribution to the motion picture and television industry, Gene Raymond has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7003 Hollywood Boulevard and 1704 Vine Street respectively.

A 2001 biography of Nelson Eddy and MacDonald, Sweethearts by Sharon Rich, claims that Raymond had affairs with men during his marriage to MacDonald. The book includes documentation of Raymond being arrested on three occasions for sex with other men: a photo of Raymond's January 1938 arrest and booking number (page 498 of the 2001 edition); a U.S. Army nurse is named and quoted concerning the second arrest; and retired Scotland Yard detective Joe Sampson confirms the third arrest, which occurred in England during World War II.

The book also claims that Louis B. Mayer engineered the marriage of MacDonald to Raymond—even though Mayer knew Raymond was bisexual -- to prevent MacDonald from marrying Nelson Eddy. Mayer was concerned that a MacDonald-Eddy marriage would end in divorce, due to their temperaments, then he would lose his lucrative box office team. Also, Eddy wanted children and preferred MacDonald to at least semi-retire, which didn't please the studio mogul. While Mayer blessed the MacDonald-Raymond union, he had Raymond blacklisted following his 1938 arrest. After Stolen Heaven (1938), Raymond made no films until Cross-Country Romance (1940) and Hitchcock's Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) -- previously he averaged 4 movies a year. Read Less