In his biography of Jeanette MacDonald called Hollywood Diva, Edward Baron Turk says that she despised her work on the film of The Vagabond King and that she had two great annoyances of which the second was:
… her leading man, British-born stage baritone Dennis King. Because he originated the role of Friml’s Villon to great acclaim on Broadway, King had Berger [the film’s director] and the front office eating out of his hand from the day shooting began. … While MacDonald had little choice but to accept his backstairs influence, she refused to put up with King’s shameless scene snatching. Ray Rennahan recounted: “After I’d set the lights on them they were supposed to keep their positions on the set and not move unless we were prepared for it. But King would be constantly moving this way and that to get a camera advantage over Jeanette. He’d block her key light by putting a shadow over her face, and just as soon as that would happen, Jeanette would say, ‘Oh, no! Wait a minute!’”
MacDonald’s guard failed her during the shooting of “Only a Rose”. Set in a luxuriant garden, this pivotal moment has Katherine respond in song to the vagabond’s ardent pledge to win her love by saving France. Berger had planned the scene so that except for one brief reaction shot of the actor, MacDonald would appear on-screen alone and in close shot until the song’s final strains, sung in duet. To make sure King would stay on his mark, Berger placed a hobbyhorse between the singers. Yet the baritone, true to form, spoiled MacDonald’s solo shots by prematurely inserting his fingers, nose, and slick pompadour into her frame. Somehow, the resulting glitch went uncorrected. MacDonald was as much enraged by Berger’s negligence as King’s hogging, and pleaded with B. P. Schulberg to order retakes or else drop her name from the opening credits. Schulberg refused to do either. From then on, MacDonald sarcastically referred to the song as “Only a Nose”.
Decide for yourselves. Here is the YouTube clip from The Vagabond King that resulted in Dennis being accused of “shameless scene snatching”:
Reference: “Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald” by Edward Baron Turk (1998, University of California Press).
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