Love Affair: Eleanor & Lou Gehrig Story (1978)

Another look at the love story of Eleanor and Lou Gehrig

The classic 1943 film "The Pride of the Yankees" really was more of a love story that a baseball story in telling about the life of the New York Yankees Hall of Fame first baseman Lou Gehrig. In 1976 Gehrig's widow Eleanor decided to tell their story again, writing "My Luke and I" with sportswriter Joe Durso. A year later the book was turned into this made-for-television movie starring Blythe Danner and Edward Herrmann as Eleanor and Lou Gehrig. The movie was supposed to air on October 9, 1977, but was pre-empted by Game 5 of the American League Championship series in which the Yankees scored three runs in the top of the 9th inning to defeat the Kansas City Royals for the second year in a row.

Directed by Fielder Cook, "A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story" begins with the elderly Eleanor telling her life's story to Durso (Robert Burr) at Yankee Stadium in a series of flashbacks. Eleanor tells of how she met Lou Gehrig on a blind date in 1933 and discovered there were two problems to them having a relationship. The first was that the ballplayer was painfully shy. The second and much bigger problem was that Gehrig had a domineering and possessive mother, played by Patricia Neal with such a heavy accent you have to turn on the closed captioning at times to really understand what she is saying. But even so she is still a frightening figure. If there is one thing that proves to you how incredibly strong was the love between Lou and Eleanor Gehrig it is that he ever had the nerve to leave his mother and marry somebody else, let along a socialte from Chicago to elope with her "Luke" in 1934. As was the case when I read the book, the idea that Eleanor had her own name for her husband that no one else used makes a great deal of sense to me from a psychological perspective. One of the strengths of this film is that like the book Blanche Hanalis' script deals specifically and explicitly with the battle of wills between these two women over this one man.

Another key part of the story covers how the relationship between Gehrig and Babe Ruth (Ramon Beiri) became strained during a goodwill trip to Japan where the Bambino had his new wife, Claire (Georgia Engel) along as well. But the final and most significant difference between "A Love Affair" and the more familiar "The Pride of the Yankees" is that the story continues after Gehrig's emotional farewell speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939 to Eleanor being by his side through the final stages of amyotropic lateral sclerosis, including when he died less than two years later.

The point, of course, is that Eleanor Gehrig would not have traded the few years she had married to her husband for anything. Ultimately, this made for television movie is a tribute to that love. Hermann, hardly the athletic type, had to learn to bat left handed for the role, and is rarely seen actually playing baseball. But he captures the dignity of Gehrig, his strength as a baseball player, and, most importantly, his love for his wife in the face of his mother's stern disapproval. Baseball fans might be disappointed by the lack of action in this film, but the title was a big clue that this film is really more for romantics, which might make it a really good date movie. May 7, 2004

A Love For The Ages

This is the telling of the love affair between baseball great Lou Gehrig and the spoiled rich girl who became his loving wife. Much has been written and a movie made about these two, young lovers, and now we have annother rendition of the story. I believe this time we have a more mature interpretation of their story. We leave behind the "Hollywood touches" and see the fun and deep abiding love they shared. As we all know from the Jerry Lewis Telethon and other historical data, Lou developed ALS a form of Musclar Dystrophy in his thirties. His carreer was cruely ended, and that is where other stories end, but this video takes it to the later stages of her life. Her devotion to him during his illness and refusal to remarry tell its own story of devotion. While other stories highlight the adverse reletionship between his wife and his mother this shows two women who love and cooperate in his, care to his deathbed. A tearjerker for sure. April 15, 2001

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