CENTENNIAL Deanna Durbin
This year I'm celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of some actors I like. I've already done this with Lana Turner, Alexis Smith and Deborah Kerr (click on their names to go to the tribute posts) and it's only fitting to dedicate a post to Deanna Durbin, an actress I like a lot. And I really mean, A LOT!
Durbin films are like comfort food, at least for me. It's such a shame she only made 22 (21 features and 1 short, with only one in colour). Happy I can finally say I finished her filmography this month. Yay! But it also makes me feel a bit sad that there are no new Durbin films for me to discover. Fortunately I can revisit her films whenever I want to.
Deanna Durbin was well-known for two things. She was the child star who single-handedly saved the Universal Studios from financial ruin. And she moved away from her career when she was only 27 years old and completely disappeared from public life.
Let's take a short look at her life!
Born as Edna Mae Durbin on 4 December 1921 in Winnipeg, Deanna was the daughter of parents who were originally from England. She only had one older sister. The family moved to a warmer climate (California), because the cold Winnipeg winters and subsequent heating costs swallowed up most of their summer savings.
Deanna — who showed a love for singing at a young age (at age 10, her parents had enrolled her in voice lessons at the Ralph Thomas Academy) — wanted to help her family make a living, since her father's health was poor and he couldn't provide a full salary. She attended auditions, and then was put in a short film by MGM with Judy Garland, Every Sunday (1936). MGM's Louis B. Mayer reportedly had wanted to let Judy Garland go, but when he said 'Get rid of the fat one', meaning Garland and not Durbin, they sent away the wrong girl, and not long after Deanna was snatched up by Universal.
In the 1930s, Deanna made a string of light films, always with a song thrown in, a lot of them with Joe Pasternak as producer and Henry Koster as director — Three Smart Girls (1936), One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), Mad About Music (1938), That Certain Age (1938), Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), and First Love (1939). In the following decade Deanna appeared in It's a Date (1940), Spring Parade (1940), Nice Girl? (1941), It Started with Eve (1941) — her last film with Pasternak and director Henry Koster, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943), Hers to Hold (1943), His Butler's Sister (1943), Can't Help Singing (1944), and Because of Him (1946). She grew dissatisfied with the roles she played, those of everyone's kid sister or the girl-next-door, and made two films departing from her ususal fare, the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944) and the whodunnit Lady on a Train (1945). With her final four films — I'll Be Yours (1947), Something in the Wind (1947), Up in Central Park (1948), and For the Love of Mary (1948) — Deanna went back to the familiar musical-comedy formula.
Her last two films didn't do well, and in 1949 her Universal contract eventually ran out. Of course she could have had a more lengthy career — she was still young and her voice sounded good as ever — yet she chose not to go to another studio. She didn't even try. She had wanted more involvement and control over the roles she played, sick of being typecast into sweet girl-next-door roles, but having moved to France in 1949 and settled in a village outside of Paris, she just seemed eager to start a new life, away from the spotlight. When she married French director-producer Charles Henri David in 1950, who had directed her in Lady on a Train, she'd given up her career and appeared content raising her children and spending life on the farm. She refused to see the press and in all of her reclusive years only once gave an interview, in 1983, conducted by David Shipman (here). Deanna had her husband promise to give her the one thing she desired: the life of a nobody.
Deanna was married three times: with Vaughn Paul (married 1941; divorced 1943); Felix Jackson (married 1945; divorced 1949); and Charles Henri David (married 1950 until his death in 1999). She died on 17 April 2013 in France and was survived by her two children, Jessica (from her marriage to Jackson) and Peter (from her marriage to David).
“Why did I give up my career? For one thing, just take a look at my last four films and you’ll appreciate that the stories I had to defend were mediocre, near impossible. Whenever I complained or asked for story or director approval, the studio refused. I was the highest paid star with the poorest material — today I consider my salary as damages for having to cope with such complete lack of quality.” — Deanna Durbin
I simply love Deanna Durbin and get a lot of joy out of her films. She had a unique quality. She was a great comedienne but could also handle dramatic parts well. Her singing voice, a beautiful soprano, sounded mature even when she was at a young age, and I also love the sound of her speaking voice and her line delivery. She was very charismatic, full of energy, and commanded the screen with her presence. She was charming, feisty, wholesome, and I find her acting very natural. Her films are mostly fun and entertaining, with a feel-good quality and the ability to lift anyone's spirits instantly. Even when she got older, she retained that fresh youthfulness.
How did Deanna herself look back on her career?
"I did not hate show business. I loved to sing. I was happy on the set. I liked the people with whom I worked and after the nervousness of the first day, I felt completely at ease in front of the camera. I also enjoyed the company of my fellow actors, the leading men who were so much older, like Herbert Marshall, Melvyn Douglas, Franchot Tone, Walter Pidgeon, Joseph Cotten, Vincent Price and Robert Cummings. I did two films with my special friend, Charles Laughton. Working with these talented men helped me so very much and I grew up much faster than the average teenager. What I did find difficult was that this acquired maturity had to be hidden under the childlike personality my films and publicity projected on me."
It's nice to know she still got some enjoyment out of her career.
So ... like I said, I finished Deanna's filmography!!! Here is the list of the 22 films in the order I watched them:
*It Started with Eve (first seen in childhood, seen multiple times, last rewatched September 2015)
*Christmas Holiday (December 2015, rewatched December 2021)
*Lady on a Train (March 2016)
*His Butler's Sister (March 2016)
*Mad About Music (January 2017)
*Nice Girl? (November 2017)
*Every Sunday (November 2017)
*First Love (November 2017)
*Three Smart Girls (November 2017)
*Three Smart Girls Grow Up (November 2017)
*The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (February 2018)
*For the Love of Mary (February 2018)
*It's a Date (March 2018)
*Hers to Hold (June 2019)
*One Hundred Men and a Girl (April 2020)
*Because of Him (June 2021)
*Can't Help Singing (December 2021)
*Something in the Wind (December 2021)
*That Certain Age (December 2021)
*I'll Be Yours (December 2021)
*Up in Central Park (December 2021)
*Spring Parade (December 2021)
Film posters below are arranged in order of release date, earliest first:
My favourite film is It Started With Eve, followed closely by First Love, Three Smart Girls and Three Smart Girls Grow Up. I also love Mad About Music, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday, One Hundred Men and a Girl and Something in the Wind (just watched this month).
Her films I enjoyed the least are For the Love of Mary, I'll Be Yours and Up in Central Park. And some of them definitely need a rewatch like Lady on a Train and His Butler's Sister.
HAPPY CENTENNIAL, DEAR DEANNA!
PHOTOS/GIFS IN THIS POST FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
*Deanna Durbin (4 December 1921 – 17 April 2013); (3 photos)
*Deanna with her parents James and Ada Durbin; (3 photos)
*Deanna and first husband Vaughn Paul in the clubhouse of Hollywood Park, Los Angeles, May 1939;
*Deanna and second husband Felix Jackson;
*Deanna and third husband Charles Henri David at Mocambo's in Los Angeles, California, 1953;
*Deanna with husband Charles Henri David and son Peter;
*Deanna and son Peter, photo taken by her husband Charles David in 1958 at their home near Paris;
*Deanna giving autographs;
*Deanna Durbin;
*Deanna Durbin and cinematographer William H. Daniels on the set of For the Love of Mary (1948);
*Deanna Durbin and director Richard Wallace look at footage from Because of Him (1946);
*Deanna and Charles Laughton on the set of It Started With Eve (1941) with a birthday cake for Charles;
*Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939) with Deanna Durbin, Nan Grey and Helen Parrish;
*Mad About Music (1938) with Deanna Durbin and Herbert Marshall;
*The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943) with Deanna Durbin and Edmond O'Brien;
*Deanna singing Danny Boy in Because of Him (1946); (gif by me)
*Deanna Durbin singing for the children in The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943); (gif by me)
*Deanna Durbin with Christmas holly;
*Susanna Foster, Jeanette MacDonald, Kathryn Grayson, Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin, 1941, photo taken at the Federation of Music Clubs event held at the Hollywood Bowl;
*Deanna Durbin dressed in a winter outfit.
