ARAb StAtES diSMAyEd At WESt'S cOMPlAcENcy - Kuwait Times

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2013
In this June 14, 1945 file photo, actress and singer Deanna
Durbin (right) poses with her second husband, producer Felix
Jackson, immediately after their wedding at The Little Church of
the West in Las Vegas.
In this May 30, 1939 file photo, actress Deanna Durbin sits with Vaughn Paul in the clubhouse
of Hollywood Park in Los Angeles.
Deanna Durbin, the teen sensation whose
sparkling soprano voice and girl-nextdoor
looks made her a star during
Hollywood’s Golden Age, has died, a family
friend said Wednesday. She was 91. Durbin died
on about April 20 in a village outside Paris where
she had lived, out of public view, since 1949, family
friend Bob Koster of Los Angeles told the
Associated Press. Koster’s father, Henry Koster,
directed six of Durbin’s films. Bob Koster did not
know the cause of death.
At the height of her career, the Canadian-born
Durbin, who made her first feature, “Three Smart
Girls,” at age 13, was among the highest-paid
actresses. Her fans included Winston Churchill,
who said she was his favorite star according to
biographer William Manchester, and Anne Frank,
who had Durbin’s photo pasted on the wall in
the secret quarters where she and her family hid
in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
In 1938 she received an honorary Academy
Award for her “significant contribution in bringing
to the screen the spirit and personification of
youth.” Her hair, makeup and on-screen outfits
set fashion trends worldwide and were emulated
by millions. In the 1941 hit “Nice Girl?” Durbin,
then 20, wore a spangled white organdy dress,
ruffled and modestly cut, that became the rage
at proms and country club dances across the
United States.
“She was one of the last really legitimate
movie stars from the 1930s who was still with us,”
film historian Alan K. Rode told the Los Angeles
Times. “She was a huge box-office star for a short
period of time.” But Durbin retired from the
movies at age 28 and never looked back despite
appeals from directors, studios and fans.
Deanna Durbin was born Edna Mae Durbin on
Dec. 4, 1921 in Winnipeg, Canada. Because of illness,
her father moved the family to Los Angeles
where the young Edna was discovered by a talent
scout while singing at a school recital. In
1936, she co-starred with Judy Garland in “Every
Sunday.” The financially struggling Universal
hired her to star in “Three Smart Girls.” It was
Durbin’s first full-length feature, and it was a
huge success thanks to the young actress’ strong
screen presence. A year later, “One Hundred Men
and a Girl” followed suit, saving Universal from
bankruptcy and earning the renamed Deanna
Durbin the nickname, “the mortgage lifter.”
Rode said Durbin, along with Abbot and
Costello, “saved the studio from going down the
tubes.” By 1939 child roles were becoming
increasingly out-of-reach for Durbin who had
grown into a mature young woman. She was
passed over for the role of Dorothy in the classic
“Wizard of Oz” and Garland got the part. That
same year saw her first on-screen kiss - with
Robert Stack - and the news bumped war headlines
off daily papers. Durbin married cinematographer
Vaughn Paul in 1941, and was divorced in
1943.
She made “Can’t Help Singing,” her first and
only Technicolor film, in 1944. Her other films
were in black-and-white because studio executives
said it was too expensive to have Deanna
Durbin and color film in the same movie. That
same year she married playwright Felix Jackson,
20 years her senior. They had one daughter and
divorced in 1949. In 1945, Durbin made “Lady on
a Train” - directed by Charles David, whom she
married five years later. The two moved to France
and had a son. David died in 1999. Durbin is survived
by her daughter, Jessica Jackson, and her
son, Peter H. David. — AP
This 1937 file photo shows singer and film
actress Deanna Durbin. — AP photos