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Deanna Durbin
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Deanna Durbin was the second child of British immigrant parents who moved the family to Southern California when she was still an infant. She demonstrated a singing talent at an early age and eventually began to study voice at Ralph Thomas' Academy in Los Angeles. In 1935, while only in her early teens, she successfully auditioned for a part in a proposed film biography of opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink to be made by MGM. The studio first put her in a short, Every Sunday, in which she co-starred with Judy Garland, another young, aspiring singer/actress, who was six months her junior. There is a story -- probably apocryphal -- that MGM decided to keep only one of the two and that Durbin was dropped by mistake. Actually, the studio did not renew her contract when the Schumann-Heink film was canceled.
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Deanna Durbin's first Technicolor feature is a lavish musical western, replete with a Jerome Kern-E. Y. Harburg score. Set in the mid-19th century, the story finds Caroline (Durbin), daughter of a wealthy senator, bound and determined to wed dashing cavalry officer Lawlor (Robert Paige). When the officer is transferred to California, Caroline chases after him, encountering prospectors, bandits and Indians all along the way. That's about all that happens, save for a few awkward slapstick moments wherein the pleasantly plump Ms. Durbin falls into various bodies of water. Lensed on location in Utah, Can't Help Singing is entertaining enough, but wasn't sufficient to halt the downward slide of Deanna Durbin's popularity.
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With 21 films under her name from 1935 - 1948, Deanna Durbin has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine Street. Deanna signed a contract with MGM in 1935 and made her first film appearance in a short subject Every Sunday with another contractee, Judy Garland. She then signed to a contract with Universal Studios and made her first feature-length film Three Smart Girls in 1936.
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Deanna Durbin stars in "It's a Date," a 1940 comedy ... starring Kay Francis, Walter Pidgeon and S.Z. Sakall. Durbin plays Pam Drake, an aspiring young actress whose mother is a theater star, Georgia Drake. After the successful run of a play, Georgia and her maid Sara Frankenstein (Cecilia Loftus) head for Hawaii for R&R before she starts her new play. However, the author (Sakall) isn't sure she's right for the role; he thinks Georgia is too old. Ultimately he sees Pam perform and gives her the role.
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Canadian actress/singer Deanna Durbin learned at a very early age that she was blessed with a strong and surprisingly mature set of vocal chords. After studying with coach Andres de Segurola, Durbin set her sights on an operatic career, but was sidetracked into films with a 1936 MGM short subject, Every Sunday. This one-reeler was designed as an audition for both Durbin and her equally youthful co-star Judy Garland; MGM decided to go with Durbin and drop Garland, but by a front-office fluke the opposite happened and it was Durbin who found herself on the outside looking in. But MGM's loss was Universal's gain. That studio, threatened with receivership due to severe losses, decided to gamble on her potential. Under the guiding influence of Universal executive Joseph Pasternak, Durbin was cast in a series of expensive, carefully crafted musicals, beginning in 1936 with Three Smart Girls. This and subsequent films--notably One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) -- craftily exploited Durbin's remarkable operatic voice, but at the same time cast her as a "regular kid" who was refreshingly free of diva-like behavior.
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![Deanna Durbin: the Ultimate Collection [19 Disc Box Set]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/d/e/a/deanna-durbin/i/004.jpg)
Abigail Manette (Deanna Durbin) is a woman with a questionable past who owns a sleazy nightclub and is involved in a nefarious underworld. Her husband has been incarcerated for life on charges of murder and Abigail thinks he's safely locked away, but he's actually escaped and is on a jealous warpath to find her and accuse her of infidelity, even before he can ascertain the truth. At the same time, a mysterious army lieutenant (Dean Harens) comes into her club on the rebound from a recent breakup and its clear that this love triangle may end up with either a deadly or divine conclusion. It's the hooker with a heart of gold, Christmas story of salvation and new beginnings; a heart warmer with a dark edge.
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Deanna Durbin