WHAT HAPPENED TO DEANNA DURBIN?

Early in my life, Deanna Durbin's Always was my favorite song.  Why?  Don't know, just as Wakare No Isochidori might well be my favorite song today.   Not sure why.  Although, here is probably part of the reason.   In that posting I also said:

Let us go back to the Summer of 1963 when out of nowhere Kyu Sakamoto's Sukiyaki hit #1 on the Billboard 100, and stayed at the top for three weeks.  Why?  No other Japanese song had ever tracked on Billboard, and 53 years later, there has not been another.

Nothing much to do with this story today, but just goes to show that songs can be meaningful for reasons that elude logic.  I liked Sukiyaki too and till today haven't the faintest idea what was being said, although I hear it has nothing to do with sukiyaki.

Back to Durbin, you most probably don't know what happened to her because you never heard of her.  She was born in 1921 and made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in Every Sunday.  They were both around 15 years old.  Judy was not particularly held in high respect at MGM then, for she was competing with Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor, real beauties, which Garland wasn't.

The story goes that Louis B. Mayer while on a trip instructed his people at MGM to "drop the fat one," and they mistakenly let Deanna go.  She had an operatic voice and was prettier than Judy.

Deanna's first production with her next company, Universal, was Three Smart Girls (which more recently twice became The Parent Trap and later received an 86 Rotten Tomatoes reviewers' rating) a smash success.  She is the only actress to have ten hits in a row, artistically and financially.  She saved Universal from bankruptcy.  At the age of 17 she was awarded the Academy Juvenile Award.

She sang Always in the 1944 Christmas Holiday, co-starring Gene Kelly.  You would think this was one of of those light-hearted musicals, but, no, this was something called film noir, the type of movie she preferred, but not particularly popular with her fans. 

Ann Frank hung a picture of Durbin in her hideaway.  Deanna appeared in more than 20 films and recorded 50 songs for Decca.  In 1947, at the age of 26, she became the top salaried woman in the USA.  Her fan club was the the world's largest.  For reasons that remain somewhat mysterious, she permanently retired in 1949, 70 years ago, one good reason why you never heard of her.  The best guess is that she "hated being in a goldfish bowl." Soon thereafter she married French/American director/producer Charles David.

In 1951 she resisted returning to London's West End production of Kiss Me Kate, plus the MGM film, then declined  to be in  the 1954 The Student Prince, opening the door to Ann Blyth.  Finally in 1956 she almost succumbed to being Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, but said no.

She was interviewed once in 1983, but otherwise avoided any limelight.  Durbin and David remained married until 1999, when he died.  Her two children were successful and happy.  She only passed away in 2013 at the age of 91, and by all reports, lived a peaceful and comfortable life.

Judy Garland, on the other hand, went on to have a long career, going on to Wizard of Oz, singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which the American Film Industry rates as the #1 movie song of all time.  She became a superstar and suffered traumas all along the way.  A recent film Judy epitomizes her agonizing existence.  Who had the better life?

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The Dow Jones Industrial average rose 101 points, reaching 28,236, an all-time record.  The S&P 500 went up to 3,191, while the Nasdaq Composite reached 8814.  All major averages made fresh records.  Why, there seems to have been a temporary resolution to the U.S-China trade war.  But this is only now, and the roller coaster ride has certainly not ended.

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