Durbin signed a contract with
MGM in 1935 and made her first film appearance in a short subject
Every Sunday with another contractee,
Judy Garland.
Durbin was released from her contract shortly thereafter as studio executive
Louis B. Mayer felt her breasts were smaller than Judy Garland's. Also she had a unibrow which Mayer thought was unattractive. Hollywood legend has recorded that he instructed his staff to "drop the fat one" and that they dismissed Durbin, misunderstanding that Mayer had in fact intended to terminate the contract of Garland.
Durbin was quickly signed to a contract with
Universal Studios and made her first feature-length film
Three Smart Girls in 1936. The huge success of her films was reported to have saved the studio from
bankruptcy. In 1938 she received a special
Academy Juvenile Award, along with
Mickey Rooney. Such was Durbin's international fame and popularity that diarist
Anne Frank pasted her picture to her bedroom wall in the
Achterhuis where the Frank family hid during
World War II. The picture can still be seen there today, and was pointed out by Frank's friend Hannah Pick-Goslar in the documentary film
Anne Frank Remembered.
Durbin is perhaps best known for her singing voice—a voice described variously as light but full, sweet, unaffected and artless. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric
soprano, she performed everything from popular standards to
operatic arias.
She married an actor, Vaughn Paul, in 1941 and they were divorced in 1943. Her second marriage, to producer Felix Jackson in 1945, produced a daughter, Jessica Louise Jackson, and ended in divorce in 1949.
Actress
Hedda Hopper alleged that Durbin had an affair with
Joseph Cotten. However, the slur was completely untrue as Cotten testified in his autobiography. What brought about the rumor of an affair was that both Cotten and Durbin stayed overnight at the studio without the other one knowing it, only to realize it when they met the next morning at the commissary. Cotten was so enraged by Hopper's conduct that he kicked her chair out from underneath her just as she was about to sit down at a Hollywood function. This generated a spontaneous round of applause from spectators.
In private life, the actress continued to use her given name; salary figures printed annually by the Hollywood trade publications listed the actress as "Edna Mae Durbin, player." Her studio continued to cast her in musicals, and filmed two sequels to her original success,
Three Smart Girls. The second sequel was a wartime story called
Three Smart Girls Join Up, but Durbin issued a press release announcing that she was no longer inclined to participate in these team efforts and was now performing as a solo artist. The
Three Smart Girls Join Up title was changed to
Hers to Hold.
Durbin then tried to assume a more sophisticated film persona in such films as the
film noir Christmas Holiday (
1944) and the whodunit
Lady on a Train (
1945), but the public preferred her in light musicals. In 1947, her employers merged with two other companies to create Universal-International, and the new regime discontinued most of Universal's familiar product, including musicals, westerns, and comedies. Durbin stayed on for only two more pictures (
Something in the Wind and
For the Love of Mary) before quitting the studio in 1948. Durbin's new bosses sued her for wages they had paid in advance, but Durbin settled the suit amicably by agreeing to make three more pictures, including one to be filmed on location in Paris.
Durbin did go to Paris, but not for professional reasons. She married Charles David, who had directed her in
Lady on a Train. Durbin vowing that she would never return to show business, so the three films were never made.
She and her husband raised Durbin's second child, Peter David. Since then she has resisted numerous offers to perform, including several by
Mario Lanza, and has granted only one brief interview in
1983, to film historian David Shipman, steadfastly asserting her right to privacy. She maintains that privacy today, declining to be profiled on Internet websites.
Her husband, director Charles David, died in Paris on
March 1, 1999.
Deanna Durbin has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1722 Vine Street.
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