Another great one gone: Universal's savior, the little girl with the prima donna voice, Deanna Durbin. As this shot proves, she had the moxie to make it as a grown-up star, but instead left for France and more than six decades of what sounds like a perfectly happy and rewarding private life. Her resolute silence has meant that she's a comparative unknown, but one had only to see the expression on Mother Muscato's face when her name came up to know what a Very Big Star she had been (she was on a very short list of Mother's Immortals, a curiously mixed ensemble that in addition to Deanna included Mary Martin, Roberta Peters, Gordon MacRae, crooner Al Martino, and, in later years, Sade, whom she referred to exclusively phonetically, as "Sayd").
Meanwhile, in a shadowy lair high above Grosvenor Square, the fine-veined hand of Luise Rainer crosses off another name...
How I love(d) Deanna! You'll appreciate this rare interview with her from 1983:
ReplyDeletehttp://javabeanrush.blogspot.com/2010/11/DeannaDurbinInterview.html
A great talent and from the sound of it a great lady. Lived her life on her own terms and my guess would be that she left it in the same way. Her son's announcement that she had passed a few days ago probably means her services are over and therefore remained private as she would have surely wished. Good for her.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was never a fan of the sort of light operatic singing that was popular at the time, Jeanette MacDonald, Rise Stevens etc., she was an exception because of her warmth. She was not a fan of most of her pictures and some are corny today but "It Started with Eve" is wonderful and both "Christmas Holiday" and "Lady on a Train" are undiscovered gems.
Sorry to hear her voice has been stilled but a good, happy life lived on one's own terms is nothing to be sad about.
fine veined? you're too kind.
ReplyDeleteWell, she may be a diabolical genius devoted solely to outliving every single person who performed in any medium prior to 1945, but she's still a Star...
DeleteShe only has the Fontaine-De Havilands, Baby Peggy, June Foray and Vera Lynn to go, methinks... Jx
DeleteDon't forget Zsa Zsa bless her, still hanging in there after a fashion
DeleteShe never became famous till the 50s, though... Jx
DeleteWhat I think of as "Luise's List" gets ever shorter. While poor St. Zsa Zsa may not quite fit (first screen credit: '52 - I had to check to make sure there wasn't some pre-war European stuff), there's still Mickey Rooney, Jane Withers, Maureen O'Hara, Danielle Darrieux (I'm sure Luise counts the continentals), and of course Deanna's co-eval Good Girl, Shirley Temple. A few more, still, but ever fewer...
DeleteYour list leads to the inevitable "Mickey Rooney is still hanging on? Really?" sort of thing.
DeleteJust thought of another: Nanette Fabray! Vaudeville from the '20s, film from '39, and Broadway from '41. And of course, lots and lots of TV.
DeleteHad she stayed in Canada, we'd have never known a thing about her.
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