The first thing you are going to notice is that the photo to the right is not a picture of me. 
Indeed, it is not me but rather a nice colour photo of the late actress Deanna Durbin. She is the topic of this blahg. I have been a fan of hers for many years and with her recent passing, I thought maybe I would speak of her here and share some of the things that I think are so special about Deanna Durbin.
Just last Thursday, May 2nd, I learned that Deanna Durbin had died. In fact, my friend Bryan and I had been speaking about her earlier in the day. We were discussing the films of Gene Kelly, of “An American In Paris” and “Singing In The Rain” and other great films, when our discussion turned to the film he made with Deanna Durbin, “Christmas Holiday”. I’ll speak more about that film in a bit. Later in the day, Bryan and I were in line at one of the McDonald’s in Belleville when we noticed that the television that was available for patrons scrolled across a quick line at the bottom of the screen that Deanna Durbin had died at the age of 91. Both of us were shocked. We had just been speaking about her and now we learn she had passed away.
The internet is a good source for news when you live in a rural area like mine. I get 4 our 5 channels by antenna and there is no 24 hour news channel among them. So, I searched online news sources for details about Deanna’s death. I was quite surprised to learn that, according to some sources, she had actually died around April 20th but we were just learning about this now. She had always valued her privacy and her family honored those wishes even unto her death. Still, twelve days after her passing, we learn of her death? There’s no mystery involved here and if you read on in this blahg, you will learn why this should not come as a surprise.
One of the affinities I have with Deanna is that she was actually born in Winnipeg, Manitoba here in Canada. That doesn’t mean we lay any claim to her but we all know some of the great actors and actresses in Hollywood were born in Canada. America’s early silent screen sweetheart Mary Pickford was born in Toronto. I won’t mention all the others but that bond of being born in Canada ties us all together. I also won’t go into details about Deanna’s life. There are numerous online sources that will fill in those details and some are correct and some are not. Deanna liked her privacy and the stories about her were hard to verify. Now that she’s gone we only have those stories to go by. I don’t think she left notes for an unfinished autobiography and any unauthorized biography that might be published would probably be full of inaccuracies.
Deanna grew up on the screen. That’s how I remember her. TV Ontario’s iconic Saturday Night At The Movies program often aired Deanna Durbin movies when I was growing up. I think the late Elwy Yost, who hosted during those early years, was a big Deanna Durbin fan. I remember him always presenting her films with a big smile on his face and he always spoke fondly of her films and film image. And that’s it really, it was her film image that captivated everyone. It made her a mega-star and and made Universal solvent in the process. But her film career didn’t start at Universal. She was first signed by MGM and paired in the 1936 short “Every Sunday” with Judy Garland. Here it is, for your viewing enjoyment:
[hana-flv-player
video=”http://falseducks.com/theblahg/videos/Every%20Sunday.flv”
width=”460″
height=”320″
clickurl=”http://www.falseducks.com”
player=”2″
autoplay=”false”
loop=”false”
autorewind=”true”
splashimage=”http://falseducks.com/theblahg/images/judydeanna.jpg”
/]
There was something special about Deanna and I guess the studio couldn’t see it in this short. Legend has it that Louis B. Mayer saw the short and said “Drop the fat one.” He meant Judy Garland but for some reason, MGM kept Judy and Deanna would eventually end up at Universal. Research Deanna Durbin and you read more about that. Again, everything is rumors, stories, or conjecture but it makes for a fun legend nonetheless.
Deanna Durbin made 21 films from 1936 to 1948 and was, as the stories goes, the highest paid actress at one point in her career. Here’s a list of her films:
1936 Three Smart Girls
1937 One Hundred Men and a Girl
1938 Mad About Music
1938 That Certain Age
1939 Three Smart Girls Grow Up
1939 First Love
1940 It’s a Date
1940 Spring Parade
1941 Nice Girl?
1941 It Started with Eve
1943 The Amazing Mrs. Holliday
1943 Hers to Hold
1943 His Butler’s Sister
1944 Christmas Holiday
1944 Can’t Help Singing
1945 Lady on a Train
1946 Because of Him
1947 I’ll Be Yours
1947 Something in the Wind
1948 Up in Central Park
1948 For the Love of Mary
What is unfortunate about this list is that only 13 of these 21 films have been released on DVD. 
Previously, 18 of these films had been issued on VHS with only Christmas Holiday, Hers to Hold, and Spring Parade not seeing VHS releases. Spring Parade has never had any official release of any kind. Back in 2004 Universal finally got around to issuing some of her films on DVD. With the release of the “Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack” we were treated to the release of Three Smart Girls / Something In the Wind / First Love / It Started with Eve / Can’t Help Singing / Lady on a Train. 
In 2010 we finally saw another DVD box set from Universal/TCM with the release of “Deanna Durbin: The Music and Romance Collection” containing Mad About Music / That Certain Age / Three Smart Girls Grow Up / Because of Him / For The Love of Mary. In 2012 there were a couple of single releases through the Universal Vault collection which are manufacture on demand discs. These were “The Amazing Mrs. Holliday” and “Up in Central Park.” Last month, we saw one more Universal vault release or should I say re-release of “It Started with Eve”. “It Started with Eve” is one of my personal favorites with Deanna, Robert Cummings (with whom she would co-star in “Spring Parade” & “Three Smart Girls Grow Up”) and Charles Laughton (who would also co-star with Deanna in “Because of Him”). It’s a great comedy and Deanna and Laughton are fun together. If you’re counting all of these releases, this adds up to 13 of Deanna’s films available on DVD here in North America. Even the short “Every Sunday” that she made at MGM in 1936 has been released as an extra on the DVD of the 1942 film “For Me and My Gal” starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.
Earlier I mentioned the film “Christmas Holiday”. Elwy Yost once showed that, too, on Saturday Night At The Movies but it’s been an elusive film to own. It has never had a release here in North America on DVD or VHS. 
In Europe and Australia, however, Deanna seems to be a little more respected. 19 of her 21 films have been released on DVD with only “Spring Parade” and “It’s A Date” still yet to be released. There have been two Ultimate Collection releases with all 19 films in one set as well as individual releases of these films. In Australia, there was a release of these 19 films in a round “hat box” collection which is sadly now out of print. 
You can still find the individual releases from the UK and if you have a region free DVD player, like I do, this is the way to go. There’s even a Portuguese release of “It’s A Date” along with the Jeanette MacDonald film “The Lottery Bride”. I don’t know the quality of the Portuguese release but if you can find the officially released VHS, and I’m not getting rid of mine any time soon, then that will suffice. There are even some bootleg prints of Spring Parade floating around and the last I checked, the full film was posted on YouTube.
After finishing her last film with Universal, Deanna married film producer-director Charles Henri David in 1950 and relocated to France. There she remained and there she died. There is very little known about her life after she left Hollywood. She was disillusioned with the star factory treatment and the poor quality of the scripts coming her way. She had a daughter by a previous marriage and she just wanted to raise her child in anonymity. She would have a son by Charles David and she devoted the rest of her life to being a mother and wife far from the maddening crowd. The last interview she gave was in 1983. You can read it here: http://javabeanrush.blogspot.ca/2010/11/DeannaDurbinInterview.html. She was apparently very happy and never regretted her decision to leave Hollywood and the movies. She fared better than most juvenile stars of her time and our time.
Her private life is nothing I can speak of here. I respect her decision to do what she did and what came later was all her own. I can only speak of the public image. I don’t know if she realized what her movies and songs meant to us all. They are not inspirational…they are entertainment. There’s something moving and happy in every one of her films and they are indeed classics that can be watched over and over again. “Christmas Holiday” is not a Christmas movie. It is a film noir dark piece that shows Deanna’s dramatic acting ability. It also produced two great songs: “Always” and “Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year”. Give a listen to the two of them below:
“Always”:
“Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year”:
I will miss Deanna. I always had a secret dream of meeting her. I’ve had an address to which to write her but I never got around to doing it. I guess my sensibility and that respect for her privacy always prevented me from writing that letter. I know what I would have said. I would have said THANK YOU. All my thanks for what she did give us and the legacy she left on screen and in her recordings. Go gently into that good night Deanna. I’ll remember you ALWAYS.