Canadian-born teen sensation dies at 91
LOS ANGELES, CALIF.— Deanna Durbin, the teen sensation whose sparkling soprano voice and girl-next-door looks made her a star during Hollywood’s Golden Age, has died at age 91, a family friend said Wednesday. Durbin died on about April 20 in a village outside Paris where she had lived, out of public view, since 1949, family friend Bob Koster of Los Angeles said. At the height of her career, the Winnipeg-born Durbin, who made her first feature, Three Smart Girls, at age 13, was among the highestpaid actresses. Her fans included Winston Churchill, who said she was his favourite star, according to biographer William Manchester, and Anne Frank, who had Durbin’s photo pasted on the wall in the secret quarters where she and her family hid in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
In 1938 she received an honorary Academy Award for her “significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.”
Her hair, makeup and onscreen outfits set fashion trends worldwide and were emulated by millions. In the 1941 hit Nice Girl? Durbin, then 20, wore a spangled white organdy dress that became the rage at proms.
“She was one of the last really legitimate movie stars from the 1930s who was still with us,” film historian Alan K. Rode told the Los Angeles Times. “She was a huge box-office star for a short period of time.”