Trivia

By twenty-one, she was the highest-paid woman in the United States and the highest-paid female movie star in the world.

In 1941, Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini published an open letter to Durbin in his official newspaper, "Il Popolo", asking her to intercede with President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of American youth to dissuade him from becoming involved in World War II. She didn't.

Deanna Durbin dolls existed along with many other types of merchandising in the 1940s.

After the reign of Universal Pictures' founder Carl Laemmle ended abruptly in the spring of 1936, the new studio head, Charles R. Rogers quickly signed the 15-year-old when producer Joe Pasternak told him her Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract had expired. Deanna rapidly became new Universal's biggest star. She literally single-handedly saved the studio from bankruptcy in the last years of the 1930s.

She was Holocaust victim Anne Frank's favorite movie star. There are two pictures of Durbin on Anne's "Movie Wall" in the secret annex in Amsterdam where Frank and her family hid from the Nazis.

She was Prime Minister Winston Churchill's favorite movie star. He reportedly insisted that he be permitted to screen her films privately before they were released to the public in Britain, and would often screen her film One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) to celebrate British victories during World War II. He considered her "a formidable talent".

Universal Pictures' top star in the 1940s where she was paid $400,000 per film. She is reported as the star who saved the company.

As a young girl, she broke her left arm and it didn't heal very well, and wasn't able to extend it as far as her right arm.

Her first two feature films, Three Smart Girls (1936) and One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) were nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Story and Best Sound Recording. They had both been released before her 16th birthday. Nevertheless, she never appeared in another Best Picture nominee.

Tried for the voice of Snow White in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) but Disney himself rejected her, claiming she sounded "too mature". She was age 14 at the time.

She was the number one female box office star in Britain for the years 1939-1942 inclusive. She was so popular that in 1942, a seven day "Deanna Durbin Festival" was held during which her films were screened exclusively on the Odeon Theatre Circuit through Britain, a feat that has never been duplicated for any other star. According to reports from the BBC over the past three decades, it receives more requests from the public for Durbin's films and recordings, than for those of any other star of Hollywood's Golden Age.

In 1980, she submitted a recent photo of herself to Life magazine in order to silence rumors she was overweight.

Had two children: daughter Jessica Louise Jackson (born on February 7, 1946) and son Peter David (born on June 20, 1951).

Salary for 1939, $195,000.

She was an option to perform as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939), but the role ultimately went to Judy Garland.

Daughter of James Allen Durbin and his wife Ada Read, who were originally from Manchester, England. Has an older sister, Edith, a teacher.

In the mid-1930s, MGM had both Durbin and fellow adolescent singer Judy Garland under contract. To test which of them had greater popular appeal, the studio cast them side-by-side in the musical short Every Sunday (1936). When studio head Louis B. Mayer saw the short, he insisted one of them would need to be dropped. After Durbin was dismissed, she signed with Universal and instantly became a star when her first feature film proved to be a huge hit, while Judy struggled to find her footing and arguably didn't achieve stardom until 1939. "We let the wrong girl go." was the lamentation of many MGM executives in the years 1936-1939.

She was sought for the female leads of the original Broadway productions of both Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Oklahoma!" (1943) and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "My Fair Lady" (1956). Universal Pictures refused to loan her for "Oklahoma!", and she turned down the lead in "My Fair Lady" (after Lerner personally came to her home to audition the songs for her) because, "I had my ticket for Paris in my pocket.", she said later.

She had fights with director Robert Siodmak over the interpretation of her character in the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944).

Although she never quite made it into the Top Ten Box Office Stars list, Durbin was ranked among the Top 25 Stars five times between 1938 and 1944, twice ranking 12th, thus making her Universal Pictures' most popular screen personality until Abbott & Costello topped the charts in the early 1940s.

She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

In Italy, most of her films were dubbed by either Rosetta Calavetta or Lydia Simoneschi.

Upon signing Edna Mae Durbin to MGM, studio head Louis B. Mayer mandated her re-branding with a glamorous forename. Durbin, who was at least occasionally nicknamed Dee Dee, suggested "Diana" as her new name; an MGM public relations man misheard Durbin's suggestion as "Deanna" and Deanna Durbin received Mayer's endorsement as his new contractee's professional alias.

Presented with a miniature Oscar in 1938.

Early in her career at MGM, her vocal coach was Andrés de Segurola.