Deanna Durbin dies, Hollywood teen musical star in the 1930s...

[Madara]

Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland's onetime rival, has died at 91. Ms. Durbin was a musical star in Hollywood while still a teenager in the 1930s and early '40s and had difficulty transitioning to adult roles. She left Hollywood at the age of 27 and never looked back, living in France with her third husband ever since then. Her musical career had parallels with that of Japanese star Hibari Misora, but also with that of Momoe Yamaguchi, who also turned her back on her career at a young age. (Durbin made her first movies the year Misora was born.)



I once did a blog entry comparing a sequence in a Durbin musical with the AKB48 video for "Iiwake Maybe," both of which feature girls on bikes. I still consider it my most inspired blog entry. Here's the link:

http://madara-blog.livejournal.com/64866.html



One of the comments on the blog indicates that Durbin was extraordinarily popular in Japan, to the extent that Japanese soldiers carried her picture during WWII. Which I find absolutely astounding.



Durbin in MAD ABOUT MUSIC (1938):





Some of her better movies are:

THREE SMART GIRLS (1937)

100 MEN AND A GIRL (1937)

MAD ABOUT MUSIC (1938)

THAT CERTAIN AGE (1938)

FIRST LOVE (1939)

IT STARTED WITH EVE (1941)

I CAN'T HELP SINGING (1944 - Technicolor musical western)



In a further J-pop connection, Ayumi Hamasaki shot her video for "Do It Again" on the Universal Pictures backlot in California, the exact studio where Durbin worked 70 years earlier.