Deanna Durbin

"Just as Hollywood pin-up represents sex to dissatisfied erotics, so I represented the ideal daughter millions of fathers and mothers wished they had."

In her early childhood there were no obvious signs that one day Edna Mae Durbin would be a bigger box office attraction than Shirley Temple. Renamed Deanna Durbin for show business purposes, by age 21 she was the most highly paid female star in the world. Her major motion pictures were "Three Smart Girls" (1936), "Mad About Music" (1938) and "That Certain Age" (1938). She was an option to perform as Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), but the role ultimately went to Judy Garland. Her voice was often described as "natural and beautiful" and her version of "One Fine Day" from "Madame Butterfly," became a classic.

By the time, she was 18, her income was $250,000 a year, and by 21, she was the highest-paid woman in the United States and highest-paid female film star in the world. Deanna was a Hollywood star in every way. There were Deanna Durbin dolls and dresses. An engineering firm named its so-called dream home in her honor. Her first screen kiss was described in a headline story across the continent.

What makes Deanna Durbin's story different is that she was never comfortable with adulation. When she was at the top of her career as Hollywood's leading actress and singer, she turned her back on that world for a life of seclusion. Her first two marriages had failed, and before she married her third husband, director Charles David, she set one condition: he had to promise that she could have what she yearned for: "The life of nobody."

Deanna's final film was "For the Love of Mary" (1948), whereupon, at the age of 27, she simply walked away, and relocated to France, just outside Paris, with David, whom she wed in 1950. She has had numerous offers to return to the screen and had turned them all down. Her husband had told journalists that "Mario Lanza pleaded with her for years to make a film with him. But she will never go back to that life."

Happy Birthday, Deanna Durbin!