LITTLE MISS DURBIN HAS A MIND OF HER OWN

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 61, 4 December 1937, Page 10

LITTLE MISS DURBIN HAS A MIND OF HER OWN

Judged by ordinary cinema standards of juvenile genius, Deanna Durbin is a most un»nterestihg c)iild, s:(ys a writer in the New Tork Times. She does not dimple readily. She has never hurled a dripping lollipop at a director to emphasise her artistic mtegrity. Affable, but inscrutable, she decunes, like JSamlet, to let interviewers plnck the heart out of ller mystery. Everybody seems to like the way she sings on the screen, but it fiils her with alarm. Right in Hollywood,. where love amounts' to a state of feligion, she has aunounced her lferetical intention of being an old maid. AJ1 she wants to do is sing and act. Hers is an uncomplicated sort of genius. Deanna is, of course, the little girl with the big soprano voice who works for Universal Pictures and who' woke up the morning after "Three Smart Girls" was released, to fiud herself famous. The Admiring World. Between her first two pictures httle Miss Durbin received a good deal of attention from the world at large. She has been a captain irt the 116th Cab'fornia lnfantry. She has been .lubbed a Teixanita. Such musical pimdit3 as Grace Moore, Lily Pons Andre de Segurola and Eddie Cantor nave put up their en°omiuins on her singiug in wri.tr ■ing. Her mail has increased from a few postcards to 1600' letters a week. Some of these ask for money. Others ask far her hand iu holy wedlock. Strangely, few of the latter group come from our child-marriage helt. A number emanates from sophisticated Paris. tSo far Deanna has received these proofs of the world' s- esteem, or better, with little show of emotion on her slightly poker face. She has a full sense of her film accomplishment. But she prefers to point .with pride to the fact that when she w.as cashier in the cafeteria at Bret Harte High School, her alma mater, she handled £3 in cash every day without losing a nickel. This -preference is characteristie. Peanna is not at all impressed with herself as a Hollywood personage. , One of her major musical enthusiasms is .the lion-maned Leopold Sto-. kowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orehestra. When she learn-' ed that in "100 Men and a Girl" she was to play a little girl who iorms an orehestra. of 100 jobless musicians, she went straight to Joseph Pasternak and Henry Koster, who were to produce and direct this picture as they had "Three Smart Girls." Just as she now does in tlie film, Deanna begged them to get Stokowski for her orehestra leader. When Stokowski later eonsent-: ed and asked to hear her sing, she was thrilled to the marrow. She would allow no one hut herself to pick the piece she was to sing for him. • She selected Mimi's Farewell from "La Boheme." Yet upon meeting her hero at long last, she just said "Hello,". andi Stokowski said "Hello." They went to lunch. She sang for- him. Ho said, "How nicei" She said, ."Thank you sir." And that was, that. ; . - , • v. Leading Men. ' At times this preternatural selfpossession of hers is a,trifle tdrrifjiog to Hollywood, where almost ^verythinghuman bubhles over a bit. While "100 Men and ,a Girl" was casting, interviewers asked Deanna how she would like Clarke Gable for her leading man. She replied, "Why, I admire Mr. Gahle's acting very much, hut I belieye the cheice of a leading man depends on whether or not he is suitahl© for the role. "To break the somewhat Btunned silence that followed, another scribe nervously inquired if she fancied any one around town as a future hushand. "I shall probahly never marry," said Deanna firmly. "No, there's not one of the glamorous leading men I've met here I could think of marrying." This imperturable young persons nqw facing the improbahle future. of spinsterhood was born in Winnipeg, Canada, 14 years ago. She remained there only long enough to win a prophetic pewter plaque for being the loudest crying bahy at the State fair. She was brought to Los Angeles in the year one of her life, not to he nearer the films, but so that her ailing father could be further from the Canadian winters. She sang as soon as she spoke and Iearned the chromatic scale and the alphabet simultaneously. She was discovered by Jack Sherrill, who used to be Alice Brady's leading man in the old World Film days and is now a players' agent, He sold her to Metro, and to Universal when lier first option expired.