DEANNA DURBIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1940, Page 9

DEANNA DURBIN

SHALL SHE BE A SCREEN BRIDE? ADMIRERS WILL DECIDE. She’ll marry if she gels the votes. Every day is election day in Universal City, although potential nominees for America’s presidential contest hold merely routine interest for the many residents of this small California community built around one industry — motion pictures. Universalitcs are interested in an election of their own which has been going on for the last three years and has provoked hotter arguments than many a national cam-

paign. The election is being hold ic determine whether Deanna Durbin is to appear as. a bride in her next film. Right now the vote is practically : deadlock. During her three mid a half years 'n Hollywood. Deanna lias received approximately 800.000 letter:; from admirers. Since her first schoolgirl appearance in “Mad About Music," filmed in 1938. some 100,090 of there letters have contained admonitions to v.cd. or abstain from marriage in her next picture. Always attentive to the voice <-f the people. Joe Pasternak, producer of all the Durbin pictures, urged Deanna and the secretaries who classify hetfan mail to count all such, suggestions in future. That started the vote tabulating. The •laily changes in the returns have dictated Deanna’s attitude toward screen romance in her recent films. “That Certain Age." "Three Smart Girls Grow Up," "First Love" and Iter latest, the Universal comedy. "It’s A Date.” At present writing, the votes from Deanna’s public, for or against romance in her pictures are so equally divided, that the returns are being chalked up daily on a little canvas blackboard, hung in the studio post office lobby.