Deanna had this to say in the last interview she's given back in 1983: "Just once was I seriously tempted, by the prospect of My Fair Lady on Broadway. It was still in an embryonic state just a few songs completed when Alan Jay Lerner came to my home to play them for me. I loved them...but I had my ticket to Paris in my pocket and anyway, Julie Andrews was great and so was Audrey Hepburn in the film." Deanna turned down My Fair Lady? With this knowledge in hand Deanna fans have to lick their wounds for the third (but most painful of all) time.
For me this is the greater lost, the role I feel she had been born to play but gave away and since led to the forever drama of Julie Andrews vs. Audrey Hepburn/Marni Nixon. Never is she mentioned not even a blip, but given as she was world famous for over a decade I have no doubt she inspired the role and was the original first choice to play. Doubt? Go listen to a handful of Deanna songs (there's at least 100 on my channel) and like me you can almost hear Deanna singing these songs (which is why I kept them without vocals since it has double use: Deanna fans can imagine Deanna as Eliza Dolittle and someone wanting to do Karaoke for Eliza Dolittle has a one stop video spot).
It would have been the masterpiece of Deanna's career in a career filled with mini masterpieces but none complete. Deanna fans can comfort themselves a little with Can't Help Singing-her only technicolor musical and with songs by Jerome Kern( if only it were more known) as the songs are wonderful and the story entertaining but it's no classic since its long been forgotten.
Deanna stars in her own battle like Audrey and Julie with Judy Garland. Deanna and Judy did a short at the start of their careers titled Every Sunday which was used as the deciding factor in who MGM kept and who they let go.
Its a constant source of bickering on who did better (though there's no doubt that Judy walked away from the film but I think that has more to do with song choice Deanna sang Il Bacio. So Deanna was let go and Judy kept. Deanna had this to say also from the same last interview : "For me this was the end. My dog Tippy and I went for a long walk. I was crying bitterly and decided that I'd kill myself-I couldn't go back to school a failure. Not many months later, returning from my first publicity trip for Three Smart Girls in New York, I saw huge posters of me all over Hollywood. I had become a star. I was tired, but happy and alive!" Deanna went on to become an overnight sensation and saved Universal from bankruptcy. Judy landed a contract with MGM. The rivalry really heated up when Wizard of Oz came to play. By now its mostly etched into the minds of Oz fans that it was Shirley Temple vs. Judy Garland. But in my 1999 dvd of Oz it mentioned Durbin so I had to look her up and then wondered why it isn't more Temple Vs. Garland Vs. Durbin. Deanna even sang a song that year in her film First Love called Home Sweet Home. I don't think Oz was the greater loss while I would have loved to hear Deanna sing Over the Rainbow the film is Judy's now and Judy's alone.
Then Deanna turned down the chance to play Christine in the Phantom of the Opera-again a loss but the film wasn't that great anyway. There was also a couple of Bing Crosby musicals she turned down in the late 1940s when she decided to retire but no big loss there either. By far the biggest loss was her chance to play Eliza Dolittle on Broadway and then possibly she could have done the film (As I'm thinkin' it would have been filmed sooner than 1964.) She could have sealed her career away successfully but ultimately Deanna who lives in Paris and has shunned show business since leaving Hollywood does not care. Its regrettable for her fans but ultimately she sang over a hundred songs, and while it would have been nice to have I Could Have Danced All Night and Show Me in her repertoire we have songs like Spring in My Heart and Waltzing in the Clouds. However the songs of My Fair Lady are in my opinion some of the greatest songs ever and I remember I fell in love with I Could Have Danced All Night when I was very young. I will admit that had it not been for Judy Garland I would never have even heard of Deanna Durbin. "Why did I give up my career? For one thing, just take a look at my last four films and you'll appreciate that the stories I had to defend were mediocre, near impossible. Whenever I complained or asked for story or director approval, the studio refused. I was the highest paid star with the poorest material-today I consider my salary as damages for having to cope with such complete lack of quality." If only My fair Lady had come a great deal sooner!
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Deanna Durbin Waltzing in the Clouds (lyrics video)by restoredeanna1,326 views
Cool story. Such an under exposed enormous star. TCM has in the past, but not recently done dedications to her films. Always haunted by the ones like this who walk away so easily from Hollywood in their prime. She was a genius in comedy & musicals. That would have been a helluva comeback.
Gemminicus 5 months ago
I feel you Marianne Faithfull (what my channel is about) also had some great opportunities slip-she was supposed to be in Ned Kelly and then in Macbeth so believe me I understand! I do think Deanna would have been perfect-the high note in I Could Have Danced All Night was classic Deanna. The film would have been alright if they had just gone with Julie Andrews not that I don't like Audrey's acting but she shouldn't have been cast in a singing role if she couldn't sing. Great Vid!
afacethatcouldsell 6 months ago