No More Shining Future

Or

One Hundred Men and a Corpse

Deanna Durbin, the Canadian Shirley Temple, has died at the age of 91. Like Temple, Durbin was a singing and dancing child movie star during the Depression, so successful that she saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy. Like Temple, she disappeared from public view after her young adult career failed to match her child star days – Durbin by moving to France, Temple by working at the UN. Durbin hit start status with her first film, Three Smart Girls and played wholesome, spunky, can-do kid sisters and daughters who would fix their adult’s screw-ups. in a total of 21 movies over the next 12 years before abruptly retiring. In 1938, she got a mini Oscar for “significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth.” At her peak in 1946, she was the second-highest paid woman in America – at $323,477, just $5,000 behind Bette Davis.