The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  There are now many apocryphal stories about Every Sunday. Folklore says that Metro had no idea who these two little girls really were or that either of them had any potential, and that the short was a throwaway. And yet, when you watch it, it’s clear that the power of the Hollywood star system—and its narrative skills—are in full play. The plot, the direction, the use of sets and costumes, are all first-rate, and both girls are beautifully showcased. A ninety-minute story is told in twenty minutes, with broad, simple strokes. It’s actually a condensed feature film of the “puttin’ on a show” genre: In a montage, the little girls knock on doors to sell tickets, trade their own work skills for promises of attendance, walk around town carrying sandwich signs, and so on.

  Some stories, usually told in relation to the career of Judy Garland, claim that Louis B. Mayer wanted to sign Durbin, to whom he referred as “the little girl with the big voice.” His minions assumed he meant Garland and signed her, letting Durbin go and infuriating Mayer, who spent the rest of his life trying to find his own version of Durbin in stars like Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell. However, the facts are that Judy Garland was already under a seven-year contract, and Durbin was filling time before starting a feature film. Anyone watching today can see that both have great voices though different singing styles. In fact, the short is about that very thing, as Garland sings a swing number and Durbin sings an operatic solo (her audition piece, “Il Bacio”). Furthermore, it’s perfectly clear that Judy Garland, a long-range employee, is the dominant force in the story. A full character is built for her, and she carries the bulk of the narrative development. After all, she was an experienced show business brat out of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, who had been trouping since she was three years old. Durbin was an amateur. Every Sunday looks like a short in which MGM is featuring Garland and testing Durbin.

  The girls are called Judy and Edna. (“Hey, Edna,” someone calls to Durbin, who hadn’t yet fully embraced her new name, although Frances Gumm had.) The two girls look comfortable with each other and seem naturally friendly. When Durbin is the first to stand up to sing, she uncorks a beautiful and amazing voice. Her singing is effortless, and she seems completely confident in herself, and no doubt she was. When Judy follows, she is immediately transformed from an awkward, insecure little girl into a professional who knows how to sell a song. She acts her number as well as sings it, and she’s extraordinary. She has all the polish of performance mechanics that Durbin seems blissfully unaware of. Finally, the two stand up together and share a number. Deanna Durbin, although new to movies, already looks like a radiant movie star, and Garland looks like what she was—a musical genius and totally unique female presence. She’s just there. She demands your attention, while Durbin assumes she has it. Durbin is more relaxed, self-contained, and detached, qualities that turned out to be her strength as she finally walked away from the business and gained a normal life. Garland, a showbiz pro, is jumpy and seems nervous, but there’s a superstar presence under her skin. She wants to please and to be loved, attributes that would not only become her trademarks but that also would endear her to audiences and shape her future.

  Every Sunday* contains two huge talents, two fourteen-year-olds with amazing vocal power and clearly formed personalities, on the brink of their careers. Durbin is a beautiful young girl, slim and radiant, a born leading lady. (At this stage of her life, Garland is more of a comic sidekick, with bounce and energy, and a somewhat lumpy-looking body.) What one sees about Deanna Durbin is that she’s sweet looking, pretty, and she can certainly sing. Today some people say that Every Sunday reveals that there’s no choice between them—Garland is it. But Garland is always it; it’s not for nothing she’s a legend. Hindsight is at work in that assessment, because both girls are wonderful and both have tremendous potential. In her day, Durbin was just as big a star, in some ways bigger; she just lasted for a briefer period.† Because Garland became an icon and Durbin dropped her career, Durbin is usually either ignored or criticized by comparison, but she holds her own easily. Popular opinion has it that Durbin had a silly or sentimental career, forgetting that Durbin’s work reflects the popular culture of its time and also forgetting that Garland had her own share of junk to muddle through. (Has anyone watched Listen, Darling [1938] or Little Nellie Kelly [1940] lately?) At the time, Deanna Durbin’s enormous and immediate popularity cast a shadow over Garland, who was sometimes shaped to appear Durbinesque. For instance, in another MGM short entitled If I Forget You, Garland was forced to sing an obituary tribute to Will Rogers, who had died in a plane crash. She’s presented in the frame dressed in a formal gown with the type of sweetheart neckline that Durbin popularized. She holds a single gardenia, and sings, “Let each forsaking heart forget that it must beat, old friend, if we forget you.” (The “let’s throw a tribute short together” quality of this thing is revealed by the song lyrics saying “we” instead of “I.”) At the end of the short, a solemn Garland lays her gardenia at the base of a Will Rogers statue. (No one escaped schmaltz in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s.)

  After the successful release of Every Sunday in October 1936, Durbin once again began to prepare for Gram. However, Madame Schumann-Heink died on November 17 at the age of seventy-five. Suddenly, MGM had no work for Durbin and no reason to keep her under contract. When her six months ended, she was dropped. Fortunately, Rufus LeMaire had just forged a deal for himself at Universal Pictures, and his new contract contained a clause that allowed him to sign personally any exceptional talent he discovered. Wisely, he snapped up Durbin, signing her for $300 per week, even though he had no specific project for her at the time.

  And so, as 1937 opened up, Deanna Durbin was under contract to Rufus LeMaire at Universal Pictures. She had been signed by a major studio at age thirteen, debuted successfully in a short film at the age of fourteen, and had just had her fifteenth birthday. During the calendar year of 1937, the star machine process would promote her heavily as she moved rapidly from almost complete obscurity to movie sensation.

  At Universal, the first order of business was to find Durbin a role. The second was to continue publicizing her name. Her new studio built on the early press beginnings MGM had set up for her. Universal already had a project in the works, a film about three sisters. They had been searching their roster for someone to play the youngest. LeMaire presented his little girl with the voice, and everyone thought she might work out. For added publicity, Eddie Cantor was talked into using Durbin on his highly popular radio show. Her appearance was such a hit that he signed her to a twenty-six-week deal. Louella Parsons reported her big news, “The entire story of Three Smart Girls is being revamped to give little Miss Durbin a bigger and better part in a bigger and better picture.” Unlike many of Louella’s news flashes, this was true, and it was Louella herself, the Goddess of Flack, who first handed down the Word when she wrote, shortly before the release of Three Smart Girls, “Better learn to pronounce Deanna Durbin’s name right now.”

  The buildup of Deanna Durbin the movie star is easily traced through the fan magazines and newspapers of 1936–37. It’s a clear record of the star machine at work. The story of her life, all fifteen years of it, is subtly invented and reinvented as the studio worked out her bio. Since many people, particularly her own family, continued to call her Edna Mae, the studio used this information to create intimacy between her and her fans. Contradicting their usual format of burying a star’s real name, they came out and said she was just little Edna Mae to family, but for her friends the fans, she was this special creation, Deanna. Then, suddenly, Universal got the bad news: People weren’t sure how to pronounce it. Was she Diana or Dee-anna? Never caught short, the publicity flacks went into high gear creating articles with appropriate instructions and charming anecdotes about how she made the original mistake herself, she being a little naïve and confused, just like her own public. (Naturally, the flacks weren’t going to take any responsibility.) Her father was first said to be apprenticed in an ironworks. (He was a machinis
t.) Then he was upgraded to the inexplicable job of blacksmith, which the studio thought sounded more democratic and folksy. Confused, Mr. Durbin asked Universal bosses what he should give as his occupation when people asked. “Hell, tell ’em you’re a real estate broker. Everyone else in Los Angeles is,” he was reportedly told.* Right after the release of Durbin’s first feature, he got a real boost in stature when he became her “stockbroker father” who had moved his family from Canada to California because of his poor health (not, it was implied, to put his little girl to work to earn the family bread, which was true). In press releases, Durbin stayed thirteen for two years or more, but young as she was, her throat, according to specialists called in by Universal, “was fully developed.” She was given a typical fan magazine “personality”—she was “constantly eating apples,” and she liked to skate and eat spaghetti. The real love of her life was Tippy, her cocker spaniel.

  Durbin’s first movie, Three Smart Girls, made her one of the few legitimate “overnight successes” in Hollywood: (top) with Barbara Read and Nan Grey, her “sisters”; and (bottom) with Charles Winninger, her “daddy.”

  All this paid off. By the end of 1936, after she had turned fifteen, Durbin’s first feature was previewed.† It had cost $319,107 to make and made $1.6 million at the box office. (Durbin had been paid $20,000.) The newcomer was immediately listed as one of the ten greatest discoveries of the year by the Los Angeles Examiner, which wouldn’t have happened if her first movie hadn’t been a blockbuster. The huge success of Three Smart Girls made it perfectly clear that Universal Pictures had a star in Deanna Durbin. As shooting on the film had progressed, Universal, realizing she was a natural, had indeed expanded her part. Seldom has any unknown been given the confident introduction to the public that marked Durbin’s debut. Right from the credits, it’s all about Deanna Durbin. The title card announces “Three Smart Girls with Binnie Barnes, Alice Brady, Ray Milland, Charles Winninger, Mischa Auer.” After that, the usual lineup of production credits appear, and then—ta da!—in a break with tradition, the credits read: “with the Three Smart Girls, Nan Grey as Joan, Barbara Read as Kay … and … Universal’s New Discovery, Deanna Durbin as ‘Penny.’” It was a twenty-one-gun salute. If the public hadn’t taken to Durbin, her career would have been eradicated on the spot and the movie buried in Alaska.

  The opening shot of Three Smart Girls is of Deanna Durbin. It’s a medium close-up, and she’s singing her head off. Furthermore, the shot is held long enough for the audience to get a good look at “Universal’s New Discovery.” Durbin is wearing a jaunty sailor cap on the back of her head, a striped T-shirt, and shorts. Her hair is parted in the middle in the simplest youthful style of the 1930s, with little curls on both sides of her face. She is radiant, youthful, charming, and totally relaxed. And she can sing “On the Wings of Song” absolutely on pitch and with a bright smile. This is more than a star buildup—it’s the serving up of a talent on a silver platter, with no doubt whatsoever that the public will buy. Deanna Durbin sparkles, sings with joy, and seems perfectly at ease in front of a camera that has to be only inches from her teenaged nose. Everybody saw it—Deanna Durbin was “a natural.”

  Three Smart Girls is one smart movie. It’s a small story about three young girls who leave their home in Switzerland to travel to New York to “save” their father (Winninger) from remarriage to a gold-digging sophisticate (Barnes). The older two sisters fall in love along the way, and that’s pretty much the whole plot. No more is needed for Durbin to capture the audience’s heart. Taking no chances in the usual studio manner, Universal surrounded newcomer Durbin with class-A support from experienced character actors like Lucile Watson (in a minuscule role, but there when needed), Winninger, Auer, and the dead-on talents of Alice Brady and the ever-fabulous Binnie Barnes playing a mother-daughter team of predators. They are hilarious, swanning around with cigarette holders, feathers on their heads, and jewels at their throats. Brady is a mom who never lets up looking for an ever-richer meal ticket, and Barnes, wearing leopard skin and solid gold, makes a perfect jungle stalker let loose on the nightclub circuit.

  Universal gave everyone in the cast stylish clothes and sassy dialogue. The sets were cavernous, with all-white furniture and moderne fixtures. Butlers were everywhere, and price tags were read aloud for the Depression-era crowd. (“This ring is only $7,000,” oozes Franklin Pangborn, a jewelry salesman.) And there were other assets, such as the handsome young leading man, Ray Milland, getting his own feet on the ground as a potential movie star. Durbin is the sparkling diamond in an excellent setting, flawlessly presented. She has real star quality. Her eyes are expressive, showing honest responses—delight, fun, sorrow, regret. The public ate her up. She sings three songs well, provides comedy relief, and plays a character that will remain with her and become her movie type: a strong-willed, smart little girl who can not only get what she wants, but who can get other people to hand it over to her with a smile. This character could easily have been hateful, but Durbin knows how to make it charming. (“I’m not pigheaded,” she explains. “I’m strong-willed.”) For an amateur, Durbin is impressive. She plays her part well, only occasionally going over the top and losing control. Twice she’s asked to act really angry, and she hits it too hard, becoming shrill, but it’s an amateur’s mistake.

  Looking at the movie’s structure, it’s obvious that Durbin’s part was originally less important. Although the movie opens and ends with a close-up of Durbin, she drops out of the action for a long time in between while the plot favors the middle sister, played by Barbara Read. This sets up an interesting question: When did Universal realize it would be Durbin, not Read, who would be their new star? Read is cute, and she’s competent. She has everything it takes for stardom except that thing no one can ever define. Read, in fact, looks a great deal like Durbin, although she isn’t as pretty. Her eyes are too close together, and her face is a bit plump when photographed. When Durbin is on-screen, Read disappears. And she can’t sing.

  After this wonderful first success, Durbin could still have disappeared had Universal not been smart. Given the enormous popularity of her character, Penny, in Three Smart Girls, her studio might have used her callously by dooming her to an Andy Hardy–like serialized future, with each movie getting cheaper until they petered out. (In fact, later on, there would be two more “Penny” films, one made after she was grown up.) But the businessmen at Universal knew she could become more valuable to them in the long run if they developed her (Deanna Durbin) as the star, linking her private self to her character Penny. They created a perfect second film for her, demonstrating the genius of the movie business in a lesson called How to Change Things While Leaving Things Exactly the Same. The goal was to develop a star. The new story moved her neatly away from the wealthy world of Three Smart Girls but kept her fundamental character intact. Instead of Penny, she would be Patty. Instead of being rich, she would be poor. Otherwise, everything could be the same. She’d have a daddy she needed to worry about and take care of. She would be a Little Miss Fix-It. And, needless to say, she would sing. Her type had been defined in her first film role, a clever short-circuiting of the type search.

  The title of Durbin’s next film, One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), cleverly retains the “girl” from her first film, and equally cleverly establishes her importance in the story. There would be one hundred men, but only one girl. Production would be rushed to capitalize on Durbin’s hot name, and she alone would be heavily promoted. The budget would be low—no need to overspend on a second feature, in case she turned out to be a fluke, and besides, she was to be poor in this one, not rich. (Of course, that doesn’t mean that rich people wouldn’t be in the plot.)

  One Hundred Men and a Girl is a movie shaped by the Depression. It tells the story of a group of out-of-work classical musicians, one of whom (Adolphe Menjou) has a little daughter. The seriousness with which everyone viewed Deanna Durbin is revealed by the casting of one of her co-stars, none other than the great
conductor Leopold Stokowski. He plays himself in the José Iturbi mode before there was an José Iturbi mode. (Stokowski was a late-1930s idea of an intellectual glamour boy. At the time, he was thought to be sexy, an astonishing concept in today’s marketplace of teenage hunks.) However, the movie’s credits tell us what everyone really was thinking: “Deanna Durbin in One Hundred Men and a Girl.” It was the little girl that mattered, so she was given the coveted “above the title” star billing. Everyone else, including Stokowski, follows the dreadful word with. The credits do give the maestro his due, saying “with Stokowski conducting music from Wagner’s Lohengrin, Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate, and Verdi’s La Traviata.” He would conduct and say a few lines in one or two key scenes, but it was going to be Durbin’s movie. Universal figured she could carry the longhairs and put them over in the sticks.

  One Hundred Men and a Girl cements the Durbin narrative pattern. Within a few minutes of running time, she should be singing, and when she sings, all forward plot movement should stop. There will be a tight, fast-paced story, in which Durbin will solve all problems for the grown-ups, make some mistakes, be doubted, and have to cry a little or be hurt a little before the whole thing sorts out. The film will end with her singing in radiant close-up. One Hundred Men and a Girl does all this, and all elements of the production are directed toward her. A little beanie she wears, for example, has been carefully designed to look pert and youthful, and to flatter her face and suit the economic status of her character. It’s just a little beanie, yet it has three astonishing feathers laid backward on its top. They stick up, like a windswept wave riding her head. This means no one in the audience will really look anywhere but at her. Forget about any scene stealing by Menjou or Stokowski or even character actor Billy Gilbert. Furthermore, the little hat with the feathers is used more than once as a comedy device. When Durbin is busily sneaking into the theatre where Stokowski is rehearsing, she drops to her hands and knees so the watchman can’t see her. He can, however, follow her feathers. The hat becomes a flattering costume, a comedy prop, a character metaphor, and a Deanna Durbin tracking device.