Deanna Durbin

I liked Deanna Durbin in a couple of movies I'd seen on tv in the 1970s. She was a very pretty young lady and had a beautiful singing voice. She appeared in movies in the 1930s and 1940s, then retired from the screen, mainly because she no longer liked working in the Hollywood studio system.

Soon after, she married in France, to movie producer Charles David, and has lived there ever since.

Ms. Durbin has been reclusive as far as giving interviews, but was usually responsive to fans' requests for autographing photos sent to her. I obtained her address in 1981, and sent her a photo, and enclosed a return envelope, along with a few International Reply Coupons, which she could use to obtain postage stamps. I waited for about two months, and was about to give up on ever getting the photo back (sometimes I tended to be impatient, forgetting that international mails can move very slowly, even by air) when I received this photo, signed by Ms. Durbin as 'Deanna Durbin David'.

In recent years, reports are that Ms. Durbin has been non-responsive to fans' letters.