Durbin made her first film appearance in 1936 with Judy Garland in Every Sunday, and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. Her success in films such as Three Smart Girls (1936) was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy and in 1938, Durbin was awarded the Academy Juvenile Award.
By the mid 1940s, Durbin had grown dissatisfied with the adolescent roles assigned to her, and attempted to portray a more mature and sophisticated style, but the film noir Christmas Holiday (1944) and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945) were not as successful as her musical films. Her dissatisfaction with Hollywood led to her early departure from the limelight and retirement from acting in 1948. During WWII, British prisoners of war were told (by their Japanese captors) that Durbin had died in childbirth.
Durbin married film director Charles David in 1950 and following her marriage moved to a farmhouse in the outskirts of Paris. Since then she has withdrawn from public life.
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