Edna Mae Durbin, known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born American actress and singer, who moved to the U.S. with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed many styles, especially operatic arias and semi-classical pieces, which is today called classical crossover.
Durbin was a child actress who made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in Every Sunday, and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. She achieved success as the ideal teenaged daughter in films such as Three Smart Girls, One Hundred Men and a Girl, and It Started with Eve. Her work was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy, and led to Durbin being awarded the Academy Juvenile Award in 1938.
As she matured, Durbin grew dissatisfied with the girl-next-door roles assigned to her and attempted to move into sophisticated non-musical roles with film noir Christmas Holiday and the whodunit Lady on a Train.