Post by marianne48 on Jul 18, 2020 16:09:48 GMT
Excerpt from the IMDb biog:
"When she was at the top of her career as Hollywood's leading actress and singer, she turned her back on that world for a life of seclusion. Her first two marriages had failed, and before she married her third husband, director Charles David, she set one condition: he had to promise that she could have what she yearned for - "the life of nobody".
She lives in the French village of Neauphlé-le-Château, and for over 35 years has resisted every approach from film companies. Her husband has told journalists that "Mario Lanza pleaded with her for years to make a film with him. But she will never go back to that life." She granted only one interview since 1949 to film historian David Shipman in 1983."
She died in 2013.
According to the film That's Entertainment, MGM had a choice of signing one of two promising starlets: Judy Garland or Deanna Durbin. They went with Garland, whom they proceeded to drive insane with overwork, crash dieting, drug abuse, a forced abortion, and possibly sexual abuse by studio heads (encourged by an evil stage mother). Garland burned out and died in her forties. Durbin had a modest career with another studio, retired to France, and survived into her 90s. By getting dumped by MGM, she apparently dodged a bullet.