Deanna Durbin was the second child of British immigrant parents who moved the family to Southern California when she was still an infant. She demonstrated a singing talent at an early age and eventually began to study voice at Ralph Thomas' Academy in Los Angeles. In 1935, while only in her early teens, she successfully auditioned for a part in a proposed film biography of opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink to be made by MGM. The studio first put her in a short, Every Sunday, in which she co-starred with Judy Garland, another young, aspiring singer/actress, who was six mont...