As a result of this, she won a special Juvenile Academy Award in 1938, the second person to win the award (the picture to the left is Durbin with her trophy). At the time, the Oscars didn't generally recognize childhood performances in competitive categories, and so from 1934 to 1960, twelve individuals received Juvenile Academy Awards. While there are only twelve (the same number as the number of men who have walked on the move-coincidence?...probably), and the last award was presented over sixty years ago, thanks to the young ages of many of the recipients, a number of these men and women are still alive, and in honor Deanna Durbin, I thought it would be fun to check to see what happened to each of them in the years that followed.
Shirley Temple
Born 1928 (still living)
Won in 1934
Temple, one of the biggest stars in the history of cinema, and probably the most well-known child actor of all-time, was a surefire winner in 1934. After becoming the biggest Box Office draw in America, she slowly saw her popularity decline as she entered adulthood. She, did, however, enjoy one of the oddest second acts in Hollywood, becoming a U.S. Ambassador to both Ghana and Ireland, and racking up a myriad of accolades to go with her Oscar, including the Kennedy Center Honor, the SAG Life Achievement Award, and the National Board of Review Career Achievement Award.
Deanna Durbin
Born 1921 (died in 2013 at 91)
Won in 1938
As mentioned before, Durbin won at the height of her fame as America's girl-next-door. Like Temple, she couldn't find as much work in the years that followed, and eventually retired in 1949. She was frequently asked to return to the screen, but spent the rest of her life in Paris, living a deeply private life with her husband and two children.
Mickey Rooney
Born 1920 (still living)
Won in 1938
The girl-next-door needed the boy next door to go with her, and so Mickey Rooney picked up the first Oscar of his career in 1938 as well. It's hard to believe since he's been such a parody of himself in the years since, but at the time he was headlining the Andy Hardy movies and playing opposite Judy Garland (as well as Spencer Tracy in 1938's Boys Town). Rooney received an Oscar nomination the next year for Babes in Arms and four years later for The Human Comedy. After serving during World War II, he returned to Hollywood and enjoyed fame in film and television, receiving Oscar nominations for 1956's The Bold and the Brave and 1979's The Black Stallion. He became the only Juvenile Oscar winner to win a second trophy in 1983, another Honorary Academy Award.
Judy GarlandBorn 1922 (died in 1969 at 47)
Won in 1939
Is there a star that burned as brightly and fell as far as Judy Garland? Judy received her Oscar after one of the biggest years of her career, with The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms (her costar Mickey Rooney gave her a kiss on Oscar night, as seen in the photo to the left) both tearing up the Box Office. Garland would of course go on to be the ultimate comeback kid several more times in her career, gaining two Oscar nominations for A Star is Born (losing in one of the closest Oscar races ever against Grace Kelly) and Judgment at Nuremberg, and giving one of the most lauded performances in the history of entertainment at Carnegie Hall in 1961. She died from an overdose of barbiturates in 1969.
Margaret O'Brien
Born 1937 (still living)
Won in 1944
Following in Judy's footsteps (career-wise), O'Brien won the Juvenile Oscar five years after Garland, primarily for starring opposite her in Meet Me in St. Louis. O'Brien couldn't cut it as an adult star, and only made occasional appearances on the silver screen in the later years. There's a great story about O'Brien's Oscar, which had been stolen by a maid in the 1950's, finally returning to her in 1995 after being found at a flea market.
Peggy Ann Garner
Born 1932 (died in 1984 at 52)
Won in 1945
The brilliant young performer from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn won right after O'Brien, and gave one of the best performances to be honored for this award (though I haven't seen them all, Garner is one of the few I would have nominated in the competitive awards). Like almost everyone on this list, Garner was unable to break-out into adult film roles, though she did feature in Robert Altman's movie A Wedding in 1978. She passed away from pancreatic cancer at age 52.
Claude Jarman, Jr.
Born 1934 (still living)
Won in 1946
Jarman won this award after his film debut, The Yearling, a film that scored seven nominations in 1946 and could have probably made it eight if Jarman didn't have this avenue to win his award (he was the Hailee Steinfeld of his day). Headlining a Best Picture for your debut film typically means that you're destined to fall a bit, and Jarman's career was quickly over. Interesting side note though-he ended up having seven children in three marriages, so yeah, that's a lot of kids.
Ivan Jandl
Born 1937 (died in 1987 at 50)
Won in 1948
Jandl also won his Oscar for his screen debut, starring opposite Montgomery Clift in The Search (he's so adorable in this movie-prepare to say "awe" multiple times). Jandl was from the Czech Republic and didn't speak English, so he learned his lines phonetically. While he made other films in the Czech Republic, this was his one and only American film (though once you've starred opposite Monty Clift, where else is there to go?).
Bobby DriscollBorn 1937 (died in 1968 at 31)
Won in 1949
Like Judy, Bobby Driscoll had a pretty horrible life, but unlike Judy, he didn't remain in the spotlight throughout all of it (and it was decidedly shorter). Driscoll was rumored for this award for his performance in Song of the South (as was his costar Luana Patten), but didn't win until three years later for his work in So Dear My Heart and The Window (you can see him receiving the award to the left from Donald O'Connor). Driscoll was a huge star in his youth, and also made films like Treasure Island and was the voice of Disney's Peter Pan. His career started to go south as an adult, however, and he eventually fell into the world of drugs and crumbling marriages. He oddly got involved with Andy Warhol's Factory for a time in the 1960's, before becoming homeless and dying from drug-related heart failure. As a sign of his fallen stature, it wasn't until over three years after his death that it was announced to the public, despite his Oscar-winning status.
Jon Whiteley
Born 1945 (still living)
Won in 1954
Also a young actor whose career petered out as he grew up, Jon Whiteley's life has had a much happier ending. After winning for The Young Kidnappers (along with his costar Vincent Winter), Whiteley appeared in a couple of films before quitting the business all-together. He went on to become a well-known art historian at Oxford, and to be happily married with two children.
Vincent Winter
Born 1947 (died in 1998 at 50)
Won in 1954
The second-youngest of all of the winners (after Temple), Winter was only seven when he won along with his costar for The Little Kidnappers, and is chronologically the youngest of all of the winners, despite another star winning six years later. Winter also had a relatively happy adult life. After moving away from the front of the camera in his early years, he went on to be a production manager on a number of high-profile films, regularly working with Steven Spielberg in the 1980's. He passed away from a heart attack at age 50.
Hayley Mills
Born 1946 (still living)
Won in 1960
The daughter of the great British actor John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, acting was in the blood for Hayley Mills, one of the few child actors to rival Shirley Temple in her popularity, and therefore a perfect bookend for the awards. Mills won her Oscar for her work in Pollyanna, a huge commercial success, and went on to have a string of hits with Disney, including The Parent Trap, That Darn Cat, and The Moon Spinners. While she had one big hit out the gate from Disney (The Trouble with Angels), her film career petered out and she largely left the film industry, only to return in the 1980's with work in television, most notably Good Morning, Miss Bliss, a short-lived series that nonetheless spawned the massively successful Saved by the Bell. In an interesting side note, at the height of her fame, she was offered the title role in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, though Walt Disney insisted the role wasn't appropriate for her image, and the part went to Sue Lyon.
And those are the twelve winners. Interestingly enough, despite the award being an option at the time, the Oscars still nominated a few child actors during this time period, including Bonita Granville, Brandon deWilde, Sal Mineo, and Patty McCormack (all of whom lost their competitive Oscars). This all changed when Patty Duke pulled off the trophy for 1962's The Miracle Worker, and with proof that child actors could win the competitive Academy Award, the Oscars stopped giving out the Juvenile Oscar. Since then, two actors under eighteen have won the award (Tatum O'Neal and Anna Paquin), and a myriad of actors have received nominations, including Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, and last year's Quvenzhane Wallis.
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