REYNOLDS DIES
Singin’ in the Rain star Debbie Reynolds dies at 84, less than 24 hours after heart attack claims daughter Carrie Fisher
Debbie Reynolds dies a day after Carrie Fisher, her daughter, passes away,
LOS ANGELES // Debbie Reynolds was the quintessential all-American star. In the 1950s, she embodied the sunny optimism of postwar America, dancing with Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. Six decades later, she was still winning new fans through her one-woman show, introducing herself as Princess Leia’s mother – a self-deprecating reference to her daughter Carrie Fisher, who predeceased her by 24 hours. Reynolds died on Wednesday at age 84, just as she and the rest of the world were starting to mourn her daughter Fisher, who died on Tuesday at 60, days after falling ill on a flight.
The last photo taken of Reynolds shows her arriving at her son Todd’s house to plan Fisher’s funeral. A few hours later, she suffered a stroke there and was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, where she died.
Todd Fisher said the shock of losing Carrie was “just too much” for their mother. “She said: ‘I want to be with Carrie,’ – and then she was gone,” he said.
Yet mother and daughter had not had the easiest relationship. For years it ranged from strained to non-existent as Fisher battled mental illness and addiction. She barely spoke to her mother for a decade, saying she “didn’t want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter”.
“It’s very hard when your child doesn’t want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them,” Reynolds said on the Oprah Winfrey chat show. “It was a total estrangement.” Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, in 1932. When she was eight, her father, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad, was transferred to California and the family settled in Burbank, near Warner Brothers studio.
It proved the making of his daughter. She excelled at sports and music at school and then won the Miss Burbank title. She was 19 when MGM studio boss Louis B Mayer cast her in Singin’ in the Rain, despite the objections of the star, Gene Kelly. Reynolds had very little dance experience, but trained hard and was able to hold her own in her routines with Kelly and costar Donald O’Connor. “Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be,” Reynolds said. “Donald O’Connor had been dancing since he was three months old, Gene Kelly since he was two years old. I had to learn everything in three to six months.” Her wholesome beauty made her an instant star. In 1955, she married pop singer Eddie Fisher. Carrie was born in 1956, followed by Todd two years later. Hollywood’s golden couple became Hollywood’s golden family – and would soon be embroiled in a classic Hollywood scandal.
The couple were best friends with producer Mike Todd and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. When Todd was killed in a plane crash in March 1958, it was natural for Fisher to comfort his widow. Months later, he left Reynolds for Taylor. His singing career never recovered.
Reynolds, however, seen as the innocent victim of the betrayal, went from strength to strength. In 1964, she was Oscar-nominated for the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which featured the defiant song I Ain’t Down Yet.
In her films, her co- stars included Glenn Ford, Tony Curtis and Fred Astaire.
As film roles began to dwindle in the 1970s, Reynolds turned to the theatre, performing on Broadway and in Las Vegas, gaining a Tony nomination for the musical Irene.
Reynolds proved to be shrewd in business but less so in her husbands. Second husband Harry Karl, a shoe magnate, gambled away her money and the third, businessman Richard Hamlett, left her bankrupt. “All of my husbands have robbed me blind,” she said in 1999.
In her later years, Reynolds was still travelling for 40 weeks a year with her one-woman show as well as appearing regularly on TV, most notably in the sitcoms Roseanne and Will & Grace.
In 1996 she won critical acclaim in the title role of Albert Brooks’ movie Mother.
Reynolds eventually reconciled with her old friend, Elizabeth Taylor. Finding that Taylor – by then long divorced from Eddie Fisher – happened to be travelling on the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner at the same time, Reynolds sent a note to her cabin and the two women rekindled their friendship over dinner.
Reynolds later mused that no man could have resisted Taylor. In 2001, they starred with two other veteran actresses, Joan Collins and Shirkey MacLaine, in the TV film These Old Broads. The script was co-written by Carrie Fisher.
The book and subsequent film, Postcards from the Edge was Carrie Fisher’s less-than-flattering portrayal of her relationship with her mother. But in later life, mother and daughter also became close again. Performing her one- woman show, Alive and Fabulous, in London in 2010, Reynolds addressed younger members of the audience, saying “You have no idea who I am, do you? Did you see Star Wars? I’m Princess Leia’s mother”.
“I would say that Carrie and I have finally found happiness,” Reynolds said in 2011. “I’ve had to walk through a lot of my tears. But she’s worth it. I admire her strength and survival.”
The tributes following her death showed that like her career, Reynolds’ fans spanned more than one generation.