WHEN THE STARS ALIGNED

Inside Debbie and Carrie’s special relationship

THE combative relationship between Debbie Reynolds and daughter Carrie Fisher — who died last week within two days of each other — was famously captured in the roman a clef (and 1990 movie) “Postcards From the Edge.”

But that story was told from Fisher’s point of view. “Bright Lights,” an affectionate and intimate documentary produced and directed by Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens, gives a more balanced view of one of the most famous motherdaughter duos in show business history.

Like Carrie, who shot to fame as Princess Leia in “Star Wars,” Reynolds became a star in her teens, thanks to the enduring musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” and epitomized the term “showbiz trouper.” She was under contract to MGM for decades and was so devoted to the studio system that she went into debt to buy all the memorabilia she could get her hands on when the studio closed. She had a Vegas act, made numerous TV appearances and even outlived Liz Taylor — who famously stole her first husband, forgotten crooner Eddie Fisher. But she knew how to handle the glare of publicity way better than her precocious daughter, who, in one of the film’s most revealing scenes, began exhibiting signs of “manic-depression” as early as 13 years of age.

“It’s a constant battle for us to assure her she’s loved and we’ll get her [if she falls],” Reynolds tearfully recounts. “That’s the hardest part.” Fisher comes across as a whipsmart eccentric who never bought into the movie-magazine version of Hollywood that made her mother a star. Of her childhood with her younger brother Todd, she says, “We were getting ready for a photo shoot all the time.” Yet, she stayed, becoming something of a victim of her own excesses. “I knew something was wrong with me. I moved too fast. I was too much,” she says.

Fans of both women will go nuts as the camera goes behind the rustic wooden gate of the Coldwater Canyon compound where Debbie lived in a cottage off the driveway. Carrie lived up the hill in a hacienda-style house once owned by Bette Davis and famed costume designer Edith Head. Call it Hollywood Gardens. In the carport, a blue neon sign says “Deb’s Drive-In.” In the living room, a Christmas tree is lit, year-round; in the kitchen, a framed photo of Carrie and Paul Simon when they married and made the cover of The Post adorns the wall. Carrie proudly shows off a life-sized Princess Leia sex toy she bought on the Internet.

It’s all so strange and wonderful you want to hang out and see more — and there is more: Debbie’s house, which includes the Maltese Falcon [from the 1941 movie] and Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” (size five-anda-half ). In one funny scene, Reynolds tries one on: perfect fit.

Outside the compound, things were quite different. Carrie is reduced to doing “celebrity lap dances,” slang for signing autographs for “Star Wars” fans (at $70 a pop) and posing for pictures. Debbie still takes her act to Vegas hotels, telling corny jokes and warbling her hit record “Tammy” to packed houses.

In another candid moment, Carrie says her mother never forgave her for not developing her own nightclub act, but a home movie in which Debbie called Carrie to the stage at age 15 to (badly) sing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” doesn’t seem especially promising.

Carrie’s career was definitely on the upswing when she died Dec. 26. In addition to the new batch of “Star Wars” movies, she had a good role on the Amazon series “Catastrophe.”

As for Debbie, who died Dec. 28, she lived long enough to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the motion picture academy. “I love my ghosts and my memories,” she says. “It makes you feel like you have a friend forever.”

For Carrie, it was a different story. “You know what would be so cool?” she asks. “To get to the end of my personality and lay in the sun.”