Debbie Reynolds, the indefatigable star of Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/i>, who bounced back time and again on the strength of a career that spanned the golden age of the Hollywood musical to the new golden age of TV, died on Dec. 28 at the age of 84 in Los Angeles. Her death came just one day after she endured the cruelest blow possible, when her daughter, Star Wars<\/i> actress and writer Carrie Fisher, died on Dec. 27 at age 60, following a heart attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s now with Carrie and we\u2019re all heartbroken,\u201d her son, Todd Fisher, told the AP on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A onetime Oscar nominee, Reynolds appeared in more than 50 movies. She is best remembered for playing alongside Gene Kelly and Donald O\u2019Conner in 1952\u2019s Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/i>. The joyful film is typically cited as the greatest movie musical of all-time. Other big-screen credits included The Unsinkable Molly Brown<\/i> and How the West Was Won<\/i>. She played the title role in the Albert Brooks comedy Mother<\/i> and was unrecognizable as Liberace\u2019s mother in the acclaimed HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra<\/i>. She once knocked Elvis Presley from the top of the charts, earned Tony and Emmy nods, won a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild, as well as an honorary Academy Award.<\/p>\n
Reynolds\u2019 best role might have been that of survivor. \u201cI\u2019ll keep singing and dancing until I\u2019m too old to stand up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Born April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, Reynolds\u2019 family moved West when she was young, and she grew up in the shadow of the movie studios in Burbank, Calif. At 16, she won the title of \u201cMiss Burbank\u201d and was subsequently offered a contract by Warner Bros. Studios. Jack Warner, one of the founding executives there, had one stipulation for the girl then known as Mary Frances Reynolds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe hated the name Mary, the name Frances, and the name Reynolds,\u201d Reynolds remembered. \u201cHe wanted to change the name to Debbie Morgan because Dennis Morgan was a big star then. \u2026 So I said, \u2018You kept Warner, I\u2019m not changing Reynolds.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The rechristened Reynolds had appeared in supporting roles in a handful of musicals when she was cast as the female lead in Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/i>. (Coincidentally, she was the same age, 19, as daughter Carrie would be when she was cast in George Lucas\u2019 blockbuster space saga.) Reynolds worked hard at her big break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was practicing and rehearsing all the time, my feet were bleeding,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was trying, but it was so much to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, Reynolds looked to have no trouble keeping up alongside a legend, Kelly, and a veteran hoofer, O\u2019Connor. She became a star and went on to star in movies with Frank Sinatra (The Tender Trap<\/i>) and Bette Davis (The Catered Affair<\/i>). Her 1957 romantic comedy Tammy<\/i> and the Bachelor<\/i> spawned the No. 1 pop hit, \u201cTammy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1954, at age 22, she became engaged to the singer Eddie Fisher. The two wed a year later, co-starred in the musical comedy Bundle of Joy<\/i>, and started a family. Carrie Fisher was born in 1956; son Todd Fisher, a producer and director, was born in 1958. The couple\u2019s union was often described as \u201cperfect,\u201d though neither Eddie Fisher nor Reynolds would later refer to it that way.<\/p>\n
A month after their younger child was born, producer Mike Todd, Eddie Fisher\u2019s good friend and Elizabeth Taylor\u2019s husband, was killed in a plane crash. By that summer, Fisher and Taylor were spied nightclubbing together. The affair made headlines, and within months Reynolds filed for divorce, citing the damage done by \u201canother woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the old days, if Elizabeth saw a man she wanted, she got him no matter who she stepped over,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cShe admits that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the scandal forever estranged Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who died in 2010, she and Taylor \u2014 <\/span>who would dump the singer for Richard Burton during the making of Cleopatra<\/i> \u2014 later rekindled their friendship.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole world blamed Elizabeth, but I didn\u2019t,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n Reynolds and Taylor acted out a fictionalized version of their relationship in the 2001 TV movie These Old Broads<\/i>, written by Carrie Fisher.<\/p>\n \u201cShe laughs a lot about why in the world she wanted Eddie,\u201d Reynolds told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n Post-divorce, Reynolds cranked out movie after movie, including the 1962 epic How the West Was Won<\/i>, and married tycoon Harry Karl, namesake of the onetime retail giant Karl\u2019s Shoe Stores. In 1964, she starred in The Unsinkable Molly Brown<\/i>. The crowd-pleasing musical about a survivor of the Titanic disaster earned Reynolds her lone career Best Actress Oscar nomination and provided a fitting persona for her off screen.<\/p>\n When Reynolds and Karl divorced in 1973, Reynolds said she found out Karl had gambled away her fortune and left her $2 million in debt.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, I considered killing myself,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t do it because of the children.\u201d<\/p>\n Reynolds steeled herself to pay back the money. \u201cI had to sell off all my jewelry, and the houses and the cars all went to the banks,\u201d she remembered. \u201cThere was nothing left.\u201d<\/p>\n With her film career having waned and her self-titled TV sitcom having ended after just one season, Reynolds hit the road as a singer and dancer and established herself as a Las Vegas draw. She took on Broadway too. Her 1973 turn in the musical Irene<\/i> earned her a Tony nomination.<\/p>\n When Star Wars<\/i> exploded in 1977, Reynolds found herself cast in a new role. \u201cAfter all those years of her being Debbie Reynolds\u2019 daughter,\u201d Reynolds said, \u201cI\u2019m quite happy to be Princess Leia\u2019s mother.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1979, Reynolds opened the Debbie Reynolds Studio, a still-thriving facility for dancers and an oft-used rehearsal space for stars. In 1992, she bought the former Paddlewheel Hotel Casino located just off the Las Vegas Strip and renamed it the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel. The venue featured Reynolds as the headlining act and a movie memorabilia museum featuring its star\u2019s own collection.<\/p>\n Reynolds began seriously collecting old Hollywood in 1970 when new Hollywood was busy trashing its history. The former MGM contract player was among the stars who attended an auction of MGM props and costumes. While her ultimate goal to establish a Hollywood museum went unfulfilled, she managed to preserve key bits of history from films such as Gone With the Wind<\/i>, The Wizard of Oz<\/i>, and Citizen Kane<\/i>. She sold her collection via a series of auctions between 2011 and 2014, grossing nearly $30 million.<\/p>\n Reynolds battled more financial adversity when her hotel and casino failed in the late 1990s, and her third marriage, to developer Richard Hamlett, went down with the business. Reynolds later said Hamlett confessed he\u2019d married her for her money, which she said he\u2019d mismanaged.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of my husbands robbed me blind,\u201d Reynolds would tell the AP. \u201cThe only one who didn\u2019t take money was Eddie Fisher. He just never paid anything for the children.\u201d<\/p>\n After going 0 for 3, Reynolds swore off marriage. \u201cI have no taste in men,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In typical Reynolds fashion, a 1997 bankruptcy filing was offset by a Hollywood resurgence. At the recommendation of Carrie Fisher, writer-director-actor Albert Brooks interviewed and ultimately cast Reynolds in his 1996 comedy Mother<\/i>. It was Reynolds\u2019 first notable big-screen work since providing the voice of Charlotte in the 1973 animated film Charlotte\u2019s Web<\/i>. She generated Oscar buzz and was off and running again, with a role in Kevin Kline\u2019s In & Out <\/i>and recurring work on the sitcom Will & Grace<\/i>, as Debra Messing\u2019s mother, and the animated series Rugrats<\/i>, as the voice of Lulu Johnston. The Will & Grace<\/i> gig earned her a 2000 Primetime Emmy nomination.<\/p>\n In 2013, she inhabited Frances Liberace, the mother of the piano showman, in Behind the Candelabra<\/i>. Reynolds knew the subject matter well \u2014 she\u2019d been a real-life friend of Liberace, played in the movie by Michael Douglas.<\/p>\n Reynolds was credited with championing and raising millions for mental health treatment, work that later brought her the Jean Hersholt Academy Award honor. In January 2015, Reynolds was feted at the SAG Awards for lifetime achievement. Carrie Fisher did the presenting honors. (Fisher often celebrated her mother in her own work, though Reynolds maintained that the boozy, show-biz matriarch from Fisher\u2019s novel-turned-movie Postcards From the Edge<\/i> was a fictionalized character.)<\/p>\n \u201cShe has been more than a mother to me \u2014 not much, but definitely more,\u201d Fisher joked at the SAG Awards. \u201cShe\u2019s been an unsolicited stylist, interior decorator and marriage counselor. Admittedly, I found it difficult to share my mother with her adoring fans, who treated her like she was part of their family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Debbie Reynolds, the indefatigable star of Singin\u2019 in the Rain, who bounced back time and again on the strength of a career that spanned the golden age of the Hollywood musical to the new golden age of TV, died on Dec. 28 at the age of 84 in Los Angeles. Her death came just one …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[744,765],"yoast_head":"\n