DEBBIE REYNOLDS

(1 April 1932 - 28 December 2016)

The Hollywood actress Debbie Reynolds died the day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher. She was arranging the funeral when she suffered a stroke. Although Carrie Fisher had become something of a movie icon on account of her appearances in the Star Wars films, her mother was a true Hollywood goddess. Following a few appearances in minor films from 1948 Debbie secured an MGM contract and became a great hit in Singin’ in the Rain (1952). After that she was constantly employed in such movies as I Love Melvin, Give a Girl a Break, Susan Slept Here, Athena., Hit the Deck, The Tender Trap and so on. She was a popular hit in Tammy, The Mating Game, The Gazebo, The Pleasure of His Company and The Second Time Around. John Ford used her in How the West Was Won and she exhibited her personal feistiness in the film of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she was Oscar-nominated. She was The Singing Nun, but after Divorce American Style and How Sweet It Is, television called and she had her own show for a while. She played herself in The Bodyguard (1992) and had the title role in Albert Brooks’ Mother (1996), for which she was honoured with a Golden Globe nomination. But her forty-year film career was losing its grip and she resorted to voicing the Rugrats series and appearing in Will and Grace and other TV shows. Daughter Carrie wrote the TV movie of These Old Broads (2001) about a reunion for aging Hollywood actresses played by Debbie, Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor. By then Debbie had forgiven Liz for pinching her husband Eddie Fisher. In 2013 she appeared as Liberace’s mother in Behind the Candelabra. Her marriage to Eddie Fisher ended in divorce, as did her marriages to businessman Harry Karl and real estate manager Richard Hamlett. Her son Todd Fisher is a director and cinematographer. Debbie Reynolds was a great collector of Hollywood memorabilia and had established a museum to house the collection.

MICHAEL DARVELL