The Styrous® Viewfinder: Singin' In the Rain

July 22, 2021

April 1, 2019

Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds - 1987

Today is the birthday of Debbie Reynolds, the movie star dreams are made of. I remember my first awareness of her was with the 1950 tune, Aba Daba Honeymoon, which she sang in the film, Two Weeks With Love (which I never saw). It was originally written by Arthur Fields and Walter Donovan in 1914. It was the first soundtrack recording to become a top-of-the-chart gold record, reaching number three on the Billboard charts. I was ten or so at the time but I remember thinking it was a stupid song, however, as I heard it everywhere, it stuck in my mind and I drove my mother CRAZY singing it over and over. I forgive her the indiscretion, however, Debbie that is.

Aba Daba Honeymoon 1914 music sheet cover

with photograph of singer Ed Morton

My next awareness of her was in the 1952 film, Singin' in the Rain, which also starred Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. I thought Gene and Don made a terrific dance duo! That movie was when I fell in love with her! She was sweet, innocent and adorable! I've been in love with her ever since.

In 1955, she married singer Eddie Fisher and had two children, Todd and Carrie Fisher, the latter of Star Wars fame . . .

Debbie Reynolds & Eddie Fisher - 1955

photographer unknown

. . . Reynolds & Fisher divorced in 1959 when it was revealed shortly after the death of Mike Todd, the husband of Elizabeth Taylor, that Fisher had been having an affair with Taylor; she and Reynolds were friends at the time. The Fisher – Taylor affair was a public scandal which led to the cancellation of the Eddie Fisher Show. Fisher and Taylor later married.

In 1957, her recording of the song Tammy (from Tammy and the Bachelor), earned her a gold record, and was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. It was number one for five weeks on the Billboard pop charts. In the movie (the first of the Tammy film series), she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen.

In 1964, she starred in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (link below) which led to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1966, Reynolds portrayed Jeanine Deckers in The Singing Nun. She once called it the "stupidest mistake of my entire career"

She was born, Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas. Her father, Ray, was a carpenter who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. She was of Scottish-Irish and English ancestry and was raised in a Nazarene, an evangelical Christian denomination, church.

Her mother took in laundry for income, while they lived in a shack on Magnolia Street in El Paso. "We may have been poor," she said in a 1963 interview, "but we always had something to eat, even if Dad had to go out on the desert and shoot jackrabbits."

Her family moved to Burbank, California in 1939. When Reynolds was a sixteen-year-old student at Burbank High School in 1948, she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest. Soon after, she had a contract with Warner Bros and acquired the nickname "Debbie" via Jack L. Warner.

One of her closest high school friends said:

"They never found her attractive in school. She was cute, but sort of tomboyish, and her family never had any money to speak of. She never dressed well or drove a car. And, I think, during all the years in school, she was invited to only one dance.

I say this in all sincerity. Debbie can serve as an inspiration to all young American womanhood. She came up the hard way, and she has a realistic sense of values based on faith, love, work and money. Life has been kind to her because she has been kind to life. She's a young woman with a conscience, which is something rare in Hollywood actresses. She also has a refreshing sense of honesty."

Reynolds agreed, saying that "when I started, I didn't even know how to dress. I wore dungarees and a shirt. I had no money, no taste and no training.

On December 23, 2016, Reynolds's daughter—actress and writer Carrie Fisher—suffered a medical emergency on a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles, and died on December 27 at the age of 60. The following day, December 28, Reynolds was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after suffering a "severe stroke," according to her son, Todd Fisher. Later that afternoon, Reynolds was pronounced dead in the hospital; she was 84 years old. On January 9, 2017, her cause of death was determined to be intracerebral hemorrhage, with hypertension a contributing factor.

Todd later said that Reynolds had been seriously affected by her daughter's death, and that her grief was partially responsible for her stroke, noting that his mother had stated "I want to be with Carrie" shortly before she died. During an interview for the December 30, 2016 airing of the ABC-TV program 20/20, Todd elaborated on this, saying that his mother had joined his sister in death because Reynolds "didn't want to leave Carrie and did not want her to be alone." He added, that "she didn't die of a broken heart" as some news reports had implied, but rather "just left to be with Carrie.

Viewfinder links:

Carrie Fisher

Eddie Fisher

Gene Kelly
Donald O'Connor
Debbie Reynolds
Singin' In the Rain
Elizabeth Taylor

Net links:

Filmography

Music career and cabaret

Stage work

Styrous® ~ Monday, April 1, 2019

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Debbie Reynolds
Singin' In the Rain

Donald O'Connor - 1952

publicity photo

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December 28, 2016

Debbie Reynolds ~ Singin' In the Rain

Debbie Reynolds

1932 ~ 2016

The first film in which I saw Debbie Reynolds was, Singin' in the Rain. It was 1952, she was just 19 years old and she was as "cute as a button". I was 12 years old and I fell totally in love with her! It is my very favorite musical film; I will always love it and never get tired of watching it. Of all her many films it is the one I will always associate with her.