{"id":420,"date":"2021-12-28T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=420"},"modified":"2022-01-24T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T11:31:22","slug":"debbie-reynolds-1932-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/12\/28\/debbie-reynolds-1932-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Born: 1st<\/sup> April 1932<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Died: 28th<\/sup> December 2016 (aged 84)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary Frances \u2018Debbie\u2019 Reynolds was an acting, singing, dancing powerhouse who started her screen career at the age of 16 alongside Bette Davis (although she was uncredited in this role). She went on to star with the likes of Fred Astaire and Lana Turner before starring with Gene Kelly in Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> at 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary spent the first seven years of her life in El Paso, Texas before her family moved to Burbank, California where, nine years later, she was offered a contract by Warner Brothers after they saw her in the Miss Burbank beauty contest and became \u2018Debbie\u2019 Reynolds. Most of her early career was in musicals, even moving to MGM when Warner Brothers stopped making them, she had no formal dance training and effectively learnt \u2018on the job\u2019 under the tutelage of Gene Kelly during Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>.  Although diminutive, most of Ms Reynolds\u2019 roles are feisty young women and larger than her stature would suggest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her love life was tumultuous to say the least. Her first marriage to Eddie Fisher, the father of her two children, ended after four years when it was revealed that he had had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, who he married the same year they divorced. Her second marriage was, away from the glitz and glam of Hollywood, to Henry Karl, a millionaire businessman, it lasted thirteen years, and her final marriage was to Richard Hamlet, it lasted twelve years and he turned out to be a con-man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is of no surprise thatthe majority of Debbie\u2019s top five are musicals but her top box office film is  How the West Was Won<\/em>, a western that follows the Prescott family, through three generations, and their search for happiness in the American west. Debbie Reynolds plays the youngest Prescott daughter Lilith (Lily), who her father describes as \u201ca daughter who doesn\u2019t seem quite right in the head\u201d meaning she\u2019s a dreamer who doesn\u2019t follow his ideas and wants to marry a rich man and wear silk. We see her grow to an old woman who has got through the diversity and hardship of the \u2018Wild\u2019 West. Her portrayal of the three \u2018stages of Lilith\u2019 are very different especially \u2018old\u2019 Lilith she has the aged voice and decorum of a woman who has \u201cmade and spent three fortunes\u201d with her husband.  But what can\u2019t this woman do? In How the West Was Won <\/em>she sings, dances and she rides a wagon (although I\u2019m sure the fall from said wagon was a stunt double). Next we have Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> and this is the first film where she shares top billing with the two main actors and holds her own alongside their talents, quite a feat when you consider one of them is Gene Kelly. Now normally I wouldn\u2019t cover an actor portraying themselves but with her role in Pepe<\/em> I will make an exception especially as Pepe<\/em> is a smorgasbord of Hollywood talent of the 50s\/60s playing supporting roles to the main story of a Mexican man following his \u2018son\u2019 to America. It\u2019s a sweet film and not one star distracts from the main plot. Debbie Reynolds plays, what I can only describe as, a Tequila genie! We know she can dance but here she treats us to a two and a half minute \u2018drunk dance\u2019 (when she descends from a Tequila bottle what else would you expect) I was very impressed especially with some of the moves she pulls off. Seven years after starring alongside Gene Kelly, Ms Reynolds played Hollie LaMaise alongside Bing Crosby in Say One for Me<\/em>. Holly is a feisty young woman who takes an \u2018unsuitable\u2019 job to raise money to care for her father. The only problem I have with her role in this film is the soft focus they use in the \u2018tender\u2019 moments \u2013 why use such a technique with such a beautiful woman, I know it was the norm back in the day but still. Her fifth box office hit is a more modern film (I say more modern it was made in the late 90s but that is more recent than any other in this to five) In & Out<\/em> is a film that never really took my interest, even with a cast of stars that I like but now I have seen it, I have to say I really enjoyed it. Debbie Reynolds plays Berniece Brackett, mother of the main character, and, although her part is small, she has some funny lines made even better by her delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I have a tendency to enjoy most Debbie Reynolds\u2019 films I have seen, especially as most of them have been musicals, my favourite has to be Singin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em>. Gene Kelly and Donald O\u2019Connor do help with this but what I do like is that Kathy Selden is not the simpering, weak, \u201cI can\u2019t do anything without a man\u201d role that appeared in some films of the time; she is feisty and sure of herself she even belittles Don Lockwood\u2019s (Gene Kelly) acting credentials in the first scene we see her in; her face pulling when she trivialises the silent screen is very funny and accurate. Alright she does fall for the man quite quickly and he does talk for her a lot (he is effectively the main star of the film) but there is still a strong woman to be found within the misogyny of the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of comparisons that can be draw between Debbie and her daughter, Carrie. They were roughly the same height; they made the films that made their names at the same age; they were both incredibly beautiful (a gene that has obviously been passed down to Carrie\u2019s daughter, Billy Lourd); they both had high profile marriages\/relationships and they both played feisty women an attribute that I find admirable in a world where women tend to have the weaker character. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Born: 1st April 1932 Died: 28th December 2016 (aged 84) Mary Frances \u2018Debbie\u2019 Reynolds was an acting, singing, dancing powerhouse who started her screen career at the age of 16 alongside Bette Davis (although she was uncredited in this role). She went on to star with the likes of Fred Astaire and Lana Turner before … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}