DEBBIE
REYNOLDS (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Debbie Reynolds
(born Mary Frances Reynolds; April 1, 1932) is an American actress,
singer, and dancer. She is also a collector of movie memorabilia.
Reynolds was also an MGM contract star.
Reynolds was born in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. (née
Harmon; 1913–1999) and Raymond Francis Reynolds (1903–1986), who was
a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Reynolds was a Girl
Scout and a troop leader (a scholarship in her name is offered to
high-school age Girl Scouts). Her family moved to Burbank,
California, in 1939, and she was raised in a strict Nazarene faith.
At age 16, while a student at Burbank's John Burroughs High School,
Reynolds won the Miss Burbank Beauty Contest, a contract with Warner
Brothers, and acquired her new first name.
Debbie Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals during the
1950s and had several hit records during the period. Her song "Aba
Daba Honeymoon" (featured in the 1950 film Two Weeks with Love as a
duet with Carleton Carpenter) was a top-three hit in 1951. After a
small role as Marjorie Main's niece in MR. Imperim (1951), MGM mogul
Louis B. Mayer cast Debbie in the studio's now- legendary musical
spoof of 1920s Hollywood, Singin' In The rain (1952), much to the
chagrin of star Gene Kelly who wanted a professional dancer in the
part. Given three months to learn to dance well enough to keep up
with Kelly and co-star Donald O'Connor, Debbie (at age 19) pulled
off the impossible and kept step with the two seasoned pros, if not
always as effortlessly as they made it seem.
Once again, her comic timing proved her saving grace, this time as
a self-assured flapper and aspiring actress (temporarily working as
a chorus girl) who disdains moviedom until she accidentally falls in
love with silent screen star Kelly and gets a job dubbing the voice
of his romantic leading lady (Jean Hagen) who is having serious
trouble making the transition from silent movies to talking pictures.
In Bundle of Joy (1956) she appeared with her then-husband, Eddie
Fisher.
Her recording of the song "Tammy" (from her 1957 film 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 1959 Reynolds recorded her first album for Dot Records, simply
called Debbie, which included her own selection of 12 standards
including "S’posin'", "Moonglow", "Mean To Me" and "Time After
Time".
Reynolds also scored two other top-25 Billboard hits with "A Very
Special Love" (1958) and "Am I That Easy to Forget" (1960) — a
pop-music version of a country-music hit made famous by both
songwriters Carl Belew (in 1959), Skeeter Davis (in 1960), and
several years later by singer Engelbert Humperdinck. During these
years she also headlined in major Las Vegas, showrooms.
Her starring role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) led to a
nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She then
portrayed Jeanine Deckers in The Singing Nun (1966).
In what Reynolds has called the "stupidest mistake of my entire
career", she made headlines in 1970 after instigating a fight with
the NBC television network over cigarette advertising on her
eponymous television series; NBC cancelled the show.
She continues to make appearances in film and television. From 1999
to its 2006 series finale, she played Grace Adler's ditzy mother
Bobbi on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace (1998–2006), which earned her a
Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy
Series in 2000. She also plays a recurring role in the Disney
Channel Original Movie Halloweentown film series as Aggie Cromwell.
Reynolds made a guest appearance as a presenter at the 69th Academy
Awards in 1997.
Reynolds has released several albums of both her vintage
performances and her later recordings.
Reynolds has been married three times. She and Eddie Fisher were
married in 1955. They are the parents of Carrie Fisher and Todd
Fisher. A public scandal ensued when Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor
fell in love, and Reynolds and Fisher were divorced in 1959. Her
second marriage, to millionaire businessman Harry Karl, lasted from
1960 to 1973. At its end, she found herself in financial difficulty
because of Karl's gambling and bad investments. (Under the
community-property laws of California, both spouses in a marriage
are legally responsible for debts incurred by either.) Reynolds was
married to real-estate developer Richard Hamlett from 1984 to 1996.
They purchased Greek Isles Hotel & Casino, a small hotel and casino
in Las Vegas, but it was not a success. In 1997, Reynolds was forced
to declare bankruptcy.
Reynolds has been active in the Thalians Club, a charitable
organization.
She has amassed a large collection of movie memorabilia and
displayed them, first in a museum at her Las Vegas hotel and casino
during the 1990s and later in a museum close to the Kodak Theater in
Los Angeles. On several occasions she has auctioned off items from
the collection.
She resides in Los Angeles next door to her daughter Carrie.
(Info edited from Wikipedia & reelclassics.com)
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