Debbie Reynolds: 'I happened to marry idiots...I have very bad taste in men'
At 20 she married America's chart-topping singing idol Eddie Fisher. A few years later he left her and their two children for screen goddess Liz Taylor. Not long after that, Marilyn and Judy were dead.
Half a century on, Debbie Reynolds is fresh as a daisy – healthy, hoofing, telling gags, mimicking Hollywood legends and singing at theatres from Broadway to Beverly Hills for 42 weeks a year. Her astonishingly well-toned legs peep from a $15,000 costume. If this is what 77 might be like, then bring it on.
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Hide AdHer story is the stuff of screenplays: she is the glamorous septuagenarian who has survived three marriages and money troubles aplenty, but has managed to bounce back and thrive spectacularly through talent, hard work, optimism and sheer attitude – qualities that go a long way in Hollywood and among the star's legions of adoring fans.
Talking to Debbie Reynolds from her home in the sunshine of Coldwater Canyon, Los Angeles, it's as though a few rays of golden Californian light are magically beamed in your direction.
She still has some of that irrepressibly pert chirpiness and can-do manner that made her so perfect for the part of Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain – the turn that made her name back 1952, an ingnue playing opposite Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in what turned out to be arguably the best musical of all time.
The voice still has some of that wholesome trill. Good Mornin', Good Mornin' she sang back then, and she still croons a few snatches of such old favourites to ecstatic audiences as she tours coast to coast. Las Vegas is her second home, and at one time she even owned a hotel and casino there.
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Hide AdSoon she'll be back in the UK for the first time since she sang and danced for the Queen at the Palladium 35 years ago. Yes, Debbie's back with an energy-sapping 14 regional performances (including Leeds) before her one-woman variety show plays 12 shows in the West End. Her absence is explained simply by too many engagements at home, she says. The show's billed as an energetic couple of hours of jitterbug and moonwalking, reminiscences, film clips, impersonations of her many starry friends ("Bette Davis said my impersonation was fine 'but do me BIGGER, Debbie'.") and songs.
As one of MGM's biggest stars in the 1950s and '60s, Reynolds made a staggering number of films, playing opposite most of Tinseltown's best leading men, including Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, James Stewart and Frank Sinatra. She built her career mostly on playing the girl next door.
Born in El Paso, Texas, but brought up in poorer suburbs of California, 16-year-old Mary Frances Reynolds had entered the Miss Burbank beauty contest for a laugh and to win a new blouse and scarf. Her wholesome good looks were spotted by a Hollywood talent scout, and in a trice she was "Debbie" and signed to Warner Brothers.
"I was musical but I was studying to become a gym teacher," says Debbie, "I wasn't beautiful yet really showbusiness was perfect for me, because I love talking so much and love people. And I naturally learn things quickly."
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Hide AdAfter a couple of inconspicuous films at Warner, Debbie was contracted by MGM. Some veteran actors look back on the old studio system as a treadmill of continuous and exploitative filmmaking, making up to 30 movies a year, with little time off or regard given to the quality of the material being produced. Debbie recalls those days with great gratitude and fondness. "I had no idea about anything, really, and so they gave me acting, dancing and singing classes. They chose my clothes and my dates – and early on I went out with Robert Wagner, my first big crush. They ran your life. But I was so pleased to learn, and because of all the things they taught me I've had a long life in entertainment that's still going strong."
Having set the world alight by holding her own brilliantly beside 37-year-old Kelly in Singin' in the Rain, Debbie Reynolds, then 20, became one of MGM's hottest properties and went on to make scores of movies including The Affairs of Dobie Gillis, The Unsinkable Molly Brown,The Tender Trap and The Singing Nun (which earned an Oscar nomination), as well as recording successful records and appearing in stage musicals.
In 1955, she married singing idol Eddie Fisher in the show business wedding of the year. She thought they were happy, but at the age of 26 and with two tiny children Reynolds heard rumours that her husband was having an affair with the one of the screen's greatest sirens, Elizabeth Taylor.
"I tried to ignore it, but too many people were talking about it. Eddie and I had been close to Elizabeth and her husband Mike Todd, who was Eddie's best friend. We went out a lot as a foursome. When Mike died, Elizabeth leaned on Eddie for comfort, and soon she wanted him for herself."
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Hide AdEddie was working in New York, and Debbie heard that Elizabeth Taylor was there too. Although Fisher was supposed to be staying elsewhere, Debbie rang Taylor's room at the Park Plaza Hotel. When Fisher answered, Debbie said: "Eddie, could you roll over and put Elizabeth on the phone."
The game was up. Taylor refused to speak, and Fisher flew back to California to confess that he was in love with the mesmerising British-born actress.
"I'm from a religious family and believed in marrying, believing in those vows, and looking after each other forever," says Debbie. "I didn't want to divorce, but there was so much pressure, some of it from the press. I told him she would use him and leave him (and she did), but he wouldn't listen and eventually I had to give in. It was all deeply wounding." Fisher married Taylor within days of the divorce in 1959.
She made her peace with Taylor years ago, says Debbie, but still she sighs: "Elizabeth could have any man she wanted and she wanted my husband. What chance did a girl like me have? Not many women have that kind of power, but Elizabeth was overpowering and any man she picked couldn't resist I think I should have married Robert Wagner – maybe then I'd have been happy. But we were too young when we dated."
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Hide AdDebbie says she's been a fool for love. "When a man told me he loved me, I believed he meant it. There are good men, including my father and my son Todd, but I happened to marry idiots, which is why I gave up years ago. I have very bad taste in men."
Before finally learning her lesson, she did marry twice more. Her second husband, Harry Karl, was a multi-millionaire 27 years her senior. During the 13 year marriage he gambled away both their fortunes, totalling about $50m.
Solo again, Debbie's finances slowly turned around thanks to the revival of the stage musical Irene. A third marriage, to property developer Richard Hamlett, lasted 12 years until 1996. They bought and eventually lost a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, and after that she was declared bankrupt, for which she blames Hamlett.
After each setback work has been her salvation, says Debbie. "Without it I'd have withered away. That and my children and grandchild are the things that are always there." These days she lives next door to her daughter Carrie, who famously played Princess Leia in Star Wars and is also writer of books and screenplays.
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Hide AdDebbie Reynolds has seen many premature deaths in Hollywood, including the loss of her friend Marilyn Monroe, whom she recalls as "such a very sweet and innocent girl". She believes Monroe was murdered because her affairs with both John and Robert Kennedy "made too many people afraid that the truth would come out".
Debbie saw her friend Judy Garland just a couple of weeks before the tragic singer died of an accidental drug overdose in 1969, and says the star was "exhausted, upset and disappointed, especially with her own experiences with men". Garland had been married five times and had found little happiness.
"Who knows how the drugs thing happened for Judy. Studio bosses were desperate to keep everyone healthy and working all the time, so there
were doctors on the payroll who gave all the actors regular vitamin shots. I had an aversion to needles and couldn't have the injections, but who knows what was in them? Judy was given whatever she wanted to keep her working and 'happy'."
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Hide AdDebbie Reynolds owns one of the world's largest collections of film memorabilia, including costumes from Singin' in the Rain. Work keeps her young, and she spends little time dwelling on the past, she says. At last happily alone, I wonder what advice she has given her children in the light of her own difficulties in love.
"I told my son to make sure he listens to women and is sensitive to their needs, and that is how he is. I arranged dates with older women for him so they could teach him. With my daughter, I was very protective towards her, but also tried to teach her to be confident, intelligent, never to behave like a 'loose woman' and to be proud of herself. That makes a woman sexy."
Debbie Reynolds – Alive and Fabulous will be at The Grand Theatre, Leeds, on Sunday, April 25. Box office 0844 848 2706.