Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds (April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer with her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Her other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), Susan Slept Here (1954), Bundle of Joy (1956 Golden Globe nomination), The Catered Affair (1956 National Board of Review Best Supporting Actress Winner), and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), in which her performance of the song "Tammy" topped the Billboard music charts. In 1959, she starred in The Mating Game (with Tony Randall) and released her first pop music album, titled Debbie.
She starred with Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952), How the West Was Won (1962), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), a biographical film about the famously boisterous Titanic passenger Margaret "Molly" Brown. Her performance as Brown earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Some of Reynolds' other films include The Singing Nun (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), What's the Matter with Helen? (1971), Charlotte's Web (1973), Mother (1996; Golden Globe nomination) and In & Out (1997). Reynolds was also known as a cabaret performer; in 1979, she opened the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio in North Hollywood, which was eventually demolished in 2019. The building would go on to be sold at auction, despite efforts to turn it into a museum.
In 1969, Reynolds starred in a self-titled television program, The Debbie Reynolds Show, earning her a Golden Globe nomination. In 1973, she starred in the Broadway revival of the musical Irene, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for "Best Leading Actress in a Musical". She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in A Gift of Love (1999). After appearing in the popular early-2000s sitcom Will & Grace, Reynolds was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series" for her role of Bobbi (the lead character Grace Adler's mother).
Also around the turn of the millennium, Reynolds reached a new, younger audience with her role as Aggie Cromwell in Disney's Halloweentown series. In 1988, she published her autobiography titled Debbie: My Life; in 2013, she released a second autobiography, titled Unsinkable: A Memoir.
Reynolds also had several business ventures (besides the ownership of her dance studio), including a Las Vegas hotel and casino; she was also an avid collector of film memorabilia, beginning with items purchased at the landmark 1970 MGM Auction. She served as president of The Thalians, an organization dedicated to mental health causes. Reynolds continued to successfully perform on stage, television, and in films into her 80s. In January 2015, she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2016, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In the same year, a documentary about her life was released, titled Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds—which would be her final film appearance; the film premiered on HBO on January 7, 2017.
Reynolds died following a hemorrhagic stroke on December 28, 2016, one day after the death of her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher.
Early life
Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, to Maxene N. "Minnie" Harman and Raymond Francis "Ray" Reynolds, a carpenter who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. She was of Scottish-Irish and English ancestry and was raised in a strict Nazarene church of her domineering mother. She had an older brother, William, who was two years her senior. Reynolds was a Girl Scout, once saying that she wanted to die as the world's oldest living Girl Scout. Reynolds was also a member of The International Order of Job's Daughters.
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 in the desert and shoot jackrabbits."
Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939. When Reynolds was a 16-year-old student at Burbank High School in 1948, she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest. Soon after, she was offered a contract with Warner Brothers and was given the stage name "Debbie" by studio head Jack L. Warner.
One of her closest high school friends said that she rarely dated during her teenaged years in Burbank.