They died within a day of one another, but that’s not the only parallel in the lives ofDebbie ReynoldsandCarrie Fisher.
Reynolds — whose real name was Mary Frances Reynolds — was born in El Paso, Texas, on April 1, 1932, to humble parents who relocated their family to Burbank, California, for a better chance at life. After winning a beauty contest in 1948, two talent scouts from MGM and Warner Bros. approached Reynolds with contracts — a coin flip landed in favor of the latter, marking the beginning of an enduring showbiz career.
According toTexas Monthly, after being crowned Miss Burbank and signing with Warner Bros., studio head Jack Warner thought to give her the stage name Debbie because it was “a cute name for a little girl” — and the rest, as they say, was history.
Reynolds' rise to stardom came quickly throughout the ’50s with starring roles in films likeSingin' in the Rain(1952),Bundle of Joy(1956) andTammy and the Bachelor(1957), which earned her continued success as one of the darlings of Hollywood’s golden age.
Unfortunately, an indelible Hollywood legacy isn’t all the mother and daughter share in common. Both endured difficult marriages and financial and personal hardships that often shook — but never shattered — their loving bond. So when Carrie and Reynolds died just one day apart in December 2016, it left an unfillable void in their wake.
From their signature movies to their troubled marriages, the mother-daughter duo’s careers were filled with more coincidences than none. Here are a few instances where their lives lined up.
Both had breakout roles at 19
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Reynolds had one of those classic Hollywood discovery stories. As a contestant in the Miss Burbank beauty pageant when she was 16, a talent scout from Warner Bros. discovered her and signed her to a contract with the powerhouse studio.
She made five films in three years with luminaries like Lana Turner and Fred Astaire — but her sixth,Singin' in the Rain,turned Reynolds from just another ingénue into America’s Sweetheart. She was 19.
Carrie held her own auditioning for the movie at 19 alongside future costar andoff-screen love interestHarrison Ford. She would go on to score the role of Princess Leia, reprising the part in other franchise installments.
Both played fearless women throughout their careers
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Princess Leia suffered no fools. Neither didKathy Selden, Reynolds' chorus girl-turned-movie star inSingin' in the Rain. These were two strong, independent female characters who had ownership over their lives — mold-breaking themes at the time for their respective film genres.
They were just two roles in a long line of strong women the actresses portrayed on-screen. There was her turn in 1989’sWhen Harry Met Sally, where sheplayed Marie, the best friend ofMeg Ryan’s Sally Albright, who felt no social shame being a single New Yorker dating a married man. Then there was Carrie’s soap opera casting agent Betsy Faye Sharon in 1991’sSoapdish,a self-proclaimed “bitch” who had no problem bossing around her male actors (and, occasionally, sleeping with them).
For Reynolds, one can look no further than 1964’sThe Unsinkable Molly Brown.As the titular character — a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails survivor of thesinking of the Titanic in 1912— Reynolds embodied Brown’s “unsinkable” spirit. Big, brassy and bold, she pushed through every obstacle in her path to get her happy ending. The part earned Reynolds anAcademy Awardnomination for Best Actress and generations of female admirers who would not be afraid to speak their minds.
Both were animated personalities
In addition to their live-action roles, the mother-daughter acting duo regularly worked on animated projects — both voicing characters on Fox’sFamily Guy.
Reynolds began her voice-over career with the 1973 animated adaptation ofE.B. White’s classic taleCharlotte’s Web, voicing Charlotte, the loving spider who helps a pig named Wilbur discover his confidence. She would later voice characters onKim Possible,Rugrats,The Penguins of MadagascarandThe 7D.
Carrie voiced Princess Leia in several animatedStar Warsvideo games and shorts. She also participated in the animated filmsHappily Ever AfterandTwo Daddies? Family Guywas her most frequent voice-over gig; she appeared on 25 episodes across 12 years, playing Angela, the head of the shipping department of the Pawtucket Brewery and supervisor of Peter Griffin and Opie.
Both were unlucky in love
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While their on-screen careers may have brought them success, Reynolds and her daughter were less lucky in their romantic lives.
Reynolds' first husband, Eddie, embroiled her inone of the greatest scandals in Hollywoodhistory. The couple was best friends with another A-list celebrity duo:Elizabeth Taylorand Mike Todd. After Todd died in a 1958 plane crash, Eddie and Taylor became an item, leading to his widely publicized divorce from Reynolds in 1959 and subsequent marriage to Taylor that same year.
In 1960, Reynolds married businessman Harry Karl. They were both worth millions at the time, but Karl was a notorious gambler who lost all of his money — and hers too. After 13 years together, the couple divorced in 1973, leaving Reynolds broke.
She joked, “I had such good taste in men.”
Carrie’s love life wasn’t much better. She had an explosive love affair with singerPaul Simon, whom she wed in 1983 and divorced a year later. They continued to date, on and off, for about a decade beforeending their relationship.
In the biographyHomeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon, author Peter Ames Carlin described their tumultuous relationship as amix of love and personal crisesstemming from their swinging states of depression, Carrie’s drug use and an array of personal insecurities.
After splitting for good, Carrie went on to have a relationship with talent agentBryan Lourd. Though they never married and separated once Lourd came out as gay, they had one child together: actressBillie Lourd. Bryan later married American businessman Bruce Bozzi in 2016.
Both were outspoken — and learned from each other
Courtesy Debbie Reynolds
Despite their personal struggles, Reynolds and Carire never shied from talking frankly about their pains. Whether it was their divorces, the perils of dating, aging in Hollywood or their own relationship, both wereoutspoken and unfiltered in interviewsthroughout their careers.
“I was told that I was bipolar when I was 24 but was unable to accept that diagnosis until I was 28 when I overdosed and finally got sober,” she wrote in response to a bipolar writer named Alex, who sought Carrie’s guidance on navigating life with the disease. “Only then was I able to see nothing else could explain away my behavior.”
The mother and daughter also listened to each other — and learned from their mistakes. As Reynolds explained to Winfrey in their joint interview in 2011, witnessing Carrie manage her bipolar disorder helped make her more resilient.
“I am a strong person,” Reynolds said. “I’m not afraid of almost anything, and that’s a lot because of [Carrie’s] example.”
Both were loving mothers
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Though they loved each other until the end, Reynolds and Carrie hada somewhat complicated bond— most memorably documented inPostcards from the Edge, the 1990 movie based on Carrie’s 1987semi-autobiographical novelof the same name.
Desperately seeking her own identity from the shadow of her mother’s fame, Carrie became estranged from Reynolds. The two barely spoke for almost 10 years.
“We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s,” Carrie said onThe Oprah Winfrey Show. “I didn’t want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds' daughter.”
Reynolds added, “It’s very hard when your child doesn’t want to talk to you, and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them. It was a total estrangement. She didn’t talk to me for probably 10 years. So that was the most difficult time of all. Very painful, very heartbreaking.”
Ultimately, time began to heal their relationship.
“It took like 30 years for Carrie to be really happy with me,” Reynolds told PEOPLE in 1988. “I don’t know what the problem ever was. I’ve had to work at it. I’ve always been a good mother, but I’ve always been in show business, and I’ve been onstage, and I don’t bake cookies, and I don’t stay home.”
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Carrie was sure to avoid repeating those mistakes with her own daughter, Billie. The two were incredibly close — with theScream Queensstar even appearing in 2015’sStar Wars: The Force Awakensalongside her mother.
“I’m always proud of my mother; she’s killing it right now,” Billie told PEOPLE in 2016. “She’s incredible.”
Billie also praised her grandmotehr Reynolds.
“She’s had such an incredible career, and she’s done so many shows that people don’t even know about. She performs in Reno, she performs all over the country. It’s an incredible thing for people to see what a full star she is. She really does it all.”
Carrie was aboard an 11-hour flight from London to Los Angeles on Dec. 23, 2016, when shewent into cardiac arrest. Shedied in the hospital four days later, on Dec. 27, at 60.
Reynoldsdied at age 84on Dec. 28, 2016 — just one day after Carrie. According to aTMZreport, she was only thinking about her daughter in her final moments, telling her son, Todd Fisher, hoursbefore her stroke, “I miss her so much; I want to be with Carrie.”
For two women and Hollywood icons who led such parallel lives, it almost seems fitting that their stories would come to an end at the same time.
source: people.com
