LOS ANGELES — Debbie Reynolds, an artiste who sang and danced her way into pictures history reverse Gene Kelly in the archetypal 1952 musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” a movie that facilitated to turn her into a dearest of American film, died Wednesday. She was 84.
Reynolds, who was a most important collector of Hollywood memorabilia and toured in a one-female revue into her 80s, died Wednesday in Los Angeles, her son told the Associated Press.
Her death came a day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher, died at age 60. Fisher, a well-known performer and novelist in her own right, die four days after distress a cardiac incident on a flight from London back to Los Angeles.
On Tuesday, A statement arrived from Reynolds’s Facebook about the flood of grief about her daughter’s unpredicted death.
“Thank you to everybody who has embraced the gifts and talent of my beloved and amazing daughter,” she wrote. “I am appreciative for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop. Love Carries Mother.”
Between 1950 and 1967, she appeared in more than 30 picture musicals and light comedies, receiving her lone Oscar nomination for playing the title character in 1964’s “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Many critics considered it her most memorable early role, and Reynolds connected to a female with tremendous zest for life.
Off-screen, she starred as the wronged lady in a love triangle that many in the late 1950s reflected the Hollywood indignity of the century. Her first spouse, pop singer Eddie Fisher, left Reynolds — perceived by moviegoers as the girl next door — for sultry performer Elizabeth Taylor.
The outpouring of public encouragement for Reynolds only served to increase her fame.