Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds, the wholesome ingénue in 1950s films like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Tammy and the Bachelor,” died Wednesday December 28 2016, a day after the death of her daughter, the actress Carrie Fisher. She was 84. Her death was confirmed by her son, Todd Fisher, according to her agent, Tom Markley of the Metropolitan Talent Agency. Her best-remembered film is probably “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), the classic MGM musical about 1920s moviemaking, in which she held her own with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, although she was only 19 when the movie was shot and had never danced professionally before. Ms. Reynolds’s career peak may have been her best-actress Academy Award nomination for playing the title role in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964), a rags-to-riches western musical based on a true story. In 1955, Ms. Reynolds married Eddie Fisher, the boyish music idol. Their best friends were the producer Mike Todd and his new wife, the femme-fatale film star Elizabeth Taylor. When Mr. Todd died in a private-plane crash in 1958, Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Fisher rushed to comfort Ms. Taylor. Mr. Fisher’s comforting, however, turned into a very public extramarital affair. He and Ms. Reynolds were divorced early the next year, and he and Ms. Taylor were married weeks later. That marriage lasted five years. Ms. Taylor left Mr. Fisher for Richard Burton, whom she had met in Rome on the set of “Cleopatra” (1963). She had married Harry Karl, a wealthy shoe manufacturer, in 1960, but by the time they divorced in 1973, he had gambled away or otherwise misspent his fortune and hers. Ms. Reynolds set out to re-establish herself financially. She had taken her musical and comedy talents to Las Vegas as early as 1960 and became a fixture there in the ’70s and ’80s. She and her third husband, Richard Hamlett, a Virginia real estate developer, established their own hotel, casino and movie-memorabilia museum there. But there were financial problems, and the property had to be sold in the ’90s. Ms. Reynolds’s career took something of a back seat to her personal life when she married Mr. Hamlett in 1984, but they divorced 12 years later. She is survived by Todd Fisher and a granddaughter, Billie Lourd.