Meet Our Guest Artist
Debbie Reynolds
Born Mary Frances Reynolds on April Fool’s Day, 1932 in El Paso, Texas, she moved with her parents and brother to Burbank, California when she was seven years old. An enthusiastic and highly energetic child, she excelled in sports, particularly sandlot baseball, girl scouts, baton twirling and in music where her specialty was the French horn. Her early comedic talents first came to light when she auditioned for dramatic roles in school plays and found everyone laughing at her “serious” readings. Failing at that, she had to content herself with doing “everything from the wind machine to the thunder and lightning offstage”, but she never made it to an onstage appearance.
At age sixteen, she entered a local beauty contest sponsored by Lockheed Aircraft. Never considered one of the “beauties”, she won on the strength of a lip-synching rendition of Betty Hutton singing “I’m Just a Square in a Social Circle”. Two of the judges that night were talent scouts from Warner Brothers and MGM. On the flip of a coin, the Warner Brothers scout, Solly Baiano, got first dibs at a screen test for Mary Frances. The test led to a contract and the little girl’s name was changed to “Debbie” by Jack Warner himself!
Debbie made her screen debut with June Haver and James Barton in “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady”. Her first big break came in an MGM musical, starring Fred Astaire and Red Skelton, “Three Little Words”, in which she portrayed Helen Kane, the “boop-boop-a-doop” girl of the late 1930’s. A subsequent performance in a Busby Berkley musical, “Two Weeks with Love”, convinced the legendary L.B. Mayer to choose her for the leading female role, in what became one of the greatest screen musicals of all time, “Singin’ in the Rain”, starring Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor.
Over a ten year period, Debbie made more than twenty-five films, including “How the West was Won”, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (Oscar nominated for her performance as “Molly Brown”), “Mary, Mary”, “Divorce American Style”, “Goodbye Charlie”, “The Rat Race”, “Mother” and “In and Out”. Her recordings of “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” (from “Two Weeks with Love”) and “Tammy” (from “Tammy and the Bachelor”) both sold more than a million copies. In the mid-1960’s, Debbie put together her first nightclub act, which debuted at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. In the forty years since, she has been a headliner on the casino circuit from Reno and Tahoe and Las Vegas to Atlantic City to the famed London Palladium, as well as in concert in every major American city, touring on the average of forty-four weeks a year, multi-city tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Debbie, who is extremely charming, outgoing, generous, dynamic, gorgeous is also one of the most talented beyond belief women anyone has ever met. Debbie’s role in MGM’s unforgettable movie “Singin’ in the Rain” awed audiences and critics alike by her wit and unbelievable dancing and singing abilities. Her talents soon won rave reviews, and her brilliant career was on the way! Through the years, the light of Debbie Reynolds’ stunning beauty still shines like the star she is!
Debbie spends a great deal of time and energy raising funds for The Thalians, a charitable organization that provides mental health services from pediatrics to geriatrics at The Thalians Community Health Center at Cedar-Sinai in Los Angeles. Since the building of The Mental Health Center, over a million patients have received the world’s best care for mental health problems from teens to adults to seniors. The Center provides services for adult chemical dependency detoxification, eating disorders, psychological trauma, pre-school and infant parenting, electro-convulsive therapy, psychiatric home care and much more.
Each year The Thalians honor Hollywood’s greatest celebrities. The Thalians is the world’s first celebrity charity created in 1955 by Hugh O’Brian, Jack Haley, Jr. and others. Headed by champions Debbie and Ruta Lee, their hard work has raised millions to help others. Named after the muse of comedy, “Thalia”, The Thalians honors Debbie for over 50 years of loving dedication and timeless effort.
Debbie’s versatility as an actress has won her the respect of her colleagues and the affection of audiences who know her from her countless appearances in movies, on stage and TV. She is best remembered for her roles in “Singin’ in the Rain” and for her Oscar nominated portrayal as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”.
Simultaneously, Debbie has appeared in numerous TV shows such as “Will & Grace”, “Perry Mason” and “The Love Boat”. Her personality shines through on such shows as “The Hollywood Squares” and “The Tonight Show” with both Johnny Carson and Jack Paar.
With her customary tenacity, Debbie decided in 1973 to do theater, taking on Broadway with the super hit show “Irene”, breaking all previous box office records for a Broadway musical, and, for which, she received a “Tony” nomination, distinguishing her as the first performer to receive such an honor, before the show had its official opening! After an enormously successful national tour of the show, Debbie returned to the musical stage with another hit revival, Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun”, directed by the late Gower Champion (who also directed “Irene”). In 1983, she returned to Broadway again to star in the hit musical, “Woman of the Year”. The Broadway critics have raved about her roles in both “Irene” and “Woman of the Year”. In 1989, she completed a successful national tour of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”.
Debbie off-screen, off-stage life has been as active and versatile. She is the mother of two children, actress/writer, Carrie Fisher and son, Todd Fisher. In 1992, Carrie made her a grandmother, giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, Billie Catherine.
Since the late 1960’s, she has also been actively involved in a project closest to her heart, the collection and preservation of memorabilia from Hollywood’s first half-century of film making, gathering thousands of costumes, props and mementos of Hollywood’s studios and their greatest stars. A location is now in progress and movie fans world-wide are excited to see this dream come true. The new location will be near “Dollywood” in Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee.
Her dream is to one day establish a Hollywood motion picture and television museum to house her collection, the largest individual collection of Hollywood memorabilia. In the late 1970’s, anticipating her eventual retirement from performing, Debbie established “The Debbie Reynolds’ Professional Rehearsal Studios” in North Hollywood, which has since become on of the entertainment industry’s leading rehearsal as well as professional training studios. In 1987, Debbie published her widely-read memoir, “Debbie, My Life”, (co-written with David Patrick Columbia) with William Morrow & Company, Publisher.
Just like “Super Woman”, Debbie is here, there, everywhere! Aside from her dedication to The Thalians, she has raised millions for various organizations that range from the City of Hope and The United Jewish Federation, to Catholic charities, Associates for Breast Cancer, Founders for Diabetic Research and The United Way. She is proud to have been the recipient of The Thalians “Ms./Mr. Wonderful” Award, joining an illustrious group, including Ann Margret, Lucille Ball, Liza Minnelli, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sally Field, Lena Horne, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Hope, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and numerous others.
