Susan Granger’s review of “Debbie Reynolds LIVE!” (Sacred Heart University, CT)
The Edgerton Center for the Performing Arts at Sacred Heart University delighted Connecticut movie fans by bringing in Debbie Reynolds LIVE! as part of the American Legends on Sunday, April 10th.
After introducing herself to younger members of the audience as Princess Leia’s mother (referring to her daughter Carrie Fisher’srole in “Star Wars”), Debbie candidly reminisced about her stage, screen and television career, not only answering questions posed by Jerry Goehring, executive director of The Edgerton Center, but also fielding inquiries by members of the audience.
Topics ranged from her childhood (“I was born in El Paso, Texas, and then my parents moved to Burbank, California; we were very poor”), Girl Scouts (“I still pay dues; I want to be the oldest living Girl Scout”), disastrous marriages (“It may be genetic: marrying the wrong men”), future romances (“I won’t get married again. I’ve closed up shop”) to overcoming adversity (“I was raised in the Church of Nazarene, and I pray a lot.”) Debbie explained that her son, Todd Fisher, is a cinematographer and in the sound installation business, that her daughter Carrie is manic/depressive and bi-polar and that she herself suffers from arthritis and an increasingly failing memory.
“It’s a miracle I’m still alive! The fact that I survived all my bad marriages is a miracle.”
She dismissed speculation about the Debbie/Eddie Fisher/Liz Taylor triangle by quipping, “It was simple. Eddie wanted to screw Elizabeth,” adding how lonely Liz was after Mike Todd was killed and Eddie was there to comfort her – in every way. Years later, she and Elizabeth became friends again.
Debbie related charming screen memories about “A Catered Affair with Bette Davis, “Mother” with Albert Brooks, and learning to dance for “Singing in the Rain” with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, and why she chose to cancel her short-lived TV sit-com after the network insisted that she be sponsored by Salem cigarettes. She has a particular fondness for “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. “I worked very hard and I loved that movie.”
After avidly buying movie memorabilia for 50 years, Debbie’s extensive collection of over 4,000 costumes and props goes up for auction on June 18 at the Paley Museum in Los Angeles with a subsequent auction scheduled for December.
An extraordinarily gifted mime, Debbie’s impressions included Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Ethel Merman, Barry Fitzgerald and both Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.
If you love classic movies, I highly recommend the American Legends series at Sacred Heart University.