DEBBIE REYNOLDS Biography - Musicians

 
 

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DEBBIE REYNOLDS

Name: Debbie Reynolds                                                                 
Birth name: Mary Frances Reynolds                                                     
Born: 1 April 1932 El Paso, Texas                                                     
                                                                                     
Debbie Reynolds (born April 1, 1932) is an Academy Award-nominated American           
actress, singer, and dancer.                                                         
                                                                                     
Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of       
Raymond Francis Reynolds (1903-1986), a carpenter for Southern Pacific Railroad,     
and Maxine N. (nee Harman; 1913-1999). Reynolds was a Girl Scout and a troop         
leader. A scholarship in her name is offered to high-school age Girl Scouts. Her     
family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939. While a student at John Burroughs       
High School, at age sixteen, Reynolds won the Miss Burbank Beauty Contest, a         
motion picture contract with Warner Brothers, and acquired her new first name.       
                                                                                     
Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals, most notably Singin' in the Rain,     
during the 1950s and chalked up several hit records despite an only intermittent     
career as a recording artist. Her song "Aba Daba Honeymoon" (featured in the         
1950 film Two Weeks With Love as a duet with Carleton Carpenter) was a top 3 hit     
in 1951. She is also remembered for her smash recording of the theme song "Tammy"     
which earned her a gold record and was the best-selling single by a female           
vocalist in 1957 and was number one for 5 weeks on the Billboard pop charts.         
Reynolds also scored two additional top 25 Billboard hits with "A Very Special       
Love" in 1958 and 1960s "Am I That Easy To Forget", a pop version of Skeeter         
Davis' country hit (interestingly, Davis' real first names are also Mary Frances).   
                                                                                     
with Barbara Ruick, Bob Fosse and Bobby Van in The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953)     
                                                                                     
During the 1950s, Reynolds also starred in numerous movies, such as Bundle of         
Joy (1956), with her then husband, Eddie Fisher, recorded hit songs (most             
notably "Tammy" from her 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor, playing opposite           
Leslie Nielsen, the first of the series of Tammy movies), and headlined in major     
Las Vegas showrooms. Her starring role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) led       
to an Oscar nomination, but she lost to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. She           
played Jeanine Deckers in The Singing Nun.                                           
                                                                                     
In what Reynolds called the "stupidest mistake of my entire career", she made         
big headlines in 1970 after instigating a fight with NBC over cigarette               
advertising on her TV show. NBC canceled the show.                                   
                                                                                     
She is still making appearances in film and television, one of the few actors         
from MGM's "golden age of film" (along with Anita Page, Mickey Rooney, Lauren         
Bacall, Cyd Charisse, Margaret O'Brien, Jane Powell, Rita Moreno, Leslie Caron,       
Dean Stockwell, Van Johnson, Angela Lansbury, Russ Tamblyn and June Lockhart)         
who are still active in filmmaking. From 1999 to its 2006 finale, she played the     
recurring role of Grace's ditzy mother Bobbi Adler on the NBC sitcom Will &           
Grace. She also plays a recurring role in the DCOM TV movie series Halloweentown     
as Aggie Cromwell. Reynolds made a guest appearance as a presenter at the 69th       
Annual Academy Awards.                                                               
                                                                                     
Reynolds has several CDs on the market of both vintage performances and later         
recordings.