Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

HBO to air documentary on Debbie and Carrie two months early on January 7th:

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/hbo-moves-debu ... 53653.html

Sabin wrote:I won't act like Debbie Reynolds or Carrie Fisher made a huge impact on my life. My favorite thing Carrie Fisher ever did was her incredible guest spot on 30 Rock. But the two of them passing one day apart is just so sad.

I found this clip of Debbie Reynolds presenting at the 69th Academy Award. Cute stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrdnOpsbbM4

Adroitly written by Carrie Fisher, of course.

I won't act like Debbie Reynolds or Carrie Fisher made a huge impact on my life. My favorite thing Carrie Fisher ever did was her incredible guest spot on 30 Rock. But the two of them passing one day apart is just so sad.

I found this clip of Debbie Reynolds presenting at the 69th Academy Award. Cute stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrdnOpsbbM4

The Original BJ wrote:

Sonic Youth wrote:

Big Magilla wrote: But she also had a resume with both a genuinely beloved classic from cinema's golden era as well as a number of more recent credits (Mother, Will & Grace) that won her new fans from my generation.

She was also in a very popular Disney Channel movie series Halloweentown that a lot of kids loved and that's where a lot of younger people got to know her initially.

Besides Carrie and George, there are at least three other Debbie death connections in 2016.

Tammy Grimes, Broadway's original "Unsinkable Molly Brown".

Hugh O'Brian, a close friend - she serenaded him and his wife at their 2006 wedding.

Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was once married to the father of Elizabeth Taylor's first husband, whose sister Eva was one of Debbie's closest friends.

Nobody mourned Zsa Zsa's passing at 99. She was a terrible actress, and according to many, a terrible person as well, but she was sadly little more than a vegetable for the last five years of her life. Carl Reiner, now 94, interviewed by phone on CNN last night, said something that will strike many as funny, but for me rang quite true. He said it was unfair that both Carrie at 60 and Debbie at 84 died so young. No matter how old you are, it always seems unfair when someone younger than you dies.

Debbie never had it easy. Her three husbands were, as she put it, louses. Eddie never gave her a dime for the kids after he left and the other two stole millions from her. Yet whenever she had money, she gave generously to charities. She should have gotten the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award decades ago, not just last year when she was too frail to even attend the ceremony.

She had to fight for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which would otherwise have gone to Shirley MacLaine. She got an Oscar nomination for that, but she should also have gotten one for Mother 32 years later. In fact, she should have won for that, which is unbelievably 20 years ago now.

I'd actually been reading for a while now that she was in poor health, so this doesn't come as the same shock, but being contiguous to her daughter's passing, it's still a jolt. One wishes, for her sake, she could have passed on a few days sooner, so as not to ever know the pain of losing a child. Of course, either way it's awful for the surviving family members, who've lost two central figures in their lives.

It's also kind of bizarre that George S. Irving -- now totally buried in the coverage -- won his Tony opposite Reynolds in Irene.

I grew up when Debbie Reynolds was a household name -- in fact, many girls of my generation were named Debbie, after her. I was a bit too young for the Taylor/Fisher brouhaha -- by the time I came to awareness, Elizabeth had moved on to Richard Burton. But I knew Reynolds as the star of Say One for Me, Mary Mary, How the West Was Won, The Unsinkable Molly Brown -- all movies I saw in theatres while I was in grade school. Her star faded some, of course -- the 60s revolution in Hollywood was especially unkind to performers of her ilk -- but she was a trouper and survived all this time never being forgotten. Her work in Mother, for one, was the kind of thing many of her generation would never have had the ingenuity to attempt.

I'd like to think this was the capper on grisly 2016, but with three days left, one doesn't want to tempt fate.

The key point in my comment was "years from now". Coming not only one day after her daughter's death but at the end of a year in which so many show biz icons died, she Is being celebrated as she likely wouldn't have been if she had lived a few more years. She's been the lead story on CNN for hours now. Even CNN International is still talking about her and not Obama, Trump, Israel and Russia.

Sonic Youth wrote:

Big Magilla wrote:This is incredibly shocking, but I was thinking earlier today that when Debbie goes years from now, her death will be one of those show biz footnotes that won't get anywhere near the coverage that Carrie's passing got.

Judging by the reaction of my multi-generational Facebook friends, she was far more than a footnote. Nobody is saying "Wow, Carrie's mother died too."

To add to that, I'm one of the younger posters here, and much of my social media feed (i.e. folks in their 20's and 30's) is full of commemorations for her. Part of this is due to the fact that she remained pretty prominent in the local performing arts scene even up to recent years, so many people I know actually crossed paths with her at some point. (One guy I know fondly reminisced about the one time he met her, and she introduced herself to him as "Princess Leia's mother.") But she also had a resume with both a genuinely beloved classic from cinema's golden era as well as a number of more recent credits (Mother, Will & Grace) that won her new fans from my generation. Obviously the proximity to her daughter's passing is heightening the impact, but her death hardly seems like simply an aftershock.

Big Magilla wrote:This is incredibly shocking, but I was thinking earlier today that when Debbie goes years from now, her death will be one of those show biz footnotes that won't get anywhere near the coverage that Carrie's passing got.

Judging by the reaction of my multi-generational Facebook friends, she was far more than a footnote. Nobody is saying "Wow, Carrie's mother died too."

People have commented that Carrie Fisher would have had something funny to say about her mom upstaging her even in death.

This is incredibly shocking, but I was thinking earlier today that when Debbie goes years from now, her death will be one of those show biz footnotes that won't get anywhere near the coverage that Carrie's passing got. Now, of course, their deaths as well as their lives, will be linked forever in show business lore.

A couple of bits of trivia:

Debbie was pregnant with Carrie during the filming of 1956's Bundle of Joy, a remake of 1939's Bachelor Mother and the only film she made with Eddie Fisher.

Debbie was 19 when she made the film that made her a star, 1952's Singin' in the Rain, the same year Carrie was when she made the original Star Wars.

Debbie's last film is the HBO documentary, Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, shown at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which will air in March.

Too sad to even think about, really.

Much sympathy to the family.

Fucking hell.

Sometimes life is just very moving. I totally got the goosebumps when I heard the news, after I realized that this actually happened. Both mother and daughter had a heck of a lot of spunk in their own respective ways. May they both rest in peace.

My god, that poor family.