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Entertainment July 19, 2017
We miss her.
“Singin’ in the Rain” actress, Debbie Reynolds, was a powerhouse in the ’50s and ’60s. She received the SAG lifetime achievement award in 2015. She also played the beloved Aggie Cromwell in Disney’s “Halloweentown.”
Reynolds, however, died after suffering a stroke at the age of 84 in December 2016, a day after her daughter Carrie Fisher died.
From a co-founder of a charitable organization to her iconic roles, Reynolds left a mark on the entertainment industry and we’re here to honor her legacy.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Reynolds lost a lot of money due to bad business ventures.
Her husband Harry Karl gambled most of their personal assets away. But then she married businessman Richard Hamlett. With his help, she invested $10 million to buy a casino in Las Vegas. She used the venue to showcase her valuable memorabilia collection, but when the venture didn’t end well, she filed for bankruptcy in 1997.
That didn’t derail her, though. Reynolds quickly turned her bad luck around by investing in multiple properties in Los Angeles.
She was a best selling female vocalist in 1957. Her single “Tammy” from “Tammy and the Bachelor” was No. 1 on Billboard’s pop charts. But she didn’t stop there. She then made two other top 25 Billboard hits with “A Very Special Love” in 1958 and “Am I That Easy to Forget” in 1960. In 1961, she released her album “The Best of Debbie Reynolds.”
On top of all this, Reynolds headlined her own act in Las Vegas’ Riveria Hotel. She performed cabaret and impressions of celebrities such as Bette Davis and Barbra Streisand.
Reynolds was honored with the award for her conservation of classic Hollywood costumes. She amassed movie memorabilia from the Metro Goldwyn Mayer auction. She acquired Marilyn Monroe’s “subway dress” from “The Seven Year Itch,” a Charlie Chaplin bowler hat and a copy of the ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz.”
More importantly, over the course of 40 years, she acquired around 5,000 vintage props, costumes, cameras and more. She loved Hollywood so much that she attempted to preserve it on her own.
“Debbie thought that Hollywood was a very important thing to preserve,” Joe Maddalena, president of a Calabasas based auction house, told The Los Angeles Times. “She on her own tried to save what was left of Hollywood.”
Unfortunately, she was forced to auction off most of her collection after she went bankrupt.
Reynolds co-founded The Thalians, an organization that raises awareness and provides treatment and support for people suffering from mental health issues. She served as president of the organization for 50 years. The organization donated millions of dollars to Cedar Sinai and UCLA’s mental health centers.
During the Academy Awards, Reynolds was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an award bestowed upon someone “whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.”
According to AOL, when Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda announced Reynolds as the recipient of the award, Streep praised Reynolds for her “passion to preserve the iconic costumes that we associate with Hollywood’s golden age.”
Debbie Reynolds died one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher passed away from cardiac arrest. She was taken Cedar Sinar hospital after suffering from a stroke. She then passed away from a ruptured blood vessel in her brain.
Her son Todd Fisher told Vanity, “She wanted to be with Carrie.”
From “Singin’ in the Rain” to “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” to “Kim Possible,” there wasn’t a role Debbie Reynolds couldn’t fill. Her singing, acting and dancing talents made her the actress every young woman still looks up to.
