A Debbie Reynolds Film Friday

This week's «Film Friday» is quite special because it is entirely dedicated to Debbie Reynolds, whose 85th birthday would have been today (hence why I am posting this on a Saturday). Sadly, Debbie pasted away last December, so I thought I would honour her with a compilation of all the Debbie Reynolds films I have written about on this blog.

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen | Co-starring Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor

Singin' in the Rain gave 19-year-old Debbie her breakthrough role and it remains her best known work. She played Kathy Selden, a nightclub performer and aspiring actress who falls in love with Don Lockwood, the swashbuckling matinee idol played by Gene Kelly. Selected over established stars like Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell and June Allyson, Debbie always stated that Kelly and Donen did not want her in the film, feeling that they were «stuck» with her. However, Donen maintained that he and Kelly wanted her from the very beginning, despite her relative inexperience in musicals.

Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain.

Being a trained gymnast rather than a dancer, Debbie had difficulty adapting to Kelly's demands and perfectionism. The «Good Morning» number proved especially challenging for her. After fourteen hours of filming the routine, she had to be carried to her dressing room because she had burst some blood vessels in her feet. Debbie later said that she

«learned a lot from [Kelly]. He is a perfectionist and a disciplinarian — the most exciting director I've ever worked for. And he has a good temper. Every so often he would yell at me and make me cry. But it took a lot of patience for him to work with someone who had never danced before. It's amazing that I could keep up with him and Donald O'Connor.»

In turn, Kelly described Debbie as being «strong as an ox [...] also she was a great copyist, and she could pick up the most complicated routine without too much difficulty.» Despite her hard work on the «Good Morning» sequence, Kelly ultimately decided to dub her tap sounds.

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in publicity stills for Singin' in the Rain.

It Started With a Kiss (1959)

Directed by George Marshall | Co-starring Glenn Ford, Gustavo Rojo and Eva Gabor

It Started With a Kiss was the first of two pictures produced by MGM co-starring Debbie and Glenn Ford. In this George Marshall-directed romp, they played a young married couple who decide to go without sex for thirty days in order to determine whether they are suitably matched or not. The story is set in Cadiz, Spain, where they become entangled with a famous matador (played by Gustavo Rojo) and a glamorous marchioness (played by Eva Gabor).

Debbie Reynolds as Maggie Putnam in It Started with a Kiss.

When Debbie began filming It Started with a Kiss, she was in the midst of an humiliating scandal. She had been married to teen idol Eddie Fisher, her co-star in Bundle of Joy (1956), for four years and the two had been labeled by the fan magazines as «America's sweethearts.» Fisher was the best friend of producer Mike Todd, who happened to be married to Debbie's close friend Elizabeth Taylor. When Todd died in a plane crash in 1958, a grief-stricken Taylor was consoled by Fisher, with whom she soon became involved. As he was still married to Debbie, the affair caused a major public scandal, topped only three years later when Taylor left Fisher to consort with Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra (1963).

Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford during production of It Started with a Kiss.

The Gazebo (1959)
Directed by George Marshall | Co-starring Glenn Ford, Carl Reiner and John McGiver

With The Gazebo, MGM decided to repeat the It Started with a Kiss formula by pairing Debbie, Glenn Ford and director George Marshall for a second time. Ford played a television writer who decides to murder the man who is blackmailing him over nude photographs of his wife, played by Debbie, taken when she was 18 years old.

As Debbie's marriage to Eddie Fisher collapsed, so did Ford's marriage to Eleanor Powell. During the making of The Gazebo, Debbie and Ford helped console each other and apparently they grew quite close. He even proposed to her, but she was not ready to commit again so soon. They remained lifelong friends instead, although they never appeared in another film together.

Debbie Reynolds as Nell Nash in The Gazebo.

From Debbie Reynolds, I also saw:

The Tender Trap (1955) | Co-starring Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm and David Wayne
How the West Was Won (1962) | Co-starring Gregory Peck and James Stewart
Divorce American Style (1967) | Co-starring Dick Van Dyke and Jean Simmons

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