Debbie Reynolds, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ Actress, Dies at 84

Debbie Reynolds, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ Actress, Dies at 84

Debbie Reynolds, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ Actress, Dies at 84

Debbie Reynolds, the Texan-born actress and singer who rose to stardom in the 1952 movie “Singin’ in the Rain” and earned an Oscar nomination for her role as a heroine who survived the sinking of the Titanic, has died. She was 84.

Born April 1, 1932, Reynolds died on Dec. 28 after being taken to a hospital from her son’s home in Beverly Hills after complaining of breathing problems, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a law enforcement source. Her daughter, actress and author Carrie Fisher, died the previous day in Los Angeles following a heart attack.

Paired with dancer Gene Kelly and comic Donald O’Connor, the 19-year-old Reynolds won acclaim as the chorus girl and singer Kathy Selden in the musical “Singin’ in the Rain,” best remembered for Kelly’s performance of the title song. It ranked fifth in the American Film Institute’s 100 greatest American movies of all time when the list was last compiled in 2007.

“Debbie was strong as an ox,” Kelly said, according to the Turner Classic Movies website. “Also she was a great copyist, and she could pick up the most complicated routine without too much difficulty.”

Barely 5 feet 2 inches tall, she appeared in more than 30 films during the 1950s and 1960s, receiving an Academy Award nomination for “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1964), about an uneducated rural girl in search of a rich husband. Loosely based on the life of American socialite Margaret Brown, the movie starred Reynolds whose musical numbers included “I Ain’t Down Yet” and “I’ll Never Say No” as it chronicled Brown’s real-life efforts to save survivors of the 1912 Titanic shipwreck.

‘Unharnessed Enthusiasm’

“Her role gives her opportunities to be refreshingly tomboyish such as she has never had before,” A.H. Weiler said of Reynolds in a New York Times review in 1964. “Since her role, as well as the others, is more grotesque than life, her unharnessed enthusiasm is a delight.”

Reynolds’s other films included “The Tender Trap” (1955), with Frank Sinatra; “The Catered Affair” (1956), with Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine; “Tammy and the Bachelor” (1957), with Leslie Nielsen; and “How the West Was Won” (1962), starring James Stewart and John Wayne. Burdened by the debts of her second spouse, Harry Karl, she also worked in live theater to earn money, gaining a Tony Award nomination in 1973 for her performance in the Broadway musical “Irene.”