Actress Debbie Reynolds dies at age 84

Actress Debbie Reynolds died Wednesday, one day after the death of her daughter, actress-writer Carrie Fisher. Reynolds was 84.

Her son Todd Fisher, speaking from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where his mother was taken by ambulance earlier Wednesday, said the stress of his sister’s death “was too much” for Reynolds.

“She said, ‘I want to be with Carrie,’” her son said. “And then she was gone.”

At 19, Reynolds was cast in the 1952 classic Singin’ in the Rain alongside two of Hollywood’s greatest dancers, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. She also played the title role in the 1964 film The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

In 1955, Reynolds married pop singer Eddie Fisher, and the couple had two children, Carrie and Todd. In 1957 Reynolds had a No. 1 hit on the pop charts with “Tammy,” the Oscar-nominated song from her film Tammy and the Bachelor. A year later Fisher left Reynolds and their two children to marry actress Elizabeth Taylor, creating a major Hollywood scandal. Taylor was assailed as a husband stealer, Fisher as a deserter of his family, while Reynolds won sympathy as the innocent victim.

Reynolds’ next two marriages, to shoe magnate Harry Karl in 1960 and Virginia businessman Richard Hamlett in 1984, ended when Reynolds discovered the men had stolen most of her financial assets, leaving her deeply in debt and forcing her to tour constantly with a song and dance show to pay off creditors.

“All of my husbands have robbed me blind,” she said in 1999. “The only one who didn’t take money was Eddie Fisher. He just didn’t pay for the children.”

In her later years, Reynolds continued performing, traveling up to 40 weeks a year. She also appeared regularly on television, playing moms on the sitcoms Roseanne and Will & Grace. She also wrote two memoirs, Unsinkable and Make ’Em Laugh. In 1996 she won critical acclaim playing the title role in the Albert Brooks film Mother.