Unsinkable Read online

  DEDICATION

  FOR MY CHILDREN,

  CARRIE AND TODD

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Foreword by Carrie Fisher

  Preface

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1 Third Time Is a Charm, or Three Strikes, You’re Out?

  CHAPTER 2 Debbie Does Virginia

  CHAPTER 3 Postcards from My Daughter

  CHAPTER 4 Move Over, Hiltons—Reynolds Is in the Hotel Business!

  CHAPTER 5 The Star Theater

  CHAPTER 6 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

  CHAPTER 7 A New Day

  CHAPTER 8 Happy New Year?

  CHAPTER 9 Raid on Roanoke

  CHAPTER 10 Under the Elephant’s Tail

  CHAPTER 11 Mother Plays Mother

  CHAPTER 12 Looking for Mr. Wrong

  CHAPTER 13 Divorce American Style

  CHAPTER 14 Hail Mary Deal

  CHAPTER 15 Black Wednesday

  CHAPTER 16 Bottoming Out in Beverly Hills

  CHAPTER 17 On the Road Again

  CHAPTER 18 Family and Faith

  CHAPTER 19 These Old Broads

  CHAPTER 20 I’m Princess Leia’s Mother

  CHAPTER 21 Hollywood & Highland

  CHAPTER 22 September 10, 2001

  CHAPTER 23 Museum, Interrupted

  CHAPTER 24 On to Pigeon Forge

  CHAPTER 25 Another Day in Court

  CHAPTER 26 June 18, 2011

  PART II

  Debbie Does Eighty

  Miss Burbank 1948

  MGM: “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven”

  An Excerpt from Make ’Em Laugh

  3. Early Days

  Acknowledgments

  The Films of Debbie Reynolds

  Index

  Photo Section

  About the Authors

  Also by Debbie Reynolds

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FOREWORD

  BY CARRIE FISHER

  MY MOTHER HAS AN AMAZING memory. She doesn’t seem to remember things utterly and all at once. Her recollections can come gradually, or they’ve been known to come to her intermittently, even late at night and suddenly—maybe on a plane, when entering an elevator, deciding not to exercise, not to go to bed yet, to spend time reading, watching TV, or returning calls, while eating or alone.

  The bottom line is that she’s never quite gotten to that bottom line. In the end, the end gets farther and farther away. Just when you think you’ve heard her last word on a subject—a vivid and vast assortment of reflections—you find that you’ve been happily swept up into another anecdote long forgotten, hoisting memory’s anchor, embarking on a new long-forgotten cruise, sailing storied seas on the S.S. Other Hand. Or she’s embroiled in some new epic misadventure—one of her kids abruptly gets married, the other chats gaily about her electroshock therapy, a fan catches fire. I mean, what the hell! She lives two lives—one of them public, the other private. Some she lives concurrently, others one at a time, in or out of order. Always, she is who she is: a good person, a kind person—which would be a fine thing if these were qualities that are consistently rewarded. But as most of us know, they are not. Which is one of the things very vividly demonstrated in this book.

  My mother has lived a long and at times unendurably eventful life. Yet she keeps living it, keeps enduring, applying makeup, trying not to remember how unreal it all seems at times, writing checks, sleeping late, voting Republican and Democratic, answering the “who the hell could that be” phone. Did she really make all those movies, marry those morons, sing those songs, dance those dance steps, pretend to know all those people she didn’t know from Adam, Eve, or Uncle Wally from Tucson? Singing for more than a few suppers, skipping breakfast, even lunching with ladies who had, at some point, been men?

  This isn’t a tell-all—what book is? This book is what all memoirs are—a tell-some. It’s not the telling that counts, though, as much as who’s doing the telling and from what point they are telling it. Well, as you know, my mother is doing the telling here and telling her story from a point in her life where she can see farther and better than ever before.

  I’ll stop here so you can go and enjoy reading her story as much as I enjoyed reading it and contributing my colorful and, at times, annoying part of it. After all, I’m her daughter and her neighbor, and I have custody of her granddaughter.

  So hoist this introductory anchor and cruise down memory lane with Debbie, a journey flooded with extraordinary anecdotes from an extraordinary woman. I oughta know.

  PREFACE

  IN 1988 I WROTE AN autobiography entitled Debbie: My Life. At the time I had recently married my third husband. My life was chaotic, but I was very happy. I called my new husband “brave, loyal, and loving.” How wrong I was!

  When I read the optimistic ending of my last memoir now, I can’t believe how naive I was when I wrote it. In Unsinkable, I look back at the many years since then and, in the second part of the book, share my memories of a film career that took me from the Miss Burbank contest of 1948 to the work I did in 2012. I was a simple kid who was thrown into the wonderful world of show business. I’ve loved every moment.

  These are my recollections. If you remember things differently, send me your version—but only if it’s funnier.

  Thanks for sharing this journey with me. To paraphrase Bette Davis: Fasten your seatbelts. I’ve had a bumpy ride.

  CHAPTER 1

  THIRD TIME IS A CHARM, OR THREE STRIKES, YOU’RE OUT?

  IT WAS GOING TO BE a perfect day.

  In May 1984, I got married for the third time. Like my first two husbands, Richard asked me to marry him soon after we met. I held back.

  When I was a young contract player at MGM, I met a handsome man who was the biggest recording star of the 1950s, Eddie Fisher. He was a success in records and also in the new medium of television with his program Coke Time with Eddie Fisher. When we got married, the press called us “America’s Sweethearts.” Eddie was my first love—and my first divorce. Eddie’s best friend, movie producer Mike Todd, spent a lot of time with us while we were dating. Mike fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor. Eddie and I stood up for Mike and Elizabeth when they were married. When Mike was killed in a horrible plane crash, I took care of their children while Eddie comforted Elizabeth. Then Eddie left our two small children and me for Elizabeth. (You knew you’d be hearing about them in this story, didn’t you? The scandal made headlines around the world. People still talk about it to this day.)

  My second husband was a very wealthy businessman, Harry Karl. His family owned a chain of shoe stores worth many millions of dollars. Harry was older than me, but he courted me until I said yes to his proposal. He gave my children and me stability and a family life that lasted for many years. I let him take care of all our business while I took care of our home and his wardrobe. The trouble with Harry was that he loved gambling more than he loved me and our family. He squandered all of his money and then went through everything I had earned. When I found out—thirteen years into our marriage—everything fell apart.

  When Richard proposed to me, it had been twenty-six years since Eddie Fisher left me for Elizabeth Taylor, in 1958. That seemed like a lifetime ago. The nightmare of my second marriage had ended ten years before, and after being a rich man’s trophy wife I’d vowed never to marry again. I’d worked to pay off millions of dollars of Harry’s gambling debts, and I’d rebuilt my life. At fifty-two, I didn’t want to spend the rest of it alone, afraid of loving again. I’d known Richard less than a year, but marrying him felt right. We seemed to be kindred spirits. I was comfortable with him. We talked for hours and hours, yet it seemed like minutes. I was happy to be in love again.

  So a
few months after Richard proposed, I decided to take a chance and marry him.

  That being said, I was glad when Ruta Lee gave me a copy of her prenuptial agreement, to protect myself just in case. I’ve known Ruta since my early days at MGM. She’d played one of the seven brides for seven brothers in the musical of the same name. Leave it to my famous bride girlfriend to have a prenup handy, but then, we do live in Hollywood. After all I’d been through, Ruta thought it would be wise for me to ensure that I wouldn’t get hurt again. Richard read it for a few hours, then signed it, to prove that he loved me for myself, not for my money.

  I was booked to perform on a cruise leaving from Miami for a week that May, so we decided to get married in Florida and spend our honeymoon at sea. This arrangement was good for me because I thrive on working. It was good for Richard because he enjoyed watching me work. I planned a small wedding, with only my closest friends and family. My mother, Maxene, and my brother, Bill, along with my son, Todd, my daughter, Carrie, and a few friends, were flying in. Several days before the wedding, Richard and I checked into a large suite at the Ambassador Hotel. My good friends Nancy and Joe Kanter agreed to let us have the ceremony at their beautiful bay-front home on a nearby secluded Miami street. Nancy and I made all the arrangements quickly and quietly, without informing the press.

  The day before the wedding, Carrie’s plane arrived from London, but she wasn’t on it. Carrie called to say she wasn’t able to come. This was a difficult time for her. She and Paul Simon were ending their marriage of a few months after being together for many years. She’d recently had a tubular pregnancy, had lost the baby, and had been very ill following the surgery. On top of that, she was devastated that I was marrying again. Carrie didn’t know Richard, and she still felt damaged by my second marriage to Harry Karl. I was disappointed by this news but also worried. At the time Carrie was living at the edge but hadn’t yet begun to send any postcards.

  The next day everyone bustled around getting ready for the ceremony. My mother wore a dusty pink chiffon dress. She was very excited for me. Ret Turner of Bob Mackie’s design house created a sea foam green chiffon dress with sheer sleeves and crystal and pearl beading around the scoop neckline and cuffs for me. My friend and hairstylist, Kelly Muldoon, was with me for my show and to be my matron of honor. She fastened some white blooms in the back of my hair at the hotel, and we went over to Nancy and Joe’s.

  Daddy was eighty-one and too frail to travel, so Todd gave me away. In Daddy’s absence, my son had “the talk” with my groom. Even though Todd was only twenty-six, he warned Richard that if he did anything to harm me, Richard would have to answer to him. Richard laughed nervously.

  Before I knew it, it was time for the ceremony. In the early evening, Todd walked me down the stairs at Nancy and Joe’s home, my arm linked through his as we made our way to the living room and out onto the terrace overlooking the bay where everyone had gathered. My bridal bouquet was a mix of white lilies and lilies of the valley. Delicate as they were, my hand shook a little as I held them, from nervousness. I kept thinking, I know I can do this. He loves me. Let life in. I reminded myself to breathe.

  As the sun was setting in the cloudless sky, casting a glow over the proceedings, I brought the ring to Richard’s finger and promised to love him till death do us part. For some reason, I couldn’t get the ring on. I bent down and began to twist it onto his finger. Was this an omen? Finally I twisted that sucker on. Everyone clapped and cheered. Then we all went into the house to toast the new Mr. and Mrs. Hamlett.

  The flowers and our wedding cake were beautifully arranged on a round table in the dining room. Three tiers of white cake sparkled as we cut it. Richard pushed a big slice in my mouth, and some of the icing landed on the exposed area just below my neck. Richard happily licked it off and we laughed. I smiled for the camera as pictures were taken, the actress in me putting on a good show, but I was thinking about Carrie, consumed with concern for my daughter’s well-being. I asked Todd to get her on the phone in London. Todd joked with his sister before passing the phone to me.

  “Hi, dear. It’s your mother. Debbie,” I said. I chatted for a moment about everything that was happening, told her I was sorry she was missing it.

  Carrie explained that she had come down with a bad cold that had gotten worse from traveling by plane.

  “Feel better, dear,” I told her. “Here’s your new stepfather.”

  Richard talked to Carrie for a few minutes and handed the phone back to me.

  “Bye-bye, dear, I love you. Wish you were here,” I said cheerfully and hung up.

  But Carrie’s voice had frightened me. Her words were slurred, and by the end of the conversation she wasn’t speaking at all. I suspected that taking pills had been more satisfying for her than boarding a plane to Miami.

  Worried, I looked at Todd, who instinctively knew what to do. He said he would go to London and get Carrie and bring her home. Something told me he wouldn’t arrive there in time.

  I asked him to call Carrie back.

  The phone rang and rang and rang. I panicked. I knew she was in her hotel room, and I was certain she had accidentally overdosed on her prescription medications. I called the hotel’s concierge.

  “Hello, this is Debbie Reynolds. My daughter, Carrie Fisher, is staying at your hotel. I’ve been calling and calling, but she doesn’t seem to be answering.”

  I begged him to go to Carrie’s room to make sure she was all right.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Reynolds,” he interrupted, “but we have no way of knowing that you are who you say you are.”

  He continued talking but I didn’t hear him. Did he really think I was some crazy fan pretending to be Carrie’s mother?

  It was close to one in the morning in London, and somehow I had to save my daughter. Who did I know there who could help? Frantic, I asked the concierge, “Would you go to Carrie’s room if Ava Gardner came to the hotel and went with you?” In the moment of silence it took him to process this and agree, I prayed that my good friend would be true to her reputation, still awake in the wee hours and sipping champagne at home.

  Thank goodness she was.

  “I’ll sure as hell take care of it,” Ava said when I explained the situation to her. Ava had handled everyone from Frank Sinatra to bullfighters in Spain. I was confident that one London concierge would be no match for her.

  I went back into the dining room, where my wedding reception had been going on without the bride, and pulled my host Nancy aside.

  “Carrie may be sick in London,” I confided. “I have to get back to the hotel to make sure she’s all right.”

  I smiled and posed for pictures with my new husband and my friends a while longer, not letting on that I was scared to death about Carrie. Then Richard and I prepared to leave.

  Somehow the press had found out about the wedding; cars full of reporters and paparazzi packed the driveway and surrounded the house. I just wanted to get back to the Ambassador to make sure Carrie was safe.

  Joe called his friend at the sheriff’s station to clear a way for us, then drove the short distance so fast that the car wheels barely touched the pavement. It seemed like we were flying through every back alley, and each minute felt like an eternity.

  More press had gathered at the hotel entrance. We escaped the mob and hurried up to our suite, where we spent the rest of the night on the phone with Ava in London.

  Ava had rushed to the St. James Hotel the instant after we’d first spoken. When she and the manager opened the door to Carrie’s room, they found my daughter asleep on the floor, face down, all of her clothes still on, including her shoes. The television was playing and all the windows were open, chilling the room. Ava called a doctor, who gave Carrie the medical treatment she needed. Carrie had not overdosed, although she had taken many more pills than a person should, maybe because she felt so sick from her cold.

  Ava stayed with Carrie until she was sure she was out of danger. In our last phone call, many hours l
ater, I thanked Ava for taking care of Carrie and making sure she was safe. I knew that words could never express how grateful I truly was. I trusted that my dear friend would understand.

  With my best man at the wedding—and in my life—my son, Todd Fisher.

  With my last husband.

  Then, resilient as ever, Carrie got ready to fly back to the States. Instead of going to London, Todd went to Los Angeles and met his sister at home. However briefly, for this one instant, everyone was settled. Once I knew Carrie was truly safe, I felt guilty, caught between concern for my daughter’s welfare and wanting to devote my time to my new husband, and wondering if our marriage had triggered this episode. I was a wreck.

  Richard and I had to leave for the cruise ship later that day. After we settled into our cabin, I collapsed, exhausted and drained, into a deep sleep.

  I’m not a morning person. I’m barely an afternoon person. I woke up after my delayed wedding night alone in our cabin. Where was Richard? After a while, I got dressed, put on my makeup, and ventured onto the deck.

  There was my new husband seated at a table with three lovely ladies; they were laughing and seemed to be flirting with him. Richard looked tall and handsome and very relaxed. As I approached them, he stood to welcome me with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Debbie, these are some friends of mine from Roanoke,” he said, introducing them to me. “They’re going to Bermuda with us.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. “Isn’t this a lovely surprise?”

  The sun was shining brightly, but I felt a shiver. Sometimes you don’t see the storm clouds as they’re forming on the horizon. I didn’t know it at the time, but my new husband had all the makings of a champion tennis player—a great racket, fast moves, and a lot of balls.

  CHAPTER 2

  DEBBIE DOES VIRGINIA

  TIME SURE FLIES WHEN YOU’RE having fun. The cruise was smooth sailing after those first bumpy days. I never noticed the ladies from Roanoke again. My new husband stayed out in the sun so long, lounging on the deck with his Virginia girlfriends, that he looked like a lobster. I just threw wet towels on him to ease his suffering. I guess I won’t go down in history for my nursing skills. And I guess third-degree burns, no matter how painful, don’t keep a person from gambling. At checkout time back in Florida, I noticed a very large sum for charges in the ship’s casino. I chalked it up to entertainment and his excitement at being a newlywed.