Debbie Reynolds, the iconic actress who starred in some of Hollywood’s best-loved films, has passed away at the age of 84.
Reynolds’ daughter, Carrie Fisher, passed away just yesterday after suffering a massive heart attack aboard a commercial flight.
According to TMZ, Reynolds was at her son’s home, making arrangements for Fisher’s funeral, when she suffered the stroke that claimed her life just hours earlier.
Over the course of her nearly 70-year career, Reynolds racked up more than 80 film and television credits, including such enduring classics as Singin’ In the Rain and How the West Was Won.
She scored a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for her work in The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1965, and an Emmy nod for her recurring role on Will & Grace in 2000.
In 2015, she received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Reynolds’ personal life was often the subject of intense media scrutiny, such as when her first husband, Eddie Fisher, left her Elizabeth Taylor.
Reynolds’ often turbulent relationship with her daughter was also a frequent source of interest to fans and the tabloid press.
Both parties spoke candidly about their difficulties, with Fisher using the relationship as the basis for her autobiographical novel, Postcards From the Edge, later adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep.
Reynolds was also a highly-regarded singer and stage performer, and one of the world’s foremost collectors of film memorabilia.
At one point, she owned 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, all of which she fought to have displayed in prominent museums.
But for all of her many accomplishments, in later years, Reynolds was best known as the mother of one of Hollywood’s most beloved scren icons.
“There have been a few times when I thought I was going to lose Carrie,” Reynolds told Oprah Winfrey during a 2011 interview.
“I’ve had to walk through a lot of my tears. But she’s worth it.”
Reynolds’ passing marks a fitting, but almost unbelievably tragic end to one of Hollywood’s most compelling mother-daughter relationships.
