“I’ve had a wonderfully lucky life. I fell into show business. No one in the family is in show business… so for me to happen to be lucky enough to enter a contest when I was sixteen just by chance, because they gave away a free blouse and scarf. As a joke, I entered this contest in Burbank. I won and there was this talent scout there. They took me to MGM studios and I was able to do a couple of films just before they put me in Singing in the Rain.” – Debbie Reynolds
“Daddy had got us rooms in a motel until he could find us a house. There were not a lot of places available for a young family on our budget. Daddy went around to dozens of places. Nobody wanted kids. Finally, he found one in the hills south of Glendale. As usual, the landlady asked if he had kids. “Yep,’ he replied. ‘A boy and a girl.’ ‘Well, whatta you going to do about them?’ she wanted to know, implying that she didn’t allow children. ‘I’m gonna take’em out and drown them in the Los Angeles River, and come back tomorrow.’ That was my father – ask a silly question and just wait. She must have had the same sense of humor: we moved in the next day.” — Debbie Reynolds
“I guess like most young girls, I went to the movies on weekends and dreamed of being those people up there, but I certainly never really thought about being up there myself. I was going to be a gym teacher, and that was a high enough goal coming from a family of poor means. The main thing on my mind was winning a scholarship so I could go to college.” — Debbie Reynolds
Source: Jack Lloyd (1982)
“I didn’t want to be called ‘Debbie,’ but that’s the name Jack Warner gave me. I don’t know how he came up with Debbie. I think he saw a dog across the street and asked its name.” — Debbie Reynolds
Source: Charles Champlin (1988)
“Singin’ in the Rain’ and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life.” — Debbie Reynolds
Source: Debbie: My Life by Debbie Reynolds and David Patrick Columbia.
Debbie Reynolds, the first Mister America of 1939, Bert Goodrich, and Jane Powell on the set of Athena (1954).
“I think the star system should come back. I think it was really good at creating a lot of talent.” — Debbie Reynolds
Source: Hugh Boulware (1988)
Posing with a Lincoln Futura in the film It Started with a Kiss (1959). A modified version of the car would later become more famous as the Batmobile.
Debbie Reynolds wax figure from an old The Singing Nun (1966) display at the Hollywood Wax Museum. It sat 4’4″ and came with the guitar when it headed to auction.
