While many of us look at 2016 as the end of another year, for Hollywood it's the end of an era as millions of adoring fans, and close friends and family say goodbye to a couple of women who defied odds both on screen and off.
Carrie Fisher, who became a household name after playing the role of Princess Leia Organa in George Lucas's original space fantasy Star Wars in 1977, died Tuesday at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from cardiac arrest at age 60, according to multiple reports.
Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was making funeral plans Wednesday with her son at his home just one day after Carrie's death when she suffered a stroke, according to TMZ. Reynolds died later that day at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She was 84.
Tweets from celebrities paying their respect and sending condolences to family were all over Twitter, speaking fondly of the two, proving just how much of an impact these women made on the lives of so many.
Reynolds grew up in a modest home, according to her 2013 book, Unsinkable: A Memoir. She grew up in West Texas in the city of El Paso. Living with her grandparents, Reynolds shared a bed with her brother and three uncles, close in age. It was a small house with no shower. The bathroom they used was in a gas statioin next door to the home.
Her father worked for Southern Pacific Railroad and later moved the family to California. In 1948, Reynolds then 16, competed in the Miss Burbank contest. In her 1988 book, Debbie: My Life, she talks about entering the contest with no intention of participating, but instead for the prizes given away for registering: a white silk sports blouse and a green scarf. Reynolds however took home the title and a contract with Warner Bros. The following day, the headline of an article published in the Los Angeles Times read: "GIRLS WANTS BLOUSE---GETS FILM CONTRACT"
Little did this girl from El Paso realize this was only the beginning of a career that would make her Hollywood royalty.
"I first saw Debbie Reynolds in Singin' In the Rain and I just remember how beautiful she was," said Jessica Briseno, payroll specialist for COSA. "I remember how great of a dancer she was next to Gene Kelly. It wasn't until later I found out she wasn't a dancer. She had to cram all the choreography in while Gene Kelly was against her (playing the role) because of that. She had to prove herself."
Reynolds' big break came in 1952 when Louis B. Mayer of MGM studios cast her as the lead female role for Singin' In the Rain, despite objections from the film's star and co-director, Gene Kelly. Her performance in the classic film is perhaps no more than pleasant, but she was cute and energetic, and her popularity soared, according to John Calhoun's article "Screen Legend Debbie Reynolds Dies at 84," for biography.com.
The studio and press positioned Reynolds as the embodiment of 1950s girl-next-door wholesomeness, earning her roles in other musicals and comedies, according to Calhoun. She married one of the most famous singers of that time, Eddie Fisher, and the two were soon dubbed America's Sweethearts. They had two children, Carrie and Todd, before he would leave her for his best friend's widow, actress Elizabeth Taylor. It was one of the biggest Hollywood scandals in history.
Reynolds continued to work and would later marry shoe tycoon, Harry Karl, and real estate developer Richard Hamlett. Both marriages not only unsuccessful, but both left her almost penniless, forcing her to declare bancruptcy in 1997. Reynold's was a determined woman. She continued to make small appearances on film and in TV. She got her second wind playing the title role in the Albert Brooks 1996 comedy, Mother, and a recurring role in the sitcom Will & Grace playing Bobbi Adler, Grace's mother.
Unlike her mother, Fisher was just born into Hollywood royalty, making front page news in the Los Angeles Times before she was born. Because she was the daughter of two of the biggest celebrities, she lived her early years in the spotlight. Early on she showed interest in poetry and writing, but she eventually followed in the footsteps of her parents and jumped into showbiz, making her big screen debut in Shampoo with Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. It was two years later in 1977 that George Lucas would cast her as the smart, wisecracking and ass-kicking princess that would forever make her legendary.
Her role as Princess Leia would inspire girls everywhere to be bold and would instill crushes on millions of young boys. Her movie role showed movie goers everywhere that not only could women be sexy, but they could be real bad-asses too. Fisher would go on to reprise her role in two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
“I remember the first time it was weird to me was when someone wanted to thank me because they’d become a lawyer because of me,” Fisher said in an article by Josh Rottenberg for the LA Times. “The main thing they said is that they identified with me. I felt like that was somebody that could be heroic without being a superhero and be relatable.”
By the 1980s, Fisher struggled with alcohol, drugs and bi-polar disorder. She starred in a number of roles that didn't do much for her career such as Under the Rainbow (1981) and Hollywood Vice Squad (1986). But as the 80s came closer to an end, Fisher once again reinvented herself publishing her first semi-autobiographical novel Postcards From the Edge. It was about a showbiz mother and daughter. It later became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. Fisher would continue to write other best selling novels including Surrender the Pink, Wishful Drinking, and The Princess Diarist (the latter a recollection and look behind-the-scenes of Star Wars from her POV and excerpts from a journal she kept during that time).
Fisher was very outspoken about her bi-polar disorder, and accepted her condition. She was diagnosed at age 29. In an interview with Diane Sawyer for ABC News in 2000, Fisher said when she was first told she was manic depressive, she thought doctors were only trying to maker her feel better about being a drug addict.
"I have a chemical imbalance, that in it's most extreme case, will lead me to a mental hospital," she said to Sawyer in her interview. "I used to think I was an addict, pure and simple -- just someone who could not taking drugs willfully. And I was that. But it turns out I am severely manic-depressive." Fisher was working on several projects at the time of her death, and had just finished shooting Star Wars: Episode VIII (aka The Force Awakens), reprising the role which made Fisher a movie icon.
A new documentary spotlighting these two women airing on HBO has moved up it's original air date. Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds was scheduled to air in March, but you can expect to catch it this month. It premieres on HBO January 7. What will you remember most about Reynolds and Fisher? Feel free to comment and reminisce in the section below.
