Actress Debbie Reynolds dies at 84

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

last updated 29 December 2016

Debbie Reynolds, the star of Singin' in the Rain and dozens of other films, died Wednesday, one day after her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher, died at age 60. Reynolds was 84.

Her son, Todd Fisher, said his mother was under stress due to Fisher's death, and she suffered a stroke at around noon. He also said Reynolds told him she missed Fisher and wanted to be with her. In the 1950s and 1960s, Reynolds, born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, was one of MGM's principal stars, and she received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in 1964's The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

In the late 1950s, her private life became public when her husband Eddie Fisher left her for Elizabeth Taylor, and Reynolds married and divorced two times after that (and became friends with Taylor again in 1964). Reynolds appeared on several television programs, including The Debbie Reynolds Show and Will & Grace, and on Broadway, and also opened a Las Vegas hotel and casino in the early 1990s, which closed in 1997. She is survived by her son and granddaughter, Billie Lourd.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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