
They Dood It!—Debbie Reynolds & Eddie Fisher
It was decided in Palm Springs in June. While half the press was assuring its readers that Debbie was about to return Eddie’s ring and the other half was suggesting she had given it back already, Debbie and Eddie were back together again, secretly making plans for the wedding. No fancy dress ball, this time. No thousand-name guest list. Fanfare had almost destroyed their marriage and they were taking no chances. As we go to press, Eddie is loading his new white Mercedes-Benz convertible for the drive west. His two-month vacation—twice postponed—has finally begun and the wedding is set for July 20 or a few days later, depending upon when Debbie is finished shooting The Tender Trap. The huddles, the hassles are all behind them and it looks like smooth sailing at last. The rendezvous had been arranged after Debbie returned from Korea. She had done a lot of thinking and one thing was clear. She still loved Eddie. She was sure he still loved her. The romance deserved another chance—if Eddie would fight for her, too. This was his chance.
It was Eddie who did most of the talking in Palm Springs. He had to. Debbie had said, time and time again, for him to read in print as well as hear in private, that she loved him, that nothing had changed but the wedding date, that she didn’t know what was going on on the other side of the country. Eddie had said nothing—nothing but vague, off-the-record statements about the “wrong time for marriage.” Statements that had managed to creep into the columns and leave Debbie as confused as anyone else.
Debbie does not relish confusion. For all her bubbles and her brightness, she’s as level-headed as many far older women. She likes her life planned and well-defined; nothing is more unpleasant to her than vague, amorphic thinking. And if there was one thing that this great, unhappy to-do taught her, it was that when Eddie said he didn’t know, he wasn’t hiding anything—he just didn’t know. That’s worse than knowing it’s all over to someone like Debbie. Her fiancé wasn’t running his own life, he was letting his managers, his friends, his sponsors, his fans, half the world run it for him. He hadn’t stood up to them when they told him that he didn’t have it made yet, that he was still in the build-up stage, that he couldn’t broadcast from the West Coast but would be on the road for at least a year. Was he unable to fight for his right to marry her?
So they sat in the house in the desert and talked.. Debbie wore her ring, and if she twisted it nervously from time to time, at least it was still on. Temporarily, maybe, but a sign that things weren’t over yet. Eddie told her how mixed-up he was, how harassed by the rumors and reports, how upset over everyone’s thinking that those concerned with his career didn’t want him to marry. He told Debbie that Milton Blackstone, his agent, liked her, had repeatedly denied stories that he was trying to break them up—had been particularly stricken over the rumor that he objected to the marriage on religious grounds! Debbie listened quietly.

Sunday night, still in Palm Springs, they watched television and heard Walter Winchell announce that Debbie had flown into New York to see Eddie. For the first time in months, they laughed together, realizing how easily mistakes are made. But in Debbie’s mind that if loomed as large as ever. Something had happened once to spoil their idyll; she wouldn’t have it happening again. She remembered it too well.
It had been a nightmare. From two who wanted above all to be together, they had become two who were apart. Apart in every way—and Debbie was at a total loss, so sick at heart that a doctor put her under sedatives for three days. Afterward she felt stronger, but what then? What does a girl say when she has talked about her plans for the wedding, the reception, the honeymoon they are going to have, and suddenly the whole picture begins to dim and act as if it is going to fade out altogether?
What do you say if you are the kind of girl who has not just a few, but hundreds of friends, and they all want to know what has happened, even if they have too much tact to ask? What do you say when you meet them?
That was Debbie’s situation when the telephone in her home rang and proved an inspired interruption in her life. The caller was her good friend, Johnny Grant, one of Hollywood’s most popular disc jockeys, and a man she has known even before she had gotten into the movies. Johnny was calling just to say goodbye. He was heading a planeload of Hollywood entertainers to put on shows for GI’s in Korea, Japan, Okinawa and even Formosa. It would be his seventh such trip.
It was a Sunday. She was home and planned to stay home. She had no urge to go out and see people. Johnny said his group would be taking off on Friday, just five days away. And then—and as if he knew it would be a heaven-sent idea in her present mood—he asked, “Why don’t you come along?”
It seemed only like a split-second before she heard herself answering. “I think you’ve got a deal,” she told Johnny.
For the next few minutes they both did some busy telephoning from their respective homes. When it was over, MGM executive Benny Thau had given Debbie permission to take special leave from the studio. A fine dancer, Leon Tyler, had agreed to go into immediate rehearsal with Debbie to smooth out some routines they could perform together, and a half dozen other people, from musicians who gathered the proper song orchestrations, to doctors who prepared to inoculate her with shots, had promised their cooperation. Then Debbie phoned Johnny back and gave him her definite acceptance.
Debbie was in the air for stretches as long as ten hours or more on some of the jumps between California and Japan and Korea. The players would see her sitting alone, lost in her thoughts. Sometimes, she would try to break out of it. She would visit around, perch on the arms of their seats.
Once she was walking down the aisle when she looked at the hands of one of the fellows and saw that his fingernails were in a sad state of neglect. She plumped herself down on her chair, got out her manicure set and called out to him. “You poor guy!” she said. “You come here!”
There, some 16,000 feet above the Pacific, she did his nails. It was a diversion, but only for a while. When it was over her problems were still waiting for her.
When the big transport plane landed at the airport in Seoul, Korea, thousands of American GI’s were waiting. The first passenger to emerge was Debbie, and there were mass cheers. But there was more than that, too. Debbie had flown 5,000 miles to raise their morale, but the boys acted as if they thought her own morale needed hiking. They called out:
“Don’t worry about losing your Eddie!”
“You’ve always got us, Debbie!”
“We’ll help you forget . . .”
She’ll probably never admit that as she stood there and waved her eyes got misty with tears—but she wasn’t sure forgetting was what she wanted.
Some of the Air Force kids staged a kidnaping in which she was the principal. They thought they would make better hosts for her during her stay than the regular Army escort assigned to her. Debbie found herself in a car being sped out of the airport, before a convoy of jeeps loaded with MP’s headed them off and brought her back to the main party.
The trip to Korea and Japan lasted seventeen days and in that time Debbie did twenty-two shows. She also visited enlisted men’s clubs, officers’ halls, and attended special events in her honor. With the GI’s she sparkled. But the troupe who traveled with her reported that much of the time she was quiet, lost in thought.
Eddie must have had a good hunch about the way things might be with Debbie. He sent word that he hoped she wouldn’t forget to eat. Johnny Grant came back from the Korean trip weighing nearly ten pounds more than when he left. It seemed there was many a meal at many an Army luncheon or dinner in which Debbie couldn’t do more than nibble at her main course. And, not wanting to hurt the feelings of her hosts by leaving a plate practically untouched, she would appeal to Johnny to come to the rescue.
But now everything was wonderfully right again. Eddie was going back to New York to clean up shop and get ready for July 1st when his long awaited vacation would begin. And then, a little later, he and Debbie would be together at last. He wanted to tell his friends and the fellows he worked with that he and his girl had set the date. But Eddie and Debbie made a pact not to push their luck again. And so he kept his lips sealed through the lonely weeks.
Eddie could hardly force himself to get through the last week of broadcasts. One of the production team on his show described him as “a kid who just can’t wait for school to be out.” Eddie looked tired but only to those who saw him in rehearsal or at home. The show had to go on, and it did. And maybe those who watched him on tv figured Eddie for a hardhearted guy who had let his girl down badly and with no regrets. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Those close to Eddie say the period following his split with Debbie was the only time they’d known him to be really depressed. “He just hasn’t been himself,” one man said. “This has really gotten him down.” No wonder. Eddie had been called everything from a cad to a coward. The more charitable ones suggested that Eddie was behaving like a gentleman and giving Debbie a chance to make whatever announcements were forthcoming.
Nobody knew, not one of the crew he is so close to, that Eddie and Debbie had made their big decision. Let everyone wonder. They hoped maybe the curiosity would die down and they could go about the business of getting married quietly.
Of course it wasn’t quite that simple. Letters poured in from anxious friends who wanted to know what had happened. Reporters put two and two together and eame up at sixes and sevens.
Eddie made no secret of his intended trip. “I’m taking off after my last show. Im going to drive west—see America first.” When an inquiring reporter asked where he was going, he looked weary and shrugged, “I don’t know where I’ll end up. I just want to take off and explore the side roads if I feel like it.” “Are you going alone?” the reporter asked. Straightfaced, Eddie answered, “No, I’m taking a friend.” And nobody dared ask who.
The questions persisted but Eddie grew practiced in answering them; gently, diplomatically. “What are you going to do with yourself for two months this summer?” “I’m going to take a vacation.” “No engagements?” Eddie played it straight. “No engagements of any kind.” Nobody asked about weddings. And then someone said, “Is there anything you’d like to change about your life?” Eddie thought for a moment and grinned, “Not a thing, but I might add something.” The final tipoff came when he was asked if he was going to keep his New York apartment open while he was away. He said he had decided to give it up. “Would you like to own a big country house some day?” the reporter probed. “Sure, some day,” said Fisher. “Tastes change, don’t you think? What I’m doing now I won’t always do.” He grinned a little teasingly. “I’ll be back in September. If you’d like to ask some more questions, maybe I’ll have something to tell you then.”
It was a big secret to keep buttoned up, but Eddie managed. In Hollywood, Debbie kept her end of the pact. And so we close this report with the end yet unwritten—with the fondest hopes that this time, Debbie and Eddie will write the happy ending themselves.
THE END
—BY ALICE HOFFMAN
It is a quote. MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 1955