We Spend The Day With Debbie Reynolds

From the pretty, brown-eyed blond receptionist at the M-G-M administration building next to the studio lot in Culver City, we picked up our gate pass to see Debbie Reynolds.

Ever since last September, when Eddie Fisher walked out of her life, Debbie has done the most natural, most instinctive thing she could do. She threw herself into her work.

It seemed ironic, I thought, as I walked toward the Publicity building, past Casting, Production, Costumes, Properties, that her work was playing a lightheaded, gay story of love, romance, dating, courtship—and marriage.

I met Mary Mayer, a distinguished-looking, gray-haired woman who has been with the studio since the early 1930’s. Greeting me in her office in Publicity, she said, “We’ll go right over to Debbie’s dressing room.” As we threaded our way along the crowded streets, she told me:

“I’ve seen many stars come and go over the years,” Mary said. “But seldom have I met one as unusual as Debbie. It’s not simply that she’s cute, and lively and vivacious. She has a courage, a strength and a drive that make her unusual.

“I may sound old-fashioned, but I find these qualities very appealing. In many ways she reminds me of the young Carole Lombard.”

Debbie’s dressing room, a stucco cottage set well back on the lot, was beautifully landscaped with lawns and shrubs. Beds of nasturtiums, zinnias and marigolds flanked the doorway.

Mary knocked at the door. There was no answer.

“She’s probably still on the set,” she said. “She does that. If the take hasn’t been just right she insists that they do it over and over again. She never spares herself. She only works to satisfy the director, to give him exactly what he wants.”

We walked into the dressing room. A rose beige wall-to-wall carpet contrasted with the pale grey walls. A twenty-foot long sectional ran along two walls of the room, curved at the corner. It was covered with a flower patterned quilted chintz.

A French provincial desk was at another wall, and two chairs, covered with saffron colored upholstery, were in the room.

A red leather engagement book with “Debbie” printed in gold letters on its cover lay atop the desk.

In the center of the room was a small, low table, glass topped. It was scarcely eight inches high.

Mary and I talked for several minutes about the stars of yesteryear, about their triumphs and tragedies. We spoke of Janet Gaynor, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard.

Suddenly the dressing room. door was pushed open, and a white toy French poodle bounded in.

“Rocky!” a girlish voice called. And Debbie rushed in.

“Rocky, come back here,” she commanded. But the dog had scampered under the sofa, his leash trailing behind. Debbie got down on her hands and knees, reached under the sofa, grabbed the leash.

She turned her head, looked over at me.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Debbie Reynolds. Rocky, you come out of there.” And she dragged the dog back.

She sat on the floor, cuddled Rocky happily, and let him nuzzle her cheek. Then she unhooked his leash, and stood up.

“Excuse me a minute,” she said, “I have to make a call to the house.” And she picked up the white telephone on an end table near the sofa.

“How’s Carrie?” was the first thing she asked when a maid apparently answered at home. “And Todd?” she asked.

As Debbie talked to the maid, a white coated waiter entered, laid silver and condiments on the low table. Debbie held her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, called to him: “Milk to drink for me.”

Debbie had the maid put Carrie on the phone.

“Hello, Carrie,” she said. And then she listened, a serious expression on her face, as Carrie must have spoken a child’s halting message.

Debbie smiled happily, then threw back her head and laughed. “All right, love. You be a good girl; I’ll see you soon. Put Christine back on, will you?”

Debbie talked to the maid for a few minutes longer, then she hung up the phone.

“What did Carrie say?” I asked.

Debbie smiled, shook her head.

“Uh, uh. Secret.” Then she kicked off her shoes, and sat down on the floor at the side of the glass-topped table.

“I have to get up at six a.m. even though we don’t start shooting until nine. It’s a long way from Holmby Hills to this M-G-M studio here in Culver City.”

She turned to Mary. “Mary,” she said, “I got a letter the other day from a girl at Monticello high school. She wrote and asked me if she could visit me here on the set of ‘The Mating Game.’

“I wrote her back and said, ‘by all means, yes.’ And she’s coming at four o’clock today. Can you take care of the arrangements?”

“Certainly, Debbie,” Mary said.

‘Debbie,” I asked, “Do you call home every morning from your dressing room?”

She smiled. “I call home all the time,” she said, “even when I know the children will be visiting me here later in the day.”

“Does Eddie?” I asked.

“He does. And he comes over to see the children every day while I’m here at the studio. Eddie loves both of the children very much.”

“But you don’t see him?”

“No.”

“Do you think there’s a chance that he will come back to you?” I asked.

“You’ll have to ask Eddie about that,” she said. “That’s one thing I will not discuss. Ask me anything else.”

Mary returned from the telephone just then, saying, “There’s a call from the Thalian office. They want to know if you can call them later this afternoon. It’s about the benefit dance.”

“I will,” Debbie said. Turning to me, she said, “We’re up to our ears in work for this dance. It will help pay for the new clinic we are building on the grounds of Mt. Sinai hospital.

“We have raised almost $40,000 And that’s a good start,” she said, rather proudly, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Miss Reynolds, Miss Reynolds Call on set.”

“Ah,” she laughed, putting on her shoes again. “Excuse me, I’ll see you later.”

“Can we watch?” I asked Miss Mayer.

“Yes, but let’s give Debbie a chance to get ready.”

When we arrived on the set. brilliant lights were trained on the rough boards that created the illusion of a complete building. I couldn’t see any organization in the swarm of technicians, the babble and clatter. But Miss Mayer just said serenely. “We’re in luck. They’re waiting for a camera set-up.”

We were almost on top of a tiny figure in a camp chair before I recognized Debbie, absorbed in the daily newspaper. At the sound of Miss Mayer’s voice, she looked up. “I’ve studied my lines,” she explained like a schoolgirl caught not working in study hall. “I know them.” And she folded the paper. I caught a glimpse of an unfortunately appropriate headline, heralding another Hollywood divorce case, though a long-expected one.

“Do you mind talking, just before going into a scene?” I asked.

“No,” she laughed. “Not at all.”

“You’ve been in the hospital for a five-day checkup recently? Are you sure you’re not rushing it, coming back so soon?”

“I’m much better, thank you. Couldn’t wait to get back!”

“Who visited you while you were in the hospital?”

“Nobody,” she said firmly. “Except my mother, of course. You see, I was supposed to be resting, and the doctor thought it best not to allow any visitors. They did let me receive phone calls, though. I think everybody I’ve ever known called me or tried to call me!” she laughed.

Turning serious, she continued, “But I was there to rest. And I did. If there was ever a time and place to reconsider things, it was then and there, in St. Joseph’s. And I had so many things to think about. . . .”

She was silent, so I tried to draw her out. “No flashbulbs, no interviews, no headlines—you must have appreciated those five days of privacy.”

“I did indeed,” Debbie said. “And when I came out, I knew that I had decided to live my life happily, no matter what may happen.”

“Then you’ve decided . . .?”

“To be happy with what I have,” she finished the sentence for me.

“And that is?”

“Carrie and Todd. My chief concern is my two children. They are the new life, the thing I pin all my hopes on. Oh, I’m still going to work, though—”

“Miss Reynolds!” the voice called out. “Ready on the set, Debbie!”

Director George Marshall, wearing the jaunty baseball cap that has long been his trademark, quietly began explaining the scene to her.

A hairdresser came and fussed over her coiffure—a casual style—and for a few minutes she seemed lost in thought. When Marshall’s voice rang out “All right!” I saw Debbie’s head turn toward the hairdresser and her lips frame a quick “Thanks.”

The hairdresser spotted Miss Mayer and came to join us while Debbie went into position for the scene. Introduced as Ann Kirk, she told me quietly, “I love to make up Debbie’s hair. It’s easy to manage and easy to change. She has a remarkably pretty face. She’s getting better looking as she matures, you know.”

The familiar shout “Quiet!” cut off our conversation, and I settled in Debbie’s abandoned camp chair to watch her work. Her co-star Tony Randall stepped into the scene. Tony’s a real comedy pro, famous for his sense of timing, and he batted the saucy lines at her in his best smooth style. Debbie batted them right back. matching him all the way.

“Print it!” Marshall said at the finish, while Debbie finished the last steps of her dance routine, collapsing into director Marshall’s arms, laughing.

“Debbie, you’re a trouper!” the director smiled broadly. “And troupers gotta eat. Let’s break for lunch.”

“Lunch!” bawled a loud stagehand’s voice, and all the fine orderliness of the take broke up into chaos again.

I was ready when Debbie came toward me, but she went right past me, arms outstretched. It wasn’t a snub; I turned to see her bending over with her arms full of Carrie Frances, giving the youngster a mama-bear hug. “Going to eat you up!” she growled.

Giggling, Carrie said excitedly, “Mommy danced!”

“Were you there all this time, love?” Debbie turned to the smiling woman who held little Todd in her arms. “Marie, you certainly managed to keep the two of them quiet. How’s my boy?” She kissed her son, then told Miss Mayer and me, “Come along. We’ll all have lunch in my dressing room.”

As we trooped off the set, past stacks of assorted props, Carrie pranced ahead, announcing, “See? New shoes!” She pointed to her sturdy, conspicuously clean sneakers.

“Are they dancing shoes?” her mother asked.

“Yes!” Carrie crowed, promptly putting on a demonstration, ending affectionately by hugging her mother’s leg.

By the time we finished our walk far toward the back of the Metro lot, Carrie had lost a bit of her steam, and Marie was carrying her, while Debbie took Todd.

“Milk to drink for me,” Debbie reminded the waiter who had arrived with the lunch. “And for the children.”

“Yes, Miss Reynolds. Their orders are all ready, too.”

“Good.” Turning to me, Debbie said, “I’m famished!” She kicked off her shoes and sat down on the floor beside the table. “Do take off your coat. And sit down.”

The waiter reappeared, bringing the grownups salad and New York-cut steaks, each done to succulent perfection, medium rare. Seated on the floor beside us, Carrie bravely tackled a small hamburger and carrots and peas. Marie chose the couch, where she could divide her time between eating her own lunch and keeping Todd from scattering his over the chintz. Luckily, Miss Mayer picked a seat near the telephone, because it rang as soon as we started eating.

“. . . I’m sorry,” she said. “She’s having lunch now, and she’s due back on the set at one sharp. I’ll give her the message.” She didn’t give the message then for Debbie was busy listening to some whispered confidence from Carrie while turning around, not to overlook Todd, to compliment him on his progress with lunch. During the afternoon she’d have moments to talk more freely, I knew; so I just watched her and the children and noticed how perfectly all her words and actions fitted the picture of Debbie drawn by her friends.

Lita Calhoun had told me: “She’s a very considerate person brought up to appreciate the things that have come to her,” Lita went on. “She’s not accustomed to having things handed to her on a silver platter. She has moral strength and is in fact a real, normal girl. That’s unusual for a person in this business. I must say she is much more level-headed than either of the other two people involved in . . . this thing.”

Suddenly, Debbie looked up at me.

“Want to go on?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” I answered. “You say you’re going to continue to work, Debbie, but isn’t it going to be tough? I mean isn’t it going to be difficult having to be both a father and a mother to your children?”

Her green eyes flashed, though she betrayed no other emotion. Quietly she said, “My children have two parents. Eddie is still the father of his children.”

And then she repeated what she had said earlier. “Eddie loves his children very much.” For just the briefest moment she turned away. And I thought back to Lita Calhoun’s remark to me: “I believe Debbie feels that once Eddie gets Elizabeth Taylor out of his system, there might be a reconciliation. But she is not counting on it too heavily. She had made up her mind to face the future and to work hard at her career.” Then she looked back at me.

“There is one thing I should say,” she said. “I suppose I’m the sort of person who trusts everyone. I think you have to be that way to be happy. But when I find that someone whom I have trusted has disappointed me—then—then I guess I just start building all over again.

“That’s really all you can do, isn’t it?”

I thought of how a child will play at the beach. A child builds a massive sand castle. It becomes a symbol of the happiness in his tiny world.

But then a wave, larger than the rest, comes crashing in, and sweeps the castle away. One child might run in fright; another might burst into tears; a third might pout in anger.

But Debbie can do none of these things, even though her very real symbol of happiness has crumbled and ebbed away.

For Debbie, there is nothing to do but “build all over again.”

The phone rang, interrupting my thought. Mary answered it. She listened for a moment, then said, “All right, George. Yes, I’ll tell her.” She hung up.

“They want you back on the set, if you’re ready, Debbie. That was George Marshall. He says he’d like to start shooting at 1 o’clock sharp,” she said.

“I’m ready,” Debbie said. “But wait. Where’s Rocky?” I had completely forgotten about the little dog. We looked around the room, but he wasn’t in sight. Nor was he in the adjacent room with its makeup table.

“Rocky,” Debbie called.

There was a growl from beneath the sofa. And there he was, munching on a piece of steak he had filched from one of the plates.

“Rocky,” Debbie said. “Come out of there.” And he did. “You know we have to go back to work,” she said. Rocky wagged his tail happily. Debbie snapped the leash onto his collar, then started for the door.

At the door, she stopped. Looking at me, she said, “There’s happiness somewhere for everyone, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Debbie,” I said. “I guess there is.”

She smiled quickly. “Bye,” she said.

And then she was gone.

THE END

—BY EARLE HAWLEY

WATCH FOR DEBBIE IN “THE MATING GAME” FOR M-G-M AND “SAY ONE FOR ME” FOR 20TH.

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 1959