Another tribute to the lady's fame is a dish dedicated to her on the menu of the MGM commissary. I ordered it one day at lunch, and it was delicious. Called The Debbie Reynolds Parsonette, it was described as follows: Tossed green salad with julienne of chicken, crisp bacon strips, hard-boiled egg and tomato wedges; choice of lemon and oil or 1,000-Island dressing - $1.25.

Debbie's meteoric rise to the position of box office darling coincided with the headlines attending her loss of husband Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor. Although people in the movie industry were split down the middle in their allegiance to Miss Reynolds, on the one hand, and to Miss Taylor and Mr. Fisher on the other, public reaction to news stories was uniformly pro-Debbie. While it is probable that sentiment had a great deal to do with the surge of ticket-buyers to theatres showing Reynolds movies, there is more evidence that the tragedy had a profound effect on the star's work, spurring her to performances considerably more interesting than anything she had accomplished before. As a bachelor girl with two children to support, Debbie has made plain in all her recent statements that her only goal from now on will be to assure their futures.

Debbie lives with the two children, Carrie, aged three and a half, and Todd, two, in a big, two-story house on a pleasant Los Angeles street just off Sunset Boulevard. On the evening I went to call on her, the maid had forgotten to turn on any lights at the entrance, and I spent half an hour with a flashlight checking house numbers in an effort to locate the Reynolds place. Through a process of elimination, I finally chose the right one, the only house on the block with a fenced in yard. Inside, the nursemaid had already put Todd to bed, and Debbie was having a serious talk with Carrie, a plump, blonde child with serious dark eyes like her father's. After her mother had won a short argument on the joys of waking early, Carrie marched upstairs. As we left the house, Debbie said, "I can hardly wait to get home from work to play with my children. While they're young, they change every day, and I don't want to miss anything. I have a feeling Todd is going to be tall when he grows up. He was such a big baby."

She had just finished shooting at MGM in "The Gazebo", a comedy co-starring Glenn Ford, and in the course of a dance number for the film she had sustained a number of bruises and other wounds. The studio had run off ten minutes of the film that afternoon, and one of the scenes I watched was the strenuous dance episode. With four boys, Debbie had pirouetted, done cartwheels, been thrown through the air from one to another, and ended up sliding backwards down the tilted top of a grand piano. "Pulled a muscle," she explained. "And some of the slides gave me floor burns."

Says Alex Romero, dance coach and choreographer for the film, "She's an amazing dancer. Most people don't realize she started late and has only been dancing since she started in pictures. Since she also sings, there's the dividend of a sense of rhythm, and she has a great beat. When you design dance routines for a movie star who will be working with professionals, it's customary to assign them different steps from the supporting dancers. That's so the star won't suffer by comparison. This wasn't necessary for Debbie. In "Gazebo", she works with four boys who are veterans, fitting right into the line-up and doing the same steps they do. She'll attempt anything. In fact, we don't treat her like a star at all. Her attitude is most un-starlike. When the second boy from the left stood out with spectacular leaps, she didn't demand his removal. She tried to be as good as he."

On the drive to a restaurant for dinner, Debbie exhibited more symptoms of movie wear and tear. In addition to the sore muscle, she had a recurrent cough, acquired, she said, from learning to smoke for "The Rat Race", which would be her next film. At the restaurant we sat at a corner table reasonably secure from interruptions, but the meal was punctuated by requests from nearby diners seeking autographs. Wearing a tailored black dress and a small stole with an ermine collar, Debbie looked like a self-assured, composed teenager. As she signed her name and smiled at her visitors, I noticed that the women took rapid inventory of her clothes, whereas the men stared at her face. By the time coffee arrived, her cough was disappearing and she was discussing a number of matters in which she has a lively interest.

Debbie on taxes: "Lots of people have been trying to talk me into living abroad to evade income taxes. I don't think I approve of that. Besides, I could never leave my friends. Then, there're my parents, and Carrie and Todd. I know movie people are moving to Switzerland, but for me--no thank you."

On religion: "I go to church every Sunday morning." (The Reynolds family belongs to the Church of the Nazarene.)

On friends: "Two of my best friends are Camille Williams - who has big, walnut-colored eyes, and is working in Las Vegas as Dan Dailey's dancing partner, and Jeanette Johnson - I've known her since I was ten. We used to dream of growing up and becoming gym teachers. Jeanette now teaches gym at Glendale High. Of all the old crowd, she's the only one who made it."

On hobbies: "My pet is The Thalians, a group of young movie people who help underprivileged children. I do a lot of benefits for them and the work they do is very close to my heart. But I'm always so busy in pictures now that I'm having to cut down on extra shows."

On interviews: "I'm furious with the fan magazines. They've printed things about me that are unbelievable, practically libelous. They're not interested in the truth. Besides, I think it's time to let certain past events die a natural death. I'm tired of the whole subject, and I'm sure everybody else is. There's just no point in discussing the past any longer."

Five days after I dined with Miss Reynolds, she spent an afternoon in MGM's still studio posing for Cosmopolitan's cover portrait. Dressed in a glittering evening gown studded with jewels, her tawny hair worn high on her head and topped with a small chignon, she was in high spirits. For an audience of two wardrobe women, a studio designer, a studio press agent, and some electricians, she put on an impromptu run-through of material she planned to use the following night on "The Jack Paar Show" in New York. One bit was an impression of her good friend Eva Gabor, whose approach to the English language keeps her in stitches.

"We're buddies," Debbie explained. "When we're together we both talk that way. Of course, she can pronounce words like a native if she wants to, but the other is more fun. Take this example: She'll say, 'Dollink! Let's have dinner. Be sure to wear the basic diamonds.' Or, 'Let's take off the basic diamonds and go to the movies.' Eva says there are few times when a woman should take off her basic diamonds. These are diamonds worn near the face or bosom. Jeweled shoes, or anything spectacular worn anywhere else, Eva doesn't approve of. This diverts attention from the basic areas. And she says, 'When making lahve, always the diamond earrings are worn. They are the most basic, and are never left off!"

Debbie's own basic diamond is a large pear-shaped stone that hangs from an almost invisible chain around her neck. When she was through posing, and had changed from bare shoulders into street clothes, one of the wardrobe women stopped her on the way out. Clasping both of Debbie's hands, she said warmly, "Thank you, my dear, for the best show I've seen in ages. I wouldn't have missed your performance for anything!"

Debbie is a graduate of MGM's star factory, and the director of her last three pictures there is George Marshall, an alumnus of Laurel and Hardy and the early Educational slapstick comedies. With the advantage of her early knock-about process as a tomboy, she proceeded to learn a lot from Marshall on comedy routines and timing. "The Gazebo" was her twenty-first film, but it was his 410th. The first two pictures they worked on together were "The Mating Game" and "It Started With a Kiss". Of Debbie, he says, "We're a hit off. She trusts me. In "The Mating Game", she had to jump out of a second-story barn door into a pile of straw on the ground. We knew it wouldn't hurt her - after all, straw is soft. But she jumped because I thought it was all right. In "Gazebo", she has a funny scene in which she's been tied up in a kitchen chair by gangsters. She knocks a telephone off a table, tips her chair over on the floor, and tries to dial the police with her nose. All through the film, she and Glenn Ford had to cope with a pigeon named Herman who plays a main role and gets screen credit along with the other actors. A big ham, he refused to get back in his cage between scenes; and if Debbie didn't have a morsel ready to feed him, he'd bite her."

After three straight comedies, Debbie was looking forward to The Rat Race as a change of pace. This is her first encounter with heavy drama in which she tackles the role of a young girl disintegrating under the pressures of life in New York City. Playing a jazz musician, Tony Curtis will be her leading man. After that, Debbie will switch to every girl's dream of heaven in The Pleasure of His Company - she'll dance with Fred Astaire.

Debbie Reynolds has another reason for feeling popular these days. No sooner had she got back in circulation than a number of well-heeled gentlemen began pelting her with gifts. Millionaire Bob Neal gave her a diamond brooch. It was rumored that he and Debbie were going steady. Millionaire Harry Karl upped the ante to an electric golf cart, a mink cape, and $40,000 worth of jewels. He said he admired Debbie's work for The Thalians. It was rumored that he and Debbie were going steady.

The target of all this largesse was born in El Paso, Texas, on April 1, 1932. Her father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. When Debbie was eight, he was transferred to California. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, Debbie, and her older brother, Bill, settled down in Burbank.

Says an old friend of Debbie's, Mary Mayer of M-G-M, "The Reynoldses still live in the same house they moved into then. When Debbie had her first hit record, she spent the proceeds on a swimming pool for her folks. She practically grew up on our lot. When she was making Three Little Words and Two Weeks With Love, she was going through a period when she ate voraciously. During the second film, she was always munching dill pickles, and the pickles were finally written into the script. Her brother is a studio make-up man. What I loved about Debbie was her naive enthusiasm. In 1951 , about to start her fifth picture, she was bubbling over. 'I'm so happy!' she caroled, 'I'm finally going to do a period picture!' Well, the picture she meant was Singin' in the Rain, and the 'period' was 1924".

To help Miss Reynolds run a career, a house, and a family, a staff of seven people is required: a nursemaid, maid, cook, two gardeners, a woman secretary, and a personal press agent. Her divorce from Mr. Fisher was final in February, and under its terms she received custody of the children and $6,000 a year for their support, a $115,000 house, and $30,00 a year alimony. One of the clauses in her Perlberg-Seaton movie contract provides that she may keep all the modern clothes she wears on the screen. From The Pleasure of His Company she will acquire a large wardrobe designed by Edith Head, including a $4,000 bridal gown. "I'll keep that for my daughter's wedding", she says. Her commercial endorsement of teenage clothes and accessories is also aimed at security for the children. She worked on the designing with manufacturers, and took an active part in setting the tone for products to be marketed under her name. The promoters estimate that at least $4 million dollars worth of Reynolds sponsored merchandise will be on counters this year. If Debbie's plans work out, Todd and Carrie Fisher will be two of the most heavily endowed children in Hollywood.

The first column I ever wrote for this magazine (1948) was about another Debbie Reynolds, a model who lived in Westport, Connecticut. When the movie Debbie visited New York in the early '50s, to make location shots for a film, the editor of Cosmopolitan suggested an article to be called "The Two Debbie Reynoldses". Inquiries produced the information that the actress was registered with her mother at a mid-town hotel. But the piece was never written. Explained a press agent over the telephone "the little chick is holed up at The Plaza--and the big chick won't let her out."

These days, "the little chick" finds it hard to get out for other reasons. As a headline celebrity, she can't go out in public without causing commotion, and just walking down the street alone can precipitate a mob scene. Ever since she was a very small chick, one of her greatest pleasures has been going to the movies. One day in M-G-M's make-up and hairdressing building, she sat before a mirror waiting to dry after a hair tint job.

"Want to see my new disguise?" she inquired.

An attendant handed her a black wig. She put it on and looked critically at the reflection facing her.

"I plan to wear this to the movies," she said, "so I can eat my popcorn in peace."