INTERVIEW 

By David Furnish 

1997

In the fickle world of entertainment, Debbie Reynolds is a survivor. The quintessential girl next door, she sang, danced, and acted her way through such films as Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) until Hollywood tired of her clean looks and naive demeanor. Now, after more than two decades without a serious film role, she makes a sparkling comeback in Albert Brooks' intimate comedy Mother.

DAVID FURNISH: After being away from movies for so long, what was your first day like back on the set when you made Mother?

DEBBIE REYNOLDS: I was very nervous. I had stopped doing my cabaret act a month before because Albert [Brooks] wanted me to lose Debbie Reynolds the vaudevillian, dancer, singer, and comedienne, and become Debbie Reynolds the mother. I wasn't even sure if the whole technique of film acting was the same as it had been. Albert works with a handheld camera, which didn't even exist when I was in film. He also writes very long scenes, so it was a very difficult script for me. I had ten, twelve pages to learn at a clip.

DF: Your character, Beatrice, is required to go through some very subtle changes as the mother and son in the film get to know each other better. Was that a challenge?

DR: It was very hard to keep it real, keep it honest, keep it subtle. Now I'm doing another, very funny film called In and Out, with Kevin Kline, Tom Selleck, and Matt Dillon. I'm playing Kevin's mother, but she's an entirely different type of mother - a very broad character. I could have played my role in Albert's film more broadly and gotten bigger laughs. But that's not what Albert was driving at. His film is very special and intimate. It took a lot of control.

DF: Is there a calmness in your life that's reflected in that subtle performance?

DR: There has never been a calmness in my life.

DF: Not at all?

DR: Never. That woman in Mother is nothing like Debbie. [laughs]

DF: She's quite nonplussed by her son returning home.

DR: I would have cleaned out the room. I would have had it fixed up for him. I would have had food. I would have brought in cooks. I would have had a party. I would have had a jazz trio. I would have had all new clothes laid out for him - "Here, pick whatever outfit, dear. You look better in this." It would have been a whole other story.

DF: Brooks' character is still seeking approval from his mom. Your daughter, Carrie, has publicly aired a lot of her own insecurities about growing up with a famous mother. Did you connect with Mother because of that element?

DR: Carrie and I have had our differences since she was fourteen. She wanted to have a literary life, and she didn't really want to go to school to find that. So we had a problem, because I insisted that she finish her education. Now she thanks me. But that cost me three years of not talking to my daughter. That's life. In Mother, the son comes home because his life is not happy and he wants to blame it on his mother. But he finds out that she's a pretty terrific lady.

DF: In fact, it's the other son [played by Rob Morrow] who has a more complicated relationship with the mother -

DR: But see, I don't have that with my son, Todd [Fisher]. He runs my hotel-casino in Las Vegas, and he's absolutely there for my dreams. He and Carrie feel no jealousy. So there weren't a lot of things for me to draw upon for this role. All the ingredients were in the script. I just had to play it correctly.

DF: When Carrie wrote about the conflicts you two had in her novel Postcards From the Edge [1987] and the film version [1990], was that difficult for you?

DR: No, because it wasn't about me. If you read the book, you'll see the book wasn't the movie. She did the movie for money, and she wrote it the way [director] Mike Nichols wanted it. I'm not an alcoholic - she created that. Every interviewer asks, and I just simply say that I've been blessed not to have an addictive personality. I certainly have a drink at a party. I might have two or even three. But I couldn't drink working forty-eight years, never missing a show, never missing a performance, raising five kids. It would have been impossible.

DF: When the film came out, I think a lot of people thought, "Oh, this is -"

DR: Oh, sure. I told her they would, and I took it on the chin. Carrie said no, but I said, "That'll be me, and that'll be you." And that's exactly what happened. Everyone loves gossip and intrigue.

DF: That's always been life for you, hasn't it?

DR: That's the fishbowl.

DF: Do you think today's press is different?

DR: They're much more brazen. Some of them should be shot. But, luckily for me, I'm not the big star I was in my twenties. I would hate the harassment. When Alec Baldwin hit that photographer, I said, "Good! Hit him harder." You can't go out in your own backyard. They shoot a picture of Elizabeth [Taylor] early in the morning - they want her to look bad. That's just cruel and evil.

DF: Getting back to your own career, you've achieved so much. Are there any challenges left?

DR: I was a simple little girl from Texas - Mary Frances Reynolds. I wanted to be a gym teacher. But I won a contest at sixteen and became Miss Burbank of 1948. There was a talent scout there. Jack Warner changed my name to Debbie, I did Singin' in the Rain, and I've adored staying Debbie Reynolds ever since. I'm living more dreams than I ever could have dreamed.

DF: But do you want more?

DR: I just want to be like Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante and George Burns - onstage performing to the end. If movies come along in the future, I'll be thrilled to interrupt that song and dance and go into my acting mode. But my favorite thing will always be singing and dancing.

DF: Why were you absent from the movies for so long?

DR: I was a single mother, and I had to make a living. When films changed, they didn't want me. They stopped sending scripts. But in the theater, everybody accepted me and enjoyed my show. So I went on the road. I played the Palladium in London in the last year of live vaudeville. I played Broadway.

DF: Did you long to do another film?

DR: No, I didn't like the product. First of all, Hollywood was making very dramatic, heavy films - nothing I was really interested in. Live performing is still my favorite medium. But everybody seems to think Mother is charming and funny and heartwarming. And what more can you ask from a non-epic picture without dinosaurs?

DF: There was a quote from your book [Debbie: My Life, 1988] that I found particularly touching. You said, "Movies must be one of the few businesses where personal pain makes you more valuable."

DR: I would never wish anyone personal pain, but the more you have to draw on as an actress, the more you can bring personal experience to your role. And I have had plenty of experience. [laughs]

DF: You talked about it in the context of the very public end to your first marriage when you lost your husband Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor. Was it a difficult book for you to write?

DR: Difficult? It was something I wanted to do before I died so that someone else wouldn't write something that was a lie.

DF: How do you feel about your own children pursuing careers in show business?

DR: I've never thought about it one way or another. I didn't know what they'd want to be. I just let them grow up. They've had their ups and downs in their personal lives. My personal life has always been a disaster, so I offer no example for them as far as picking the right mate. But my career has always been wonderful to me.

DF: Was there any advice you gave them?

DR: Instead of criticizing your parents, just don't be like them. In your work, just work harder. If something fails, be better next time, Life is a fight. You'll fall down on the mat one time, two times. But there's a line in The Unsinkable Molly Brown [1964]: "I ain't down yet."

DF: That's good advice from any parent. You were always the girl next door - that was the basis of your appeal. You don't see much of that image anymore.

DR: People think it's too corny. But there are still a lot of places where people are raised quite simply and innocently. They don't use profanity, they don't screw their neighbors, and the sister doesn't screw the brother. The garbage we see today on television is just so nauseating, so beyond words. It should be thrown off the air. It's better in film, but women will probably always have to fight harder. I work all the time because I don't wait for work. I create my own. And I don't stay home and feel sorry for myself. I work for different salaries. I go with whatever the traffic will bear, because I love to perform, and I want to keep working.

DF: You and your son have built a five-hundred-seat theater next to your hotel-casino in Las Vegas. What kinds of shows do you put on?

DR: I do impressions - Zsa Zsa Gabor, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, and Barbra Streisand. I do whoever's hot, whoever's current. And I do comedy and singing. It's a variety show.

DF: Do you ever see a day when you'll just want to have less on your plate?

DR: I hope not, because that would mean I'd be ill. My life is a bit too full, but it's never boring.