Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher Heartbreak in Hollywood

[Music] excuse us we have a dance tonight on a special edition of 20/20 yes she's born that way Eddie cipher [Music] Debbie and Carrie a Hollywood love story I always feel as a mother does then I protect her who will do that when I'm gone the double tragedy saying goodbye twice just a day apart brother and son Todd there at the end speaking only to 20/20 I was on her bed with her and I watched her leave and go to carry here sounds like you're saying she willed herself to die she didn't die from a broken heart she just left to be with Carrie growing up in the shadow of his green legend good mornin good mom and a daughter feeling inferior and my mother was really pretty and I thought oh no I don't look like her I better have another thing going for me there indelible but turbulent bond portrayed on screen in postcards from the edge my my but off screen in silence I didn't want to be around her I did not want to be Jerry Reynolds daughter she didn't talk to me for probably ten years tonight Home Videos you've never seen Oh leave the home tomorrow baby been in it and stories you've never heard about two unsinkable survivors that ship maybe down I'm not sick of all it's magical the love story that went on for 60 years it's okay cuz now I'm Princess Leia's mother so I'm the memories they've left behind for all of us [Music] Oh good evening I'm Elizabeth Vargas in Los Angeles David is away as you can see I'm looking down on the fabled Hollywood Boulevard where movie fans have been laying tributes at the Walk of Fame star of Debbie Reynolds in the last few days it has become a makeshift memorial for both mother and her daughter Carrie Fisher unbelievably dying just one day apart and a few hours ago I spoke to Todd Fisher Carrie's brother and Debbie's son about their very last hours and the end of a Hollywood era one week ago Todd Fisher thought his sister was on top of the world at the top of her game she looked beautiful her hair looked beautiful she had wonderful you know her she was back in shape she was in London promoting her latest book and preparing to come home to Los Angeles for the holidays when was the last time you spoke to your sister just literally before she left England was she excited about this trip this year up to her absolute well no she was excited about Christmas her favorite thing to do was to give out gifts when he came to economics you know it's not ever interesting to deal but she always had the most amazing gifts for everybody 9:35 Eddie I need an each of the medical emergency but on that flight just 15 minutes before landing the iconic actress suffered a massive heart attack Rivet unresponsive passengers know they're working out right now a mid-air medical emergency for actors Carrie Fisher how did you hear that something had happened to Carrie on board that flight just as it was coming in to land you know I had a phone call from my mother's house and said that something's happened with Carrie and you know so we obviously all got into higher alert was she alone she was never alone did people help her of course she had amazing help and she you know from what I understand in the airplane you know she had doctors right there immediately and everything was done you all rushed to the hospital when you got that phone call when you got there was Carrie there yet yes Carrie was there we thought we might be able to save her you know and that was in play for a little while but the doctor always said that it was you know hi and so you know it was not something that was a sure thing mighty means these star wars royalty now Carrie Fisher is in the intensive care unit your mom had issued a statement saying at one point that she was stable and I think a lot of people had a lot of hope at that point now what she meant by that cuz I was with her is she you know she's stable in ICU now I mean being stable in ICU means you're you're stable and ICU you're you're still in critical condition so with that never changed she was on life support yeah she was always critical and you know my mother always felt that she you know had already sort of left the building so to speak that was her feelings but that she had hope we all have hope my mother has great very strong faith she's a strong belief in God and has always talked to God in a real personal way and that's part of what her strength was about did your mother have the chance at Carey's bedside before she died to be able to gather around it there was the family able to have a moment yes everybody had that but at the same time you know things didn't need to be sad or done differently I was it had all been said before and it was all in place nothing else needed to happen things happen naturally is what I'm saying it must have been excruciating for your mother to lose your sister it violates the order of nature to lose a child the last few days is that led up to the losing carry my mother had a few moments where she was clearly distraught but 99% of the time she sucked it up and then what happened that last day I think the most important thing that happened is Carrie left and when Kerri left my mother had many years ago said I don't want to attend my daughter's funeral there was really no grief in her like you would might expect it wasn't that she was sitting around and just unconsolable not at all she then said that she really wanted to be with Kerri and she said that those precise words and within 15 minutes from that conversation she faded out and within 30 minutes she technically was gone what do you mean faded out I mean she started to have a stroke and she just effectively went to sleep and didn't wake up she closed her eyes peacefully like you're going to sleep and she literally went to sleep and left beloved and legendary actress Debbie Reynolds has died at age 84 she willed herself to die I'm saying that my mother if anybody had somehow a way to do that and I watched it happen in front of my face what did that look like she literally just went to sleep and left and you know we obviously went through all the motions you know to get her try to bring her back and all that and we didn't know we couldn't do that I just sat there and watched her leave and you know what that's what makes it okay if it was something else I wouldn't be okay the fact that she's with Carrie you know and taking care of her which is what she loved most the two of them Carrie obviously had more needs in many ways and my mother loved that helping her and watching after her and was was brilliant at it but also obsessed with it and Carrie on the other hand was also equally obsessed with taking care of my mother that's what the beauty of this is the love story is uncanny and to exit the planet it makes Romeo and Juliet look like soft stuff I mean it was unbelievable this is horrible but it's beautiful it's it's its life that mean and it's it's what they what she wanted and because of that I'm I hope we're all ok with that because that's where Debbie wanted to be she had a will to not want to leave carry and and not want to have carry alone and also I think she'll be of great assistance in heaven with carry because carries really really tough to handle at times and my mother was amazing you can't Kerry's making out o seeing up there I'm sure they're all I mean initially she was there for a while on her own I'm almost thinking maybe God had a little chat with mom and say get up here and give us a hand Todd says mother and daughter will be buried at the famed Forest Lawn Cemetery a California hillside full of industry royalty from Michael Jackson to the Marx Brothers to the man who made Mickey Mouse will they be buried next to each other they will be buried next to each other we're gonna go to Forest Lawn where her other friends are Liberace Betty Davis was a great friend of my mom they made the movie catered affair and became friends and Betty's buried in the same area where Debbie was gonna go and write on the other side of this wall is where Liberace is who is a close friend of my mom and his mother is also there so it'll be a double funeral we'll have a private funeral with friends and family together mm-hmm which is how they would want it and then we'll figure something out for the public their life is high-class stuff and these were a high-class brats very high-class and so they deserve to be remembered and discussed in this fashion it's horrible it's beautiful it's magical they're together it's just it's beyond words it's beyond understanding but I saw it and it is what it is you can't deny it it is what it is your mom when we return America's Sweetheart Debbie Reynolds and her husband Eddie Fisher who left her for Elizabeth Taylor Brangelina or Kim and Kanye this story was three times that in magnitude and later more family memories from Todd Fisher a lot of friends but no one's running away from it next it is one of the most famous opening shots on film [Music] and in the middle of the cloudburst a star is born the girl in the big galoshes Debbie Reynolds marching through the raindrops and into our hearts the story of her early career leading up to that movie is so incredible we'll let her tell it herself here she is in an appearance that aired just last year during the Screen Actors Guild Awards I was only 16 and still married Frances Reynolds when I entered the Miss Burbank contest I did it as a lark to get a blouse and a scarf that they were giving away to all the contestants well as fate would have it in a year I was under contract to the biggest studio in Hollywood she was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso Texas her father later moved the family to California her aspirations at the time might surprise you my mother grew up in Burbank went to Burbank high you know was Abbott honest and 27 merit badges and the Girl Scouts she thought she was gonna be a gym teacher fortunately for all of us she wound up making movies instead that first leading role came when she was just 19 she had never danced professionally she always said Gene Kelly never liked her because he wanted a professional dancer in that part he didn't want to work with a beginner MGM gave her a three-month crash course and then it was up to her to hold her own without falling on her face not basically a dancer thrown into this part as the aunjanue in it and boy she kept up with them she was a revelation she was really young it was sort of like when we saw Jennifer Lawrence for the first time and she was just so amazing and breathtaking and we fell in love with it there would be other movies more than 30 of them in 1955 she was the girl who caught Frank Sinatra in the tender trap I could go to the license bureau and be kind and then have a baby and have another baby in the country Todd Fisher says between takes his mom got some sage advice from Sinatra he said whatever you do Debbie do not marry a singer Reynolds ignored Sinatra's warning she married a crooner named Eddie Fisher who was famous for serving up pop both carbonated and musical on his television show cook time the newlyweds shared the bill in the musical bundle of joy in 1956 what a tempest - to know I'm not the mother Reynolds was the mother in real life she was already pregnant during filming with their first child daughter Carrie a son Todd followed two years later Reynolds screen credits included some serious dramatic parts like the catered affair in 1956 never forget the look on her face when I told her we won't having a big way I'll never forget the way she looked I got hit her in the face the high notes came in films where she played the good girl such as Tammy and The Bachelor Tammy [Music] the title song became a hit record but even with those successes her talent was underappreciated and I don't think it was been until kind of after the fact that people have looked at her work and said oh my god she was great when a contract dispute kept Shirley MacLaine from playing the Unsinkable Molly Brown Debbie threw herself into the role the favorite role was Molly Brown and she liked that one so much because it's her my mother is Molly Brown that she loved that part she wanted that part she fought for that part she got the part she knocked the out of the park it also brought her an Academy Award nomination Debbie Reynolds in the Unsinkable Molly Brown although it was Julie Andrews who took home the Oscar for Mary Poppins between projects Reynolds began making stage appearances in Las Vegas this black-and-white photo widely shared on social media shows a six-year-old Kerri watching her mother perform in Las Vegas in the early 60s now go to sleep memorably Reynolds was the voice of the kind and nurturing spider in the 1973 animated classic Charlotte's Web what is your name please my name is Charlotte Charlotte a cab Attica I have a delicious surprise it's a very special cake I want you kiddies to have the first piece but this was her iconic role and this may have been her iconic song rather than to be in Louisiana if you think you've heard that too recently you may be right [Music] good mornin we hold on it lives on as the jingle for Tropicana orange juice as with so many Hollywood lives however it was something that happened off screen that drew the most attention there's was a very famous marriage and it was a very famous divorce Reynolds and Fisher were close friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband but when he died in a plane crash Eddie began comforting the future star of Cleopatra and didn't stop if you can think of the most popular and buzzed about tabloid stories of our day Brangelina or Kim and Kanye this story was three times that in magnitude they were the golden couple of their era and so when he left her for Elizabeth Taylor very publicly all of the sympathy in the entire world went to Debbie Reynolds not just because she had been left by her husband and she was a beloved movie star but also he had left her for Elizabeth Taylor who was like Jezebel there was an awkward encounter between the women at a fundraiser in 1965 and the presence of Debbie and Elizabeth Taylor at the same affair led to some nervous anticipation there would be serious financial difficulties for Reynolds and two more failed marriages who has had more public difficulties in my mother she's been through husbands and fortunes if it wasn't for the husband she wouldn't have been through the fortunes but she's ridden it all out with Amazing Grace and all in the public eye from Hollywood to Broadway and then Vegas ladies and gentlemen miss Debbie Reynolds we're by the 1970s she was making appearances like this one with Liberace but it is her early work those Technicolor melt-in-your-mouth cinematic confections that will stand the test of time tonight she's the real star of the picture Debbie is really the last of a mirror she's our last star from that era of the 40s and 50s is our last connection to singing in the rain maybe the best musical ever made the world would grow to appreciate Debbie Reynolds other gifts as well including that little girl watching in the wings the daughter of Hollywood royalty will become a princess in her own right I don't know what you're talking about a star from a galaxy far far away Carrie Fisher is about to take center stage stay with us Carrie Fisher's life began similar to how it would end with intense public interest and a cameras eyes fixed upon her here she is in some rare Fisher home movies hula dancing though the daughter of two celebrities she was raised by her single mother Debbie Reynolds whose nomadic showbusiness lifestyle forced Fisher to drop out of high school I wanted to do what my mother did I wanted to be like my mother I worship I was in my mother's nightclub back when I was 13 years old so I was sort of groomed to be flinging my courts and wowing them in Vegas and she would wow them in Hollywood as well always full of moxie Fisher pursued her own dreams of stardom appearing alongside Warren Beatty in 1975 satirical romantic comedy shampoo at the tender age of 17 are you what making it with my mother then two years later Fisher auditioned for the role that would change her life when r2 has been safely delivered to my forces he'd get you award and changed the world Princess Leia in Star Wars who wittily dodged danger again and again somebody save us kids I was with Carrie when we first went to the Star Wars screening she thought it was a b-movie because she was just in front of a green screen or blue screen in those days that ship flew over I looked at her and I said this is no D movie and her life was never the same though she played as super heroine Fisher told my co-anchor David Muir in 2015 she was super nervous that she didn't look the part help me obi-wan Kenobi my only out Princess Leia really inspired young girls right for my start should be pretty but she was really pretty I don't know she and yes and I didn't know that she proved to be a Princess Leia who was feisty and indomitable who gave as good as she got plan for getting out Star Wars quickly became an international sensation and made Fisher an instant pop icon just like her mother had been 25 years earlier Fisher followed up the first Star Wars film with this [Music] channeling her mother's musical talents though the Star Wars Holiday Special of 1977 was universally panned yet Fisher soldiered on with more movies like the Blues Brothers with the skillful yet self-destructive John Belushi it was a box-office success but behind the scenes there was a secret between the co-stars flusche United drugs together and I remember him saying you and I were alike buddy and then he was dead like a year later Fisher too had begun I descent into drugs if I went to someone's house I was always going through their cabinets and you know I was I said I was Robin Hood I took from the straight and gave to the potentially stone me the public had no idea she reprised her role as Princess Leia in to Star Wars sequels in 1980 and 1983 I became not a movie star but I became my character Princess Leia was more famous than I was so I felt like a has-been at 25 feeling somehow rejected by Hollywood Fisher told Diane Sawyer she went on a four-year drug binge though she did lend the occasional role when filming When Harry Met Sally I've got the perfect guy I don't happen to find him attractive but you might she doesn't have a problem chins she seemed perfectly fine by day but stayed up late snorted heroin that's nice my mother will be so proud it would be warmer if we share under the rainbow is the one where I was completely crazy I was on drugs I started losing a lot of weight Fisher says hallucinatory drugs brought a kind of rest to her fevered brain because I thought an acident would be great at parties I felt normal on acid so LSD brought you down I it just gave me visuals so each day you wake up and you decide what you're needed that day in order to feel what less just feel less in 1983 she once again follows her mother's blueprint and marries a singer Paul Simon whose talent helped ground his high voltage bride for a while at least one of the things I really liked about how any words that have a certain rhythm were very soothing to me what's the song that he sings that most took you Cathy I'm lost I said though I knew she was sleeping I'm aching and empty I don't tea and No the marriage was short-lived Fischer was linked to several other a listers men were drawn to her because she was a fascinating person to be around she was engaged to Dan Akroyd for a brief period of time we got the blood test and the Rings and the whole thing and then we didn't get me right she also had a relationship with the CIA agent Brian Lord which produced the daughter Billy and she had an affair with Harrison Ford at the beginning of the making of Star Wars all these things are true because she's told them to us it was Ackroyd who she credits with getting her off cocaine but she didn't stay clean for long at one point she says she was taking 30 pills of the painkiller Perkin every day to try to mellow out her manic state you were married to Paul Simon at one time you're kidding yes no one knew that the real issue wasn't so much the drugs but rather an average day inside Carrie Fisher's mind I married the present does it terrify you to see him no it's I own it I'm mentally ill while her film career stalled she appeared in these palm movies that capture her condition it is like a 24-hour carnival ride her monologues an attempt to silence the room you know what you ain't the same you can't contain yourself that's how I feel all the time not all the time certainly I wish I felt that way all the time and yet we can't stop very painful wha no it'sit's it's rough but it's a feeling of having been poured too much personality it then spills out your eyes your mouth and its humorous Barb's that spilled out eleven years ago at this AFI tribute slash roast for Star Wars creator George Lucas hi mrs. Han Solo and I'm an alcoholic I'm an alcoholic because George Lucas ruined my life where she finally let it all fly about her love/hate relationship with the role of the Royal rebel which came to define her career George is a sadist not like any of youse child wearing a metal bikini changed to a giant slug about to die and I keep coming back for more happily ever after no such animal no it what is it then what's the adjective everything ever after next the family secrets a daughter would share on the big screen I drink socially I took acid socially that would cause a decade-long silence she didn't talk to me for probably ten years stay with us in many ways carrie fisher's life was her art I don't want life to imitate art I want life to be art but she was a realist so in her 20s Fischer turned her tumultuous real-life stories into bestselling novels her first was postcards from the edge which was made into a film in 1990 in this town it's not only not you can't grow old gracefully you can't grow old at all so you can as a writer it was about a young actress raised by a movie star who had ended up in rehab I'm in a rehab the parallels between Meryl Streep's character Suzanne and Fisher are unmistakable you always talking bumper stickers you know addiction isn't the problem it's the solution you don't tell in postcards from the edge the mother is played by Shirley MacLaine this anger isn't about me are you really angry we're hello darling hello dear clearly was a we would call a kind of Ramana Clay of her relationship with uh with her mother Debbie Reynolds and at the same time very frank about her own struggles I'm gonna kill myself don't say that even in jest Susanne just come out of a drug clinic people might take it the wrong way in the film both mother and daughter are actresses while her daughter's career as boys to take off the mothers star has faded yet still she grasps for the limelight it is some of the best dialogue the best repartee that you will see on on a screen outside of those old his girl Friday kind of zinger comedies remember my 17th birthday party when you lifted your skirt up in front of although my mic and you weren't wearing any underwear well times I see them all and I dare [Music] when she does like son I'm strong I'm still here that's that was Debbie yeah and and Carrie understood that and I think in many ways resented it and adored it Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne was friends with Debbie Reynolds for more than 40 years and co-hosted a film review show called the essentials with Carrie Fisher one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when they're in a kitchen in the morning Shirley MacLaine's you know lecturing her about getting serious about her life and her career thank God I got sober now so I could be hyper conscious for this series of humiliation all that well she's making a health food drink she reaches up gets a bottle of vodka you know I'm posing a health food drink I think that Debbie Reynolds often said she was not like that character that Shirley MacLaine would play in the movie adaptation because that woman was sort of angry and Debbie thought of herself as very sunny I was born very up I don't burden myself carry burdens herself in this interview from 1994 Reynolds explains the sage advice she had for her daughter as far as happiness and approach to life there is something to listen to me about and when she wants to she'll ask me I don't think I'll be alive to hear it but in 2011 the two spoke to Oprah about those years during fishers youth when she rebelled against her famous mother we had a fairly volatile relationship early on in my 20s I didn't want to be around her I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds daughter it's very hard when your child doesn't want to talk to you but when you want to talk to them and you want to touch them you want to hold them it was a total estrangement the birth of Fisher's daughter Billie in 1992 would help heal all the wounds in their relationship while Fisher enjoyed success in her writing work Reynolds career got a boost in television come on girls jump in mother's know singing here it's great to stay up late good morrow and she would have one last movie role herself as yes a mother Liberace's all I need is to be near you she had really transformed herself to play this character but look how much I was I know it was a brief and final testament to what an amazingly underrated brilliant actress Debbie Reynolds was well Debbie transformed herself Carrie was about to revisit an old friends some things never change true he's still doing me crazy she had so triumphantly returned to the Princess Leia character and in her own personal health you she looked better than ever and daughter Billie was all grown up her daughter was in that movie as well I was kind of neat to see mother and daughter together seeing them on the red carpet together in the same movie well her greatest accomplishment is Billy it was her greatest joy it was her greatest accomplishment I do believe that Billie lourd was the love of Carrie's life she was very close with her daughter I believe she probably worked at that consciously because of all of the things that she went through with her own mother I believe she wanted to be all things to Billy the mother daughter granddaughter trio made their last public appearance together a year ago when Debbie was honored at the SAG Awards with the Lifetime Achievement Award coming up Todd Fisher talks about the moving tributes from fans around the world including this picture of his mother and sister in their most famous roles my sister and my mother had a very unique relationship it's magical the love story that went on for 60 years there were many ups and downs but not not at the heart level Debbie and Carrie mother and daughter a love so fierce it sometimes burned money mommy I'm home the soon-to-be-released HBO documentary bright lights chronicles their tempestuous relationship you cannot keep that phone it's ridiculous what was it like though for you you had the front row seat to it as is your mother and sister I mean did they have epic battles no is it it's a I said it was a glorious view of an amazing love story did they talk about why they for ten years barely communicated what happened to cause that Debbie first of all would have never broken off communications with Carrie under any circumstances whatsoever there was this friction nari but but you not affectionate no one's running away from it nobody's saying let's not have this moment mm-hmm they had more moments than anybody could have had they were equally up to the task of working it all out I'm gonna go help my mother pack they were the closest of friends and next-door neighbor's mother and I live next door to each other separated by one daunting Hill I usually come to her and at the end we're sharing a driveway right did they see each other daily sure we sort of have this this compound mentality and so that's why she really wanted to be there and also that had to do with Billy she wanted to be near her granddaughter growing up and so she just literally bought the house next to Carrie and the because she tell Carrie for her Stewart is she just buy the house next to Carrie that's a good questions I think it just sort of happened and that was also a kind of a real beautiful thing that they could be together at that level and you know in order to get out of carries property they really have to go by my mom and so you know on your way out you'd walk in and see how mom's doing and you know my mom would they had a lot of that going on their relationship was at the heart of carries most personal rating project wishful drinking a raw candid portrait of the tensions between mother and daughter there's nothing more that can be said and nobody better to say it than carry every bit of carries life every problem carry ever had is in writing and in beautiful words that are beyond deep beyond profound the frankness and level to which she has exposed herself in life is is truly remarkable my dog the self-deprecating autobiographies became a hit Broadway show over here we have Debbie and Eddie listen as she maps out the six degrees that separates Hollywood to sort of figure out if her daughter Kelly Moore could date a guy Quinn tivey one of the descendants of Elizabeth Taylor and would it be incest are they related I think she discovered now it would not be I told them you are related by scandal there's a great photo going around of Keri sitting in the wings watching your mother perform on stage yes you guys we always were sitting in the wings watching my mother on stage in awe she connected with an audience it was just an amazing thing to watch but it was a little surreal as a child because you know mommy and there's a different thing going on there and then when she's out there it was almost like a different person how do you most want your mom to be remembered she would want to be remembered obviously as this great strong person as an inspiration to others not so much as a great entertainer she was most proud of just watching you know her children and she lived a very beautiful inspiring life it is a life that one could model after and how would you most like your sister to be remembered she needs to be remembered as this amazing champion of women the Star Wars thing it was the vehicle but the words in her books and the the surviving of these things that she has survived like Debbie carries Molly Brown - let's face it maybe not with the face and the dirt and the tomboy stuff she's the Molly Brown with the diamonds on the soles of her shoes you tweeted up this kid of your mom and your sister I did magical my mom was made through singing in the rain and it's her legacy it's probably the greatest musical ever made as Star Wars is probably going to go down as the greatest science fiction film ever made her and the idea that they would leave walk off together in their in their respective roles it just I don't know it just made sense to me and I thought they would like it Carrie would like it next an unforgettable mother-daughter moment [Music] I didn't want to do I did I didn't want to do it you made me want you and all the time you knew it I guess you always knew it you happy sometimes always you make me glad there were times dear I made you feel so bad - happy - happy nice happy days ah [Music] Oh you [Applause]

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Id: 2i-cmbnkC1o

Length: 38min 44sec (2324 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 31 2016