Reynolds lovingly describes her abrasive and tumble childhood, with the jocular style of a southern yarn. Little Frannie was an adorable, small, hype
Reynolds lovingly describes her abrasive and tumble childhood, with the jocular style of a southern yarn. Little Frannie was an adorable, small, hyperactive clown who delighted in shocking church ladies by swearing like a sailor. A competitive tomboy, her exasperated mother once locked her in the closet to keep her from brawling with the boys:
After about an hour in solitary, I called to my mother, asking for a glass of water. “Why do you need water?” Mother said through the closed door. “Because I spit in all of your shoes and I’m out of spit,” I answered.
In 1939, the family moved to Burbank, California, when Raymond got a job with the railroads. They were still destitute, and Reynolds made up for her hand-me-downs by becoming a self-professed joiner: an ace Girl Scout, basketball player, gymnast, and all-around goofball.
Her heart was set on becoming a gym teacher, but when she was 16 Reynolds entered the Miss Burbank contest—only because every contestant won a free blouse and scarf. She had no intention of actually trying. “Oh no, you don’t,” her father scolded. “You have your word. Anytime a Reynolds gives his word, he keeps it.” So a reluctant Reynolds, a hole patched in her only bathing suit, performed in the pageant.
When asked why she wanted to be Miss Burbank, she replied, “I don’t want to be.” That line brought down the house, and she was as stunned as her family when she won the competition.
When a Warner Brothers’ scout in the audience called to offer her a contract, her mother was officially floored:
“But what do you mean you find her talented? Mother[asked]. She doesn’t sing, you know. She doesn’t dance.” Mother would have made a great agent. Instead of being thrilled…she was busy talking them out of it…Mother put down the phone and stood there, just looking at me dumbfounded, as if I were someone she had never seen before.
Smile, Dammit, Smile!
“MGM was my university,” Reynold writes. “I majored in musical comedy with a minor in drama.”
After an unfulfilling stint at Warner Brothers, in 1949 Reynolds signed with MGM, the “most glamorous, most glorious place.” It is refreshing to read the newly christened Debbie Reynolds’ starry-eyed, naïve love letter to the studio that thrilled and fascinated her. “There was constant, exhilarating hubbub,” she writes, “with doors opening and closing as people came and went, everyone busy doing something”
In between endless lessons (the only other girl in the schoolroom was Elizabeth Taylor), photoshoots, public appearances, rehearsals and filming, Reynolds reveled in snooping around the studio, scampering up rafters to watch love scenes, learning trades in every department.
Playtime was over when Reynolds was cast as Kathy Selden in Singin’ In the Rain, much to star Gene Kelly’s chagrin. Reynolds began a punishing schedule of dance lessons, which were so challenging for a novice that she once threw a pair of tap shoes, shattering a mirror. One day, Reynolds was sobbing under the rehearsal piano when a kindly Fred Astaire came to the rescue. “You’re not going to die,” he told her. “That’s what it’s like to learn to dance. If you’re not sweating, you’re not doing it right.”
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