Debbie Reynolds

"Daddy had got us rooms in a motel until he could find us a house. There were not a lot of places available for a young family on our budget. Daddy went around to dozens of places. Nobody wanted kids. Finally, he found one in the hills south of Glendale. As usual, the landlady asked if he had kids. 'Yep,' he replied. 'A boy and a girl.' 'Well, whatta you going to do about them?' she wanted to know, implying that she didn't allow children. 'I'm gonna take 'em out and drown them in the Los Angeles River, and come back tomorrow.' That was my father--ask a silly question and just wait. She must have had the same sense of humor--we moved in the next day."

Debbie Reynolds won the 1948 "Miss Burbank" contest and was offered a screen test by Warner Bros. the day after her win. She initially entered the contest because everyone who entered received a silk scarf, blouse and free lunch. Although she wanted to be in show business, the Reynolds' family church, the Nazarene, forbade acting. However, Reynolds' father saw her talent and gave his support, seeing it as a means of paying her college costs. Her mother then gave her support knowing that there would be no "evil" going on in her movies.

"'Singin' in the Rain' (1952) and childbirth were the two hardest things I ever had to do in my life."

Only 19 when cast to play the film, Reynolds lived with her parents and commuted to the set. She had to wake up at 4:00 a.m. and ride three different buses to the studio; sometimes, to avoid the commute, she would just sleep on the set. Gene Kelly was a taskmaster with Reynolds, who had never danced to this degree before rehearsals started. Fred Astaire, who was in an adjacent dance studio, found her crying under a piano and reassured her that all of her hard work was worth the effort.

Reynolds later stated that she "learned a lot from Gene Kelly. He is a perfectionist and a disciplinarian--the most exciting director I've ever worked for. And he has a good temper. Every so often he would yell at me and make me cry. But it took a lot of patience for him to work with someone who had never danced before. It's amazing that I could keep up with him and Donald O'Connor." Kelly later commented on her work, "Fortunately, Debbie was strong as an ox . . . also she was a great copyist, and she could pick up the most complicated routine without too much difficulty . . . at the university of hard work and pain."