Unsinkable

by Debbie Reynolds

  Soon after our arrival back in Los Angeles, my friend Phyllis Berkett gave Richard and me a reception so my friends could meet Husband Number Three. My Hollywood pals turned out in force to meet the new man in my life—partly out of curiosity, I’m sure, since no one knew him very well, including me. Garry Marshall and his wife, Barbara, were there. Florence Henderson, Pat and Tom Bosley, Patty and Dick Van Patten, and many of my other friends came to wish us well. I wore my most recent wedding dress, which was perfect for a dinner party. Richard looked wonderful in a white jacket, his skin having returned to its normal color. If anything, he was looking a little pale.

  All was just lovely for the first half of the party. During dinner, Richard said to me, “I’m not feeling well. I have to lie down.” We went into one of the bedrooms. He felt hot to the touch as I supported him to the bed, so I took his temperature. He had a high fever. I called the doctor, who recommended that we go straight to a hospital.

  There is a famous hospital south of Los Angeles in La Jolla called Scripps that specializes in diagnostics. I hired a car for the drive, and Richard lay in my arms all the way during the two-hour trip, burning up. He was admitted that night. Back at the party, my friends had had enough drama and left shortly after we did. I can only wonder what they thought was going on in my new marital adventure. This guy didn’t look like he was going to make it through round one with me.

  Once Richard was settled in at Scripps, the doctors found that he had a hole in his heart that was leaking. He was in critical condition. For the next twenty-four hours, he was medicated through an IV. I slept in an adjoining room and prayed that he would get better. The doctor at Scripps had developed a new treatment for this type of heart disease that kept Richard from needing surgery. I stayed with him day and night for the next few weeks. It was an incredible bonding experience. I was enjoying my new role of loving wife and protector. My husband needed me, which made me feel that we were strengthening our relationship. We were off to a rough start, but it drew us closer.

  When Richard was strong enough to travel, we flew to his home city of Roanoke, Virginia, where he was admitted to a hospital. The medication was working, and Richard preferred to finish his treatment near where he did business. I stayed at his house in Roanoke, a huge mansion by any standards. Richard had designed this house himself and built it on an impossible, slanted lot at the top of a hill. It had a large bay window that overlooked the valley below. Sometimes we were above the clouds. Now I knew what a bird feels like, soaring above the earth looking at the view below.

  During the day I spent my time with Richard and his family and friends at the hospital. Richard owned a real estate business, and the builders who worked on his projects came by with updates. Every day I would bring him special food, including candy and other sweets, and clean clothes and underwear from home.

  I became friends with the many ­people I’d met in Roanoke before we were married, when Richard had driven me around town, showing me all the places that he owned or wanted to develop. I loved seeing real estate; when I was married to Harry Karl, I used to travel around Hollywood looking at properties. Of course, once I bought places they somehow evaporated when my second husband became their overseer. By all accounts, Richard had done well in Roanoke; at least that was the impression he gave me.

  Elizabeth Taylor had relocated from Hollywood to Virginia when she married John Warner. Although she loved John very much, she was miserable living the quiet life in the country while he was in Washington, DC. She was separated from all her gay-boy friends, who weren’t interested in hanging around the farm of a Virginia senator. She was lonely without them. I found Roanoke to be a lovely community full of friendly, unassuming people. Richard’s mother and sisters were especially kind to me. But it was a huge contrast to the world we inhabited in Hollywood.

  Sometime after Richard was released from the hospital, I gave a dinner party in Roanoke for his family, beautifully done up by a local caterer. I laid out the table with my good china and silver that I’d shipped in from the West Coast. “What are all these forks for?” Richard’s grandma asked as she sat down. Like Elizabeth, I had to adjust to a life that wasn’t as fancy as the one we shared in Beverly Hills. Still, I was determined that if we were going to spend long periods in Virginia, as my new husband wished, we would be the King and Queen of Roanoke, not just part-time citizens of Los Angeles.

  As the Queen of Roanoke, my duties included shopping for the house and preparing dinner, a new experience. I’d always had people cook for me. My reward was when my husband came home to share the news of his day, after he was finished reading the newspaper. Although it took me three hours to get a meat loaf prepared, I enjoyed making a meal for Richard and me. I put the salad plates in the refrigerator and set the table with flowers and ivy that I picked from the mountainside. I approached this with the same dedication that I approach any role that I play. After dinner, we would go upstairs and watch TV and make a lot of love—not at the same time usually. Our evenings were lovely, and it was a very happy time.

  When my marriage to Harry Karl was unraveling, I’d tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. My first two husbands couldn’t have been more different. Eddie was young, brash, and energetic. Harry was older, more romantic, and not athletic at all. You would think that I could have made one of them happy in bed. In an effort to avoid a second divorce (before I discovered that the real problem had nothing to do with our sex life), I’d decided to enlist the help of an expert.

  Years before, I had made friends with a lovely woman I met at a charity benefit. Cheryl was the mistress of a very wealthy man. I called her and asked for her advice. Cheryl suggested that I consult a friend of hers who was a “professional.” Really? I’d never met a pro, although I would find out later that my second husband had a visit from one every day, disguised as a manicurist. Harry’s nails weren’t the only things getting trimmed professionally.

  I went to visit Cheryl’s friend, a tall, slender brunette who reminded me of the actress Linda Darnell. Being in the movies, I’d learned over the years how to work with props, but I wasn’t ready for the lesson I was about to receive. The lady took out an assortment of playthings that would have filled a floor at Toys R Us. There were big things, little things, balls, gags, handcuffs, scarves. Things that hummed, things that buzzed. I think one of them whistled “Dixie.” In vivid detail, she explained exactly how to use each device to satisfy a man. Part of me longed to return to my innocence before I felt I had to go to school to be a good lover. Gone were the days of just hugging and kissing. Now I had to learn this routine, like a dance step combination. Then I pictured myself twirling a baton in high school—figure eights, up, down, into the air, catching behind my back. I could do this.

  After my lesson, I threw myself into the practical application of this new knowledge with my second husband. But it was already too late to save our marriage. When the FBI shows up at your house and puts boards across the doors and windows to seize the property, it doesn’t really get you in the mood. Besides, Harry may have gotten a frisky Debbie confused with his morning polishers.

  Now that I was committed to a new man and beginning a new life, I enthusiastically put what I’d learned to good use, much to Richard’s delight. To be or not to be was no longer a question for the happy Mr. Hamlett. Adventurous sex is like having an affair within your marriage. Prior to this, I’d felt that loving someone was enough. I learned that pleasuring a man is all part of being a good hostess.

  Once Richard’s health was restored, I worried about him more. I was determined to support him in any way I could. I was more than willing to lend him thousands of dollars for his business. Sometimes after finishing a gig, I would FedEx my entire paycheck to him in time to meet a payment on one of his loans. My lawyers always made sure that they drew up contracts for him to sign outlining the terms of the loans and the collateral on his properties. Richard complained about having to sign notes. He told me that the lawyers were putting
too much pressure on him. I chose to ignore what was probably the first of many red flags, telling myself that I was loving my husband while I was ignoring his behavior.

  His illness had been a traumatic time for him. He seemed to be the Bionic Man. I probably went along with a lot of things I wouldn’t have had I not been worried that the stress of his business would affect his newly discovered heart condition.

  The loans I gave him seemed to relieve his stress. Sometime later, we were lying in bed talking while I rubbed the top of his head. He loved when I did this; it relaxed him. He told me that since we’d been married, he had never felt so secure, that since I had taken care of all his debts, he felt free for the first time in his life. I loved him so much at that moment. He made me feel needed and special. It didn’t matter that the hundreds of thousands of dollars I had lent him came from my retirement fund. He assured me that the money wasn’t getting enough interest there and said that he would invest it for me in some good properties. He was my husband. He loved and needed me and told me he was deeply appreciative of my help. I was happy that I had been able to lend him the money. In addition to a new husband, I had a new business partner. Like Richard, I felt safe.

  But I was lonely during the long days when Richard was at work. After two months of being a combination Florence Nightingale and Stepford Wife, I was eager to get back to my career. So I returned to work.

  Onstage with my show, doing what I know best.

  CHAPTER 3

  POSTCARDS FROM MY DAUGHTER

  ALTHOUGH CARRIE HAD MISSED my wedding to her new step­father, they became close in the years afterward. One Christmas, Carrie and Todd gave Richard a very expensive briefcase with an engraved plate on it that read WORLD’S GREATEST STEPDAD. Family life was good. We all went on vacations together. I had taken the children to Europe many times when they were young; now I wanted to introduce Richard to the places I loved overseas.

  We took a trip on the Orient Express as well as vacations in Rome, Venice, and many other exotic locations. Rene Russo was Todd’s girlfriend at the time. She’s a lovely girl who just added to our fun on the trip. Todd took home movies of us as we toured everywhere like a normal family. As normal as we could be with three movie stars on board. When we weren’t traveling, I split my time between Roanoke and Hollywood.

  By the late ’80s, everyone was busy. Todd was building a new ranch north of Los Angeles. Carrie was making movies. When she performed in When Harry Met Sally, she arranged for Richard to play her father in a cameo role, walking his real-life stepdaughter down the aisle as her fictional father. I guess Eddie Fisher wasn’t available.

  While they were all occupied, I was on the road in a multicity tour of Meredith Willson’s The Unsinkable Molly Brown, the musical that was the basis of my movie version. It was 1989, and Richard and I were coproducers. He enjoyed branching out from real estate and gave himself a salary of $20,000 a week. As one of the producers, he felt he deserved it.

  As producer, he fired the scenic painters and hired house painters to work on the sets. He cut corners, made mistakes on union contracts, and acted like the amateur he was. Most of the time I was too busy to notice, which was my mistake in hiring him.

  The show reunited me with Harve Presnell, my costar in the movie, and touring was exhausting. Performing in all those dance numbers and acting in almost every scene kept me busy. In addition to doing all the live shows, I had to vocalize every day for an hour before I went in to get my hair and makeup done. Harve just cleared his throat, did a few scales, then went onstage and sang. All of that took less than a minute. He had an incredible instrument that didn’t require the upkeep my voice did.

  The work was extremely hard. Our director, John Bowab, had taken the stage play and reworked it to resemble the film version. He was right that the audience would be expecting to see their favorite numbers from the movie. In spite of the challenges of the long dance numbers and lots of singing, the company got along well together, and that made the hard work and the road fun.

  One evening in San Francisco we all went out for drinks after the show. Hours later we returned to the hotel and helped each other into our rooms. Gene Ross, who played my grandpa, had had a few too many, and as he dug into his pants pockets in the hotel hallway his pants dropped. We were all laughing too hard to help the poor guy find his key, which of course was in a trouser pocket that was now around his ankles.

  While I was busy on the road, my daughter spent her time launching a new career as a writer. In 1987 Carrie’s first book, Postcards from the Edge, had been published. “Loosely” based on our relationship, it’s a hysterically funny romp about drug addiction and fame—just another day around our house. Bravely, with great intelligence, Carrie went public with her story, and the book was a best seller. Carrie was already a famous movie star and the poster child for outer space hotties (from having played Princess Leia in the Star Wars films); Postcards made her the poster child for dealing with addiction. As happy as I was about her new writing career, I was even more delighted that she had been through a successful rehab and was living a sober life.

  Adding to this success, Postcards was optioned, and Carrie wrote the screenplay for the movie. Mike Nichols was the director. Meryl Streep was cast as Carrie’s counterpart, Suzanne Vale. I asked Mike if I could read for the role of the eccentric mother.

  “You’re not right for the part,” he told me, turning me down cold.

  Excuse me? I’m not right to play myself, a part that I’d been creating—admittedly, unwittingly—for my daughter for decades?

  Mike gave the part to my good friend Shirley MacLaine. Ironically, Shirley had also been up for the part of Molly Brown. She played a better hooker than a hillbilly, but she was under contract to Hal Wallis at Fox at the time, and they wouldn’t let her make the film. Shirley always claimed I’d stolen the role from her by undercutting her price. When I was married to Harry Karl, ­people sometimes assumed we were so rich that paying me to work was optional.

  I have known Shirley since we were both in our twenties. When I was pregnant with Carrie, Shirley was expecting her daughter Sasha. Still, Shirley asked if she could come to my little house in the San Fernando Valley to “study” me for the role. For two days she trailed after me, scrutinizing my every move. I couldn’t turn around without bumping into her. Her research worked: Shirley is wonderful in the completed film.

  The movie opened in September 1990. Richard was in Roanoke, so Todd was my date for the premiere. (I love going to premieres where my only job is to be the proud mother, not the anxious actress.) Shirley, Meryl, Carrie, and I smiled for the cameras on the red carpet. I wasn’t thrilled to see them show me with no hair near the end of the movie, or putting vodka in my breakfast drink, but that’s part of their story in the movie, not mine. There had been a fair amount of improvising during filming, and I was surprised by some of the exaggerations on the screen that weren’t in Carrie’s book. But I was thrilled that it was a wonderful success for my daughter.

  At the party afterward, a woman came over to me, took my hand, and looked sadly into my eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  I stole a perplexed glance at Todd, who stood next to me, giggling.

  “Don’t be sorry, dear,” I said. “It’s only a movie.”

  With Shirley MacLaine at the premiere of Postcards from the Edge.

  Ron Galella Ltd./Getty Images

  CHAPTER 4

  MOVE OVER, HILTONS—REYNOLDS IS IN THE HOTEL BUSINESS!

  ON JULY 17, 1992, CARRIE gave birth to a beautiful daughter she named Billie Catherine. I was thrilled to have a grandchild, content in my marriage, and tired of being on the road for forty or more weeks every year. A while back, Richard and I had formed a corporation so that we could look for a venue where I could perform all the time. Three months after Billie was born, Richard heard that the Paddlewheel Hotel in Las Vegas was going up for auction. If we could buy it, not only could I have my own showroom, I could a
lso create a museum in the hotel to house my collection of Hollywood memorabilia. Since the early ’70s, I had bought thousands of costumes and props from MGM and Fox Studios and assembled the largest private collection of movie memorabilia in the world. Preserving this had been my passion for years.

  It sounded like a really good idea. It would give us security, and I knew that I would do whatever it took to make it happen.

  It was a spectacular October day when I went to the Great Western Savings and Loan on Victory Boulevard in Studio City and got a cashier’s check for $200,000, the amount I needed to qualify to bid on the Paddlewheel. It was all my savings, but Richard assured me that if we won the hotel, we could get a loan to cover the mortgage. I left the bank practically floating with exhilaration and drove across Victory under a clear blue sky to my dance studio in North Hollywood.

  DR Studios has been my second home since I opened it in 1979. When I bought the building, a former post office on Lankershim Boulevard, I wanted to create a rehearsal space where dancers could work and be treated well—with clean showers and bathrooms! From the beginning we’ve had free parking, a lounge area with fresh coffee, dressing rooms, and six big rehearsal studios with high ceilings and pianos in each room. I’m proud to say that everyone from Bette Midler to Madonna to Usher and Janet Jackson has rehearsed there, and nowadays we offer classes in hip-hop as well as tap. Michael Jackson rehearsed his Thriller video there under the direction of our friend Michael Peters, a brilliant choreographer. After doing some business in my office, I skipped down the stairs, got into my car, and drove to the Burbank airport to fly to Vegas to meet Richard, who was waiting for me at the small two-bedroom apartment where I had lived since the 1970s, a condo on the twelfth floor of a beautiful building near the Strip.