. Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for her Las Vegas hotel. [July 1997]
April 2002: Opened the Hollywood Motion Picture Collection near the new Kodak Theatre. The collection, which was collected and preserved primarily by Reynolds herself, features over 3,000 costumes including Carmen Miranda's turbans, a pair of Judy Garland's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939), John Wayne's guns and Marilyn Monroe's windswept dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955).
At one particularly low point in her career, she confessed to literally living in her car, a Cadillac.
Campaigned for the part of Doris Mann in Postcards from the Edge (1990), but Shirley MacLaine was cast instead.
Close friend of Hugh O'Brian. Serenaded O'Brien and his bride, Virginia, at their wedding on June 25, 2006.
Considers herself a "movie-oholic" and has an extensive collection of memorabilia, with over 4,000 costumes from the silent screen period to the 1970s. She has been known to gather posters from her collection of 3,000 and drive to homes of actor pals for autographs. In the 1990s she turned her collection into a Las Vegas movie museum, but had to shut it down in 1997 because of financial problems. Recently she has looked into the possibility of opening up a hall of fame museum in Hollywood near Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Ex-mother-in-law of Paul Simon.
Had planned to go into the education field (teaching physical education) before she won the Miss Burbank contest.
Her father entered her in a beauty pageant once when she was very young. She wore a bathing suit that her mother had mended that morning and a pair of her sister's high heels.
Her first appearance on "Will & Grace" (1998) was in the episode entitled "The Unsinkable Mommy Adler", a play on the title of the movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). She played both title roles.
In 1964, she went into the hospital business, purchasing Oceanside Hospital in Oceanside, California for $1,000,000 with plans to turn it into a profitable business venture.
In 1969, she followed Doris Day and some of her contemporaries in launching a TV sitcom bearing her name. When the debut episode included an advertisement for cigarettes, a direct violation of one of her contractual stipulations, she made such a fuss about it that NBC ended up cancelling the series.
In 1975, she sold the Beverly Hills mansion that she had lived in with Harry Karl. The house was reputed to be worth over $1,000,000. The buyer was Jim Randall, an industrialist who made aircraft rivets. When he married actress Marisa Berenson, the wedding was held in the redecorated home and his best man was his friend George Hamilton.
In 1984, with friends like Shelley Winters and Terry Moore, she made a rather restrained exercise video for "women of a certain age".
In January 1996, Debbie Reynolds dedicated the Holland-America Line cruise ship the MS Veendam.
In one of her guest appearances on "Will & Grace" (1998), she enters a room humming a bit of "Good Morning", which was a song she sang in her most famous musical, Singin' in the Rain (1952).
Is a Majority Member in California.
Is a Past Honored Queen of Bethel No. 97, Burbank, California.
Is portrayed by Judith Jones in Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995) (TV).
Made her Broadway debut in 1973 in the revival of "Irene". Although the reviews for the show itself were mixed, hers were all raves and she wound up with a Tony Award nomination the following year for Best Actress in a Musical. The production ultimately ran some 20 months. In 1976, she appeared in a one-woman, short-run (10 days - 14 performances) review named "Debbie!" at the Minskoff Theatre. Her only other Broadway appearance to date came when she succeeded Lauren Bacall in "Woman of the Year" in 1983.