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I just read this news here, this minute, reading the title of this thread. It really took me aback--I almost thought it might be a sick joke. But no...and, in a way, it's all too imaginable that learning of her daughter's death was just too great a blow...

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Reynolds' son Todd, now the only one left of his immediate family, said she was distraught after the shock of Fisher's death. She had already had a previous stroke. Horrible, just horrible.

 

I can't say Reynolds was ever a great favorite of mine but I always liked to see her in later years. She was great as Kevin Kline's mom in "In and Out." (“I need that wedding. I need some beauty and some music and some place cards before I die. It’s like heroin.”)

 

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1 hour ago, dirac said:

Reynolds' son Todd, now the only one left of his immediate family, said she was distraught after the shock of Fisher's death. She had already had a previous stroke. Horrible, just horrible.

 

I can't say Reynolds was ever a great favorite of mine but I always liked to see her in later years. She was great as Kevin Kline's mom in "In and Out." (“I need that wedding. I need some beauty and some music and some place cards before I die. It’s like heroin.”)

 

 

Oh yes...I had forgotten that...I always enjoyed her in Will and Grace too.

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3 hours ago, pherank said:

The other night I was watching TCM's roll call of film industry people who passed away in 2016, and it was the longest list I think that ever aired. And it keeps getting longer, and longer.

 

On a brighter note, Tommy Rall turned 87 yesterday, and Marge Champion, aged 97, is still with us. Long may it stay that way!

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10 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

 

On a brighter note, Tommy Rall turned 87 yesterday, and Marge Champion, aged 97, is still with us. Long may it stay that way!

And Leslie Caron and Jane Powell. There's still a few people left from that early-to-mid 50s M-G-M generation of dancers and singers of which Debbie Reynolds and Zsa Zsa Gabor were a part.

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8 minutes ago, miliosr said:

And Leslie Caron and Jane Powell. There's still a few people left from that early-to-mid 50s M-G-M generation of dancers and singers of which Debbie Reynolds and Zsa Zsa Gabor were a part.

 

I love Leslie Caron especially (Gigi!!)

Apparently Patricia Morrison is also still alive--101!

This branches out from your original parameters a bit but also alive (yay!):

 

Janis Paige (from Silk Stockings)

Glynis Johns

Doris Day

Angela Lansbury

Jane Powell

Mitzi Gaynor

Rita Moreno

And of course not in musicals but there is Olivia de Havilland (100!)

Great site: http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2015/7/27/200-oldest-living-screen-stars-of-note.html

 

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On 12/29/2016 at 11:14 AM, aurora said:

 

I love Leslie Caron especially (Gigi!!)

Apparently Patricia Morrison is also still alive--101!

This branches out from your original parameters a bit but also alive (yay!):

...

Glynis Johns

...

 

 

I saw the "Votes for Women" scene from Mary Poppins a couple of times this summer during the election campaign -- a lovely moment during some hard times.

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1 minute ago, sandik said:

 

I saw the "Votes for Women" scene from Mary Poppins a couple of times this summer during the election campaign -- a lovely moment during some hard times.

 

Hear hear!

I watched it rather a few times after the election ended as well :dry:

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7 hours ago, sandik said:

 

I saw the "Votes for Women" scene from Mary Poppins a couple of times this summer during the election campaign -- a lovely moment during some hard times.

 

"After our meeting at the Albert Hall, we're all going to Downing street, to throw things at the prime minister."

I always enjoy hearing that line.

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Here's a picture of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher from Life Magazine in 1958. Possibly taken when they lived at All Hallows Farm just off Sunset Boulevard, where Palisades High School is today.

 

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/6d736baffb8378ba_large

 

Af first I mixed up the two deaths thinking I was still reading Carrie Fisher's obituary when I was reading Debbie Reynolds'. What a shock. My aunt, who also died this year, worked at Debby Reynolds' charity Thalians for many years and so we were always hearing crazy stories about fund raisers Debbie Reynolds would do and who would show up for the annual ball, and who could they get to be "Mr Wonderful" that year – all of it revolving around an actress named Ruta Lee, who once been in small roles in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Funny Face.

 

The ranks of the old troupers is thinning and no one really to take their places.

 

 

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In honor of Debbie Reynolds, I rewatched Give a Girl a Break today. It's no classic but it's better than its reputation. It takes forever to get going but it hits its stride about a third of the way in with the very catchy song, "In Our United State". The first version is sung by Bob Fosse and danced by Fosse and Reynolds. The second version is a vocal reprise by Fosse. The third version is an instrumental version that under pins the "Balloon Dance" with Fosse and Reynolds. (It's a pity Film Score Monthly has never done a full release of the score since, in addition to these three versions, there are various orchestral and piano versions that are threaded throughout the movie.)

 

Also, quite good are the "Challenge Dance" sequence with Marge and Gower Champion and the lavish "It Happens Every Time" (again with the Champions). Less good is "Nothing Is Impossible," a comic number for Gower Champion, Fosse and Kurt Kaznar, which strains for comedy and never gets there. (It's also the only number in the movie with Gower Champion and Fosse dancing -- too briefly -- together.) The "Puppet Master Dance" with Kaznar is just cruel as poor Kaznar has to stuff his ample physique into a pair of lavender-colored tights and pink ballet slippers. Cruel, I say!

 

The finale -- "Applause, Applause" -- with Gower Champion and Reynolds is OK in a garish 50s way but it would have been better if it had been reconceived to include Marge Champion and Fosse as well.

 

Like I said -- no classic. But the tuneful score and the dancing of the Champions, Reynolds and Fosse make for an agreeable enough time. It's also offers an interesting glimpse of what the next generation of movie music performers at MGM would have looked like if the studio system hadn't crumbled so rapidly at MGM between 1953-55.

 

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Thanks, miliosr. We have a discussion that includes a lengthy commentary on "Give a Girl a Break" here.

 

HBO will broadcast a documentary on the relationship of Fisher and Reynolds this month:
 

Quote


The documentary -- which chronicles the duo's unique mother-daughter dynamic and bond over the course of six tumultuous decades -- screened at Cannes in May, and debuted in the U.S. at the New York Film Festival in October. And in light of both stars' unexpected deaths, HBO moved up the premiere from March.

 

 

The article also mentions that the Logo channel will dedicate two days to Reynolds' TV career next weekend.

 

 

 

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19 hours ago, miliosr said:

The "Puppet Master Dance" with Kaznar is just cruel as poor Kaznar has to stuff his ample physique into a pair of lavender-colored tights and pink ballet slippers. Cruel, I say!

 

 

Oh golly, now I have to find this number!  Many thanks for the synopsis.

 

And yes, this is a look at a group that came a bit too late to be included in the big musical surge. 

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Kaznar was a very good sport about it, and Helen Wood did a more creditable job of "serious" dancing than what normally passed for ballet in movie musicals. Richard Anderson, whom I remember as a fixture of episodic television during my childhood (well, mostly Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman), played her husband.

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22 hours ago, dirac said:

Thanks, miliosr. We have a discussion that includes a lengthy commentary on "Give a Girl a Break" here.

The only thing I would change about my initial review is my evaluation of the score. I think it's better than I gave it credit for.

 

20 hours ago, sandik said:

And yes, this is a look at a group that came a bit too late to be included in the big musical surge. 

In my mind's eye, I think of what MGM would have been like if the musical division had carried on into the early 1960s with a cohort that included Leslie Caron, Vic Damone, Bob Fosse, Jane Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Tommy Rall and Russ Tamblyn.

 

19 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Kaznar was a very good sport about it, and Helen Wood did a more creditable job of "serious" dancing than what normally passed for ballet in movie musicals. Richard Anderson, whom I remember as a fixture of episodic television during my childhood (well, mostly Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman), played her husband.

I like Kaznar in Lovely to Look at, Lili and Kiss Me Kate. He gets the worst of it in Give a Girl a Break, though.

 

Richard Anderson appeared in a lot of MGM movies from 1950-56 but always as a supporting character. He never achieved stardom at MGM the way he did The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman in the 70s.

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