“I have very poor taste in men and I married all the wrong men. I’ve never found the right man and never hope to at this age. I think that it’s too late. That boat has sailed.”
Debbie Reynolds was America’s sweetheart, the wholesome fresh-faced girl next door radiating perky innocence. So it is quite a shock when the star of Singin’ In The Rain, now aged 82, not only starts discussing sex but confesses that she was never very good at it and now she’s done with it.
“I wish I were better at it,” says Reynolds. “Obviously I wasn’t any good. My three husbands all left me for another woman and obviously, I wasn’t a very sexual lady. My husbands all repeatedly said the same thing – that I was not a very passionate woman.
Sex
“I have never wished that I had had more sex. If I’ve missed anything then maybe someone will let me know and maybe they will introduce me to it but I don’t think that that is going to happen at the age of 82. I doubt that I’m up to it. I would probably pass away right then, an early demise.”
The actress who won an Oscar nomination for 1964’s The Unsinkable Molly Brown is poised to receive the prestigious Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award on January 25 but her thoughts are turning to her life’s most dubious achievement.
“My marriages have been one of the greatest voids in my life,” she says. “I have very poor taste in men and I married all the wrong men. I’ve never found the right man and never hope to at this age. I think that it’s too late. That boat has sailed.”
I was never a sex queen in real life
It is an astonishingly blunt talk for the actress whose squeaky-clean image has endured for more than 60 years in Hollywood. “On screen, I just played me,” she says. “I was never a sex queen in real life and I was never pursued by men. History tells the story: I am still unmarried and all the wonderful men who I met then married somebody else,” she says.
“I was friends with Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner and they craved and loved sex and talked about it. They were very sensuous women, desiring passion. But I never sought companionship. I was never one to run out and go to bed with somebody. That was never really exciting to me.
“It seemed that I was more interested in raising my children, not in pursuing my husbands. The truth is I loved an audience. I loved music and dance and that was exciting to me. I wouldn’t care to be married again.”
Passion
Reynolds was a 23-year-old virgin when she married singing star Eddie Fisher in 1955 and recalls: “The first time I ever had sex I thought it was very enjoyable, very frightening and different and courageous and not amorous enough. Everybody told me that you’ll feel the passion. I was waiting to feel that passion.” Four years later Reynolds was ignominiously dumped by Fisher, who ran off with her best friend Elizabeth Taylor.
“What chance did I have against Elizabeth Taylor, a woman of great womanly experience when I had no experience at all?” she asks. “My second marriage was a mistake,” she says of her 13 years with Harry Karl, who cheated on Reynolds and drained her savings.” He was a complete alcoholic and crazy. Then I made a third mistake.”
That was marrying Richard Hamlett who philandered, squandered her money, and ultimately drove her Las Vegas hotel into bankruptcy. Between them, her last two husbands burned through Reynolds’ £30 million fortune.
“I had no passion with my first two husbands although I did later feel it with a lover,” she says of her four-year fling with Bob Fallon. Reynolds dressed as a femme fatale for her concert on a Las Vegas stage, decked in 20lb of gold sequins in a gown that was slashed to the thigh but knows that she was fooling nobody.
“I just let the one leg stick out because everything else is shot,” she says. “I live in Beverly Hills and my boobs live in San Diego.”
Sadly that may be Reynolds’ last-ever performance. She is taking time off and then will see what roles come her way in 2016. “If I’m still alive. I’ve not been well for the past four or five years and I’m not well now,” she confesses. “One kidney has given up on me and died. I do have, shall we say, uncomfortable days. Aging is awful. It’s not a good time.
Settle Down and Enjoy life
“2015 is my year to just enjoy life and not be an entertainer. I’ve been all around the world but my greatest desire is to be home for the next year. I’m going to play guitar, take piano lessons, study Spanish. There are so many personal wishes that I want to try.”
“I want to see some plays and see some old friends although most have now passed on. I want to enjoy the years I have left. I will always dance and sing but I will do that in my own home and for my friends. I will return to acting in 2016. If I’m offered a job I can’t refuse.”
Movie Memorabilia
Her lifelong dream to open a Hollywood museum housing her movie memorabilia collection – the world’s largest – ended in frustration and in recent years she sold the treasure trove for a staggering $ 17 million. Marilyn Monroe’s dress from The Seven Year Itch fetched $ 2.8 million and the ruby red slippers from The Wizard Of Oz brought $415,000.
“It was very painful selling my collection but I don’t have any more time to keep living dreams that don’t come to fruition,” she says. “But I kept a few items for myself. Clothes worn by Clark Gable, Betty Grable, and Bette Davis. George Burns’ toupe. The dance shoes of Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, and Mitzi Gaynor.” She also kept an original Maltese Falcon statue – one fetched £2.4million at auction· and another pair of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
Growing Up
Such fortunes paid for second-hand clothes would seem implausible to the little girl who grew up Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of an impoverished railroad worker, living in a shack with a dirt floor.
“My parents survived on a can of beans,” she recalls. “We never had a Christmas tree or presents, no luxuries, no car. We were very poor but we loved each other very much.”
She was seven when her family moved to California seeking a better life and at 16 she won the Miss Burbank beauty pageant, attracting Hollywood scouts who then gave her a screen test.
Movie Star
“They asked why I wanted to be a movie star and I said, ‘I don’t,'” she laughs. “That was never something I dreamed of. It was unimaginable.” Yet soon Mary Frances became Debbie on a £40-a-week contract with Warner Brothers who subsequently sold her to MGM.
After a handful of modest films, MGM cast her to co-star with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in the 1952 musical Singin’ In The Rain, despite having no dance training.
“It was my lucky break but it was incredibly hard work for more than a year,” she recalls. “I had days to perfect what Gene and Donald had spent a lifetime learning. We would rehearse dance numbers for months working from 6 am until 11 pm and I slept in my dressing room.”
At times the strain proved too much. “I was crying under a big grand piano one lunchtime,” she says. “I was only a teenager and I was untrained and felt very lost.”
Fred Astaire passed by and pulled her into his rehearsal studio. “I watched for a while until he threw his cane, his face turned red and sweat was running down and he turned to me and said, ‘Now you’ve seen how tough it is. This is what it takes. No pain, no gain. This is really hard. Now stop crying and get back to work.’ So I did, and continued to do that all these years.”
Lifetime Award
But in recent years she has cut back on her workload, last year appearing as Liberace’s mother in 2013’s acclaimed film Behind The Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas. Receiving the SAG Lifetime award may be her only appearance next year.
“It’s wonderful to be honored with a lifetime achievement award but I think my greatest achievement is probably living long enough to enjoy what I do,” she says.
Future Plans
“I want to sing and dance for the rest of my life. I want to be able to enjoy the last years that I have and be happy. That’s a lot to ask but I hope to achieve that.”
Debbie Reynolds died aged 84, just one day after the death of her daughter, famed actor and author Carrie Fisher.
“The last thing she said this morning was that she was very, very sad about losing Carrie and that she would like to be with her again,” Fisher said. “Fifteen minutes later she suffered a severe stroke.”
Reynolds died just hours after she was taken to Cedars Sinai Medical Center from her son’s house in Beverly Hills.
“The only thing we’re taking solace in is that what she wanted to do was take care of her daughter, which is what she did best,” he added.
