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Debbie Reynolds’ children were devastated after their stepfather’s gambling and infidelity tore their family apart.
Todd Fisher, son of the “Singin’ in the Rain” actress and Carrie Fisher’s brother, discussed his mother’s turbulent second marriage to shoe magnate Harry Karl on his podcast, “Behind the Stage Doors with Todd Fisher and Catherine Hickland.”
“I remember sitting in a booth at Trader Vic’s, and he goes, ‘Do you think mother and I will ever get back together?’” Fisher recalled. “And I remember going, ‘Where have you been? Do you have any idea the wake of destruction that you have leveled against all of us?’”
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American actress Debbie Reynolds is seen here promoting her London tour on April 1, 2010. Her son, Todd Fisher, spoke about her tumultuous second marriage on his podcast, “Behind the Stage Doors with Todd Fisher and Catherine Hickland.” (UPI/Rune Hellestad/Alamy)
“I didn’t do it,” said the filmmaker. “I just said, ‘Yeah, I think that ship has kind of sailed.’”
Reynolds, recognized as “America’s Sweetheart,” first married pop singer Eddie Fisher in 1955. They welcomed Carrie in 1956, followed by their son in 1958. He was named after Eddie’s close friend and Elizabeth Taylor’s third husband, producer Mike Todd.
After Todd died in a 1958 plane crash, Eddie consoled Taylor, then left his wife to marry her. They wed in 1959 and divorced in 1964, when Taylor married her “Cleopatra” co-star Richard Burton, with whom she had been having an affair.
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Reynolds’ career flourished. She married Karl in 1960, but the marital woes continued.
“…The difference between him and Eddie, of course, is Eddie was sort of this young love and had that sort of bomb dropped on her,” Fisher, 68, said. “But with Harry, it was a deliberate sort of addiction … dark, dark stuff.”
“That’s why I was worried about his immortal soul,” said Fisher. “Where he had been was not good.”
Catherine Hickland and her husband, Todd Fisher, celebrate the release of his book, “My Girls,” in Hollywood on June 19, 2018. (Brandon Williams/Getty Images)
Fisher said he witnessed Karl’s manicurists visiting him at their family home. Reynolds and her children later said they were sex workers.
“I had seen it firsthand,” Fisher claimed. “Even when Debbie was gone, I saw the whole deal with the manicurist polishing his nails and other things. And it felt that it was quite disturbing … Being a child of my mom, and then seeing that betrayal going on, that’s disturbing.”
“Carrie was furious,” he said of the late “Star Wars” icon. “The only time I ever saw her break loose from that was when I took her to visit his gravesite many years later. But I had seen the worst of him.”
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Actress Debbie Reynolds and her husband Harry Karl pose together on their wedding day. (Getty Images)
“I’ll always remember we’d come home from New York, and at this point, the divorce was finalizing, and they’re in these settlement conferences. And he put on a whole performance, wanting Debbie to support him for the rest of his life, as if such magnanimous things he had done in his life should justify her taking care of him. And I watched that show. He did that in front of her and the lawyers, and I was watching, spying through a little hole in the ceiling.”
The marriage ended in 1973 after Reynolds discovered that Karl, a compulsive gambler, had devastated her assets, The Associated Press reported.
“I just lost all respect [for] him,” Fisher admitted. “Just such an incredible thing to act like you deserve her to support you after he just left us in the worst possible position.”
Debbie Reynolds attends an event with Harry Karl in Los Angeles, circa 1961. (Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Karl died in 1982 at age 68. Fisher was the one to break the news to Reynolds.
“She heard me lose it, and she was kind of surprised, but she had very … she had no sort of emotion about it,” Fisher said. “Now … my mother was obviously very enlightened in many ways, and so, in some ways, she forgave people, like magically. It was some pretty amazing stuff. So, she just kind of went with it, but I know she was never happy with what happened.”
Reynolds said “I do” once more to Virginia businessman Richard Hamlett in 1984. The marriage was equally disastrous.
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Debbie Reynolds and her husband, Virginia developer Richard Hamlett, pose for a pre-honeymoon photo on the bridge of the S.S. Norway Caribbean cruise ship after their private wedding ceremony in Miami Beach, Florida. (Getty Images)
In 1992, against friends’ advice, she paid $10 million to buy and convert a faded Las Vegas hotel into the Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino, The Associated Press reported. She filed for bankruptcy in 1997 and sold the property at auction the following year, accusing Hamlett of making off with her money.
“All of my husbands have robbed me blind,” Reynolds said in 1999. “The only one who didn’t take money was Eddie Fisher. He just didn’t pay for the children.”
Reynolds died in 2016 at age 84. She passed away just one day after Carrie, 60.
Todd Fisher, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher pose in the press room at the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Jan. 25, 2015. (Steve Granitz/WireImage)
“What you saw is who she was — she really was apple pie,” Fisher told Fox News Digital in 2023 about his late mother. “There was no dark side to her. I’ve known a lot of people who had one image that they portrayed to the public and a different image that was who they really were. But my mother really was that person.”
“When she made this one movie called ‘Mary, Mary’ [in 1963], they had to teach her how to smoke a cigarette,” he said. “And even then, she did a bad job … She was a Girl Scout for real and then became a big movie star. She was squeaky clean.”
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“My father left my mother for Elizabeth Taylor,” he reflected. “A lot of people were mad about that … A lot of people were like, ‘So your dad left the good girl for the bad girl.’ … Liz made no bones about being the bad girl. She came a long way from ‘National Velvet’ … So when my mother was put in the position of being humiliated by my father … my mother was a classy person.”
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Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are seen in Las Vegas, circa 1958. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
It would be decades later that Reynolds said Taylor “probably did me a great favor.” In her 1988 memoir, she described her marriage to Eddie as an unhappy one.
“He didn’t think I was funny,” Reynolds wrote. “I wasn’t good in bed. I didn’t make a good gefilte fish or good chopped liver. So what did he have? A cute little girl next door with a little turned-up nose. That was, in fact, all he ever said he wanted from me. The children, he said, better have your nose.”
Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are seen here at a cocktail party celebrating their engagement in Hollywood, (Getty Images)
Fisher said that years later, his mother and Taylor “became great friends again.” They starred in 2001’s “These Old Broads,” which was co-written by Carrie. In the film, the women poked fun at the affair.
Debbie Reynold and Elizabeth Taylor starred in “These Old Broads,” which was written by Carrie Fisher. (Timothy White/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
As for Eddie, Fisher said, “I don’t think the press ever forgave my dad — the public certainly didn’t.”
After Taylor, Eddie married Connie Stevens, the third of his five wives. He died in 2010 at age 82.
“They got married when they were in their early 20s,” Fisher said about his parents. “And I think Hollywood pushed them together, too. I mean, I’m not saying they weren’t attracted to each other. My dad picked my mother off the stage … and told his best friend, ‘I’m going to get that girl.’ And he did — he married her. I’m not sure if it was the best move, but he did.”
“Actually, I’m glad he did — otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” Fisher laughed.