{"id":2462,"date":"2017-01-02T02:07:57","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T10:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=2462"},"modified":"2017-01-02T02:10:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T10:10:15","slug":"rip-debbie-and-carrie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2017\/01\/02\/rip-debbie-and-carrie\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP, Debbie and Carrie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days before Christmas, Carrie Fisher <\/strong>reportedly stopped breathing on a flight from London to Los Angeles.\u00a0 People close to Carrie tell me that she suffered from sleep apnea, which may have been a contributing factor in this incident.\u00a0 While she had little hope for recovery, being on a ventilator allowed her loved ones time to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

One of the people who couldn’t say goodbye was Carrie’s mom, Debbie Reynolds<\/strong>.\u00a0 She simply wasn’t strong enough to see her daughter like that. What can I say about Debbie Reynolds?\u00a0 She was exactly what you’d expect – no airs about this legend.\u00a0 Fun, bawdy, outrageous, but also quite poignant.\u00a0 If you could get her alone (which was tough even for her family), she showed depth and empathy – particularly for those suffering from mental illness.\u00a0 She was incredibly devoted to Carrie.\u00a0 When discussing her daughter’s problems, she once said, “I always feel, as a mother does, that I protect her.\u00a0 Who will do that when I’m gone?”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The day after Carrie’s death, Debbie also passed away.\u00a0 Debbie’s son Todd <\/strong>believes she willed herself to die so that she could be with (and continue to take care of) Carrie.\u00a0\u00a0 Once Carrie was gone, so was the center of Reynolds’ life and her reason to live.<\/p>\n

Even to the last, the pair continued their complicated and somewhat-codependent relationship.\u00a0 Their life in adjoining properties led some to compare them to the Beales<\/strong>, immortalized in Grey<\/em><\/strong> Gardens<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The lines between fact and fiction often blurred in Carrie’s writing – particularly in Postcards from the Edge<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Reynolds desperately wanted to play the mother when the book was made into a film.\u00a0 Director Mike Nichols <\/strong>felt she was “not right”, and cast Shirley MacLaine<\/strong>.\u00a0 Debbie backed off, feeling it was payback.\u00a0 MacLaine had been originally cast in the film version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown<\/em><\/strong>, but circumstances brought the role to Debbie.\u00a0 “Shirley ‘gave’ me Molly<\/em> and my only Oscar <\/em>nomination.\u00a0 This is her turn and her role,” said Debbie.\u00a0 Even without Reynolds playing the part, Postcards<\/em> hit close to home.\u00a0 Reportedly, Debbie once told Todd, “I don’t want to attend my daughter’s funeral.”\u00a0 If there is a Hereafter<\/em>, I can just picture Carrie rolling her eyes at the sight of Debbie.\u00a0 “My God, mother, did you have to upstage me even at the very end?”\u00a0 Rest in peace, ladies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Days before Christmas, Carrie Fisher reportedly stopped breathing on a flight from London to Los Angeles.\u00a0 People close to Carrie tell me that she suffered from sleep apnea, which may have been a contributing factor in this incident.\u00a0 While she had little hope for recovery, being on a ventilator allowed her loved ones time to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}