Two stars that lived— and shone—orbiting each other

DEBBIE REYNOLDS WAS A GREAT BROAD WITH THE FACE  of a cutie-pie. You might not know that just from watching Singin’ in the Rain (1952) or The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). Reynolds was often cast in roles that capitalized on her cherub like adorability, her button-nosed brightness, her wind-up energy, all fine qualities in a performer. But as a human being—revealed in interviews and three memoirs— Reynolds never came offas naive. She was many things— actor, singer, comedian, mother—but never a pushover.

- Stephanie Zacharek

Reynolds died at age 84 on Dec. 28, the day after her daughter Carrie Fisher, another great broad, actor and writer, died at 60. Their mother-daughter story is like no other: Fisher grew up in Reynolds’ larger-than-life shadow, partly dazzled by her mother’s glamour and verve and partly feeling lost amid the glitter. She built her own acting career, appearing, at age 18, in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo, playing a flirty, deadpan tomboy rich girl. She’s impetuous, calculating, extraordinary—it’s the kind of debut that promises great things. Her next role was that of the radiant, wisecracking Princess Leia in the 1977 Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope. Though the medieval-Cinnabon hairdo has always been a target for jokes, the astonishing thing is how well Fisher carried it. She was the diva of the grandest space opera, after all.