Debbie Reynolds has been in show business for over six decades. She talks to Alec about her big break in Singin' in the Rain. “I slept in my dressing room,” recalls Reynolds. “I didn't take any days off because I’d practice on Saturday and Sunday.”
As host of Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne plays the role of ambassador to a bygone era. We hear the journey he took to get there—which could have been a classic movie itself. It all started when, as kid in a small town, he frequented the cinema and “fell in love with the movie business.”
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Hi'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, my chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions changed their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Well, I never thought about me being in show business. I was a fan, didn't watch TV, and I loved the movies. My guests today both worked in film and TV during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Robert Osborne began his career acting, but his fascination with show business, drama on and off the set led to a very different job, one he seems to have been made for. Hi. I'm Robert Osborne, and our Jimmy Cagney tribute continues now with Jimmy and this is the Third Man. Osborne has been host of Turner Classic Movies for almost two decades. His knowledge of the film industry is encyclopedic, and he will tell you it's rare when a movie comes along and inspires a whole generation of actors, singers and directors. Just sing Singing in the Rain is one of those movies. It also transformed the life of its leading lady, Debbie Reynolds my first guest this Hour. Reynolds was just a twenty year old actress under contract at MGM, but after her performance in that iconic film, she was destined to become a star. Some of the highlights of Reynolds's career include Tammy in Tammy and The Bachelor, with a song that reached number one on the Billboard Charts, I have a cotton Woods Whispering Able Jimmy jim ted Love. Reynolds was nominated for an Academy Award for her leading role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and received a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in the musical Irene. Debbie Reynolds was born in Texas and raised in Burbank, California, but after her career took off, the small town girl found herself living in a universe occupied by the biggest stars of her time. Right across the street was Jimmy Stewart and Lucille Ball, and everybody was on that one street. It was like, let's have a party every night. George Burns and Eddie Cannor lived on one block, so I would drive over there because that street was more fun than my phone. There was a lot of fun to be had back then. This was still the golden age of Hollywood, but it was also the studio system where executives bought and sold actors like property. Although a parny to Reynolds, it had its upside too. When we were under contract, most of us, Shirley McClain and Elizabeth Theater were at MGM, and everything was done for us, you know, the makeup of hair. It sent cars for us. We were very spoiled. We didn't kind of know what to do when they dropped everybody, like when television came in. You remember what year around there was. The end of the studio system kind of died as you get into the fifties. It is slowly died a death. You know. It was like interesting to watch it was. I didn't realize it was the end, you know, I didn't know that it was that you didn't know what the change meant. Well, I was a young girl, so I didn't And I wasn't an intellectual. I wasn't educated. I'm from Burbank, Burbank and originally from You want to be a gym teacher, that's me, you know what I always aim high me too. I love, Jim, you know I love. I wanted to be a lifeguard son girls. Well yeah, swim, yes, Well, I was never that ambitious. I wanted to be a gymnast. I wanted to work on the bars and Entropedes work. I loved all that stuff as a young girl in Burbank. And you're athletic, no doubt. What's the first thing that happened that says show business to you? Well, I never thought about me being in show business. I was a fan and I would go to the movies because my mother let me. But no one else in our church was allowed to go to films because movie stars were all evil creatures, just dreadful. My mother let me go to films. His mother was very religious, very my family said my dad. My father used to say, no, no, no, I'm not going to go to church with you. I've told you that I'm not going to go because all those good people will be killed. If I walked down, the roof would fall in. And he was always teasing my mother by asking what church did you go to? Churches and Nazarene, which is like hard shell Baptist, kind of like your mom was a heart. She was a Texan She was a Texan Texan Baptist. She was tough and strict and there were so many rules. How many kids in the family. Just my brother and I were in the family. And then my mother discovered what's your brother's name? Bill? And do you know who Bill is? To me? You don't know. Do you know that Billy Reynolds was my makeup artist on nuts Landing for a year? Oh my gosh, was he your brother? Billy isn't He was my makeup artist and he's one of the people that helped me survived that experience because those three broads from the Joan Colins School where they were having the makeup put on with a trowel every day. I'd have federally funded programs to pay for the makeup for them. Billy Reynolds would turn to me and he'd sit there and say, you know, did you bring a book with you? We're in a be here for a while. These girls are three hours in the chair. And then he told me that he was Elvis's makeup artist. Yes, And you know that every time he mentioned Elvis, he didn't mention it a lot because he was very shy, very shy. He mentioned Elvis once or twice, and he started to cry. He would turn away from me and hid to say. He said to me, almost was the greatest man I ever worked with. Well, the other used to play Elvis used to tease him a lot and put snakes down his pants, and popcorn and pop pop popcorn and put it in his drawers. You know, they used to kid my brother. They used to just pick on him kind of, but he didn't care. My brother was a baseball player, really man's man. He lives men in my house with me. Will you give him my love? I don't even know if he'll remember me. She Oh, he remembers everything. He just doesn't talk about it. You know some men that are like almost reclusive, but not really, because underneath all of that is a great sense of where I adore my brother. I think our life was rather tedious and hard because we didn't have any money. I mean, my dad made two hundred a month. Now that's better than nothing, but it's still also advised very little. So our life was a little bit meager. You know, we never had a Christmas tree. We never had so when the opportunity came along for you to get into the business, and I'm from the same school. Actually, I'm wondering where you was enticed by and where you was thrilled by as much about making money to help your family as you were about your own glory. Well, mostly I thought it was a joke that I won this contest, and then all of a sudden, I'm in movies. The silliest thing I was the contest. It was a Miss Burrbank, Mrs Burbank. Don't don't, don't, don't downplay that. No change my whole life and made my whole life wonderful and marvels travel all over the world and meet all these fabulous interesting people and see different countries. So I'm very proud to say I was Miss Burbank and had a hole in my bathing suit and there my rear end was hanging out, and I didn't have shoes, high heel shoes, so I had I'm very grateful for stumbling in the show business step to Miss Burbank. What happened? They took me to Warner Brothers and made a little screen test and asked me why I wanted to be a movie star. So of course I told him I didn't want to. And after they laughed and they said of course you do. I said, no, I don't. I don't really. I mean, this is just fun. You're just this is your kidding around, right. I was very square and my family were very virginal, you know, very go to church Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You're glad they were square. I'm grateful for that kind of upbringing throughout your career. And I'm not just saying this, I mean I wouldn't waste your time of mind. You know, you're a gorgeous woman, and everybody thinks of you and think of you being three things beautiful and talented, but also being very straight laced. I mean your career with something where there's a kind of a in the sensuality quote and there's any of a gardener over here. It's kind of working that whole thing. And then there's you, who you didn't work that whole thing. Did you find that that was something that was because of your childho your upbringing. I just grew up that way, so I thought that's the way everybody was until after three husbands. Now I realized that ass totally wrong. Concept unlucky and love unlucky. What else happens when you're unlucky and I just made it up. You just wrote that just for you. Okay, well we should record you later. Good morning, We've danced the whole night through. Good morning, good morning to you, and you and you and you're good morning, good morning. It's great to stay in Blake. Good morning, good morning to you. What fun you see? I can't sing to save my life. If you put a gun to my head and said saying you almost sang on, when did you know you could sing? When did you know you? When did you realize you could? Just started singing like other a pole? So what you're saying, you started by doing mimicry. I started mimic McDonald's I've never tried and the ricks. She's a soprano, but I would do the alto and ethel Mermon anybody with a big voice, you know, I'd always do their voices. Because I I enjoy comedy, comedies everything. I love vaudeville, that's my favorite thing. I enjoy drama somebody else doing it, I personally don't want to do it Debbie Reynolds, because it's so serious. It makes me sad, it takes me where it goes, and so I don't accept any parts that are devastating, because I don't want to be unhappy in my life. I'll just live my life. Is that's tough enough, So I don't need any parts that make me miserable. So when you're at Warners and you say to them I don't want to be an actress and they do the screen test, what happens there that you wind up banking over to mgm Well, what happens is they send me to a meeting and so they all Gene Kelly in the room and Mr Mayer says, here, Jean, this is a new girl that you're going to have as you're leading lady. And I'm seventeen, and but I had never danced before, I'd never acted before, nothing, nothing, person, just a girl's scout. So there was a Jene Kelly a movie. So I couldn't believe the whole scene. I mean, I just thought the whole thing was silly. I really thought it was silly. So Mr Kelly said, can you do a time step? I said, oh, oh, yes, I learned that a girl scout cap. So he said to do time step. So I did a little awful time step. Then he said, can you do a MAXI Ford, and I said I don't have a car. Well, obviously that was the wrong answer. He looked at Mr Mayor and he said, you're kidding me, boss, and Mr Mayer said, no, I'm not getting you meeting you. This is this is the leading lady. And that was it. He was stuck with me, poor thing. Can you imagine Jane Kelly and these guys were assuming me, like like many of the actors I know today, they're pretty no nonsense people when it comes to the quality of their their product, and they're very hard. But Gene Kelly, of course the most brilliant dancer. Jean said, all right, I'll take her. I can I can fix her. I can fix it up because she's right for the part. The acting bar but a Stare taught you too. He helped me. I was trying to learn everything, like with Donald run up the wall and flip backwards. I mean, I knew I was a flip, but you know, I had to learn how. I wanted to learn everything, and then I'd be crying under the piano. One day a pair of legs go by and I'm some crying away and the legs say, who is that under the piano? Who is crying. So I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just me, Debbie. So it was fred is stare. He said, Debbie, get out, get out from underneath. They pulled me out and he said, now you come and watch me with hers. I never allow anybody. He always had a guard at the security guard. No one was ever allowed. But he let me watch and for maybe over forty minutes, and his face turned already just used a cane and a drum after about half an hour, and his face turning red. And he's doing brilliant work. Of course, he looked over at me, says, now, Debbie wants you to go back in there, stop crying and be great. In order to be a great dancer, you have to practically kill yourself. This is what it takes to be a great dancer. Now running there, just running there, Shut up and do what help you? Oh? Yes, I just felt like I was a big sissy, and I don't like to be a big sissy. In those days or any other day. When you you finished the movie, when it was done, how did you feel when it was over? I think you you've learned a great deal. Either that or you already quit because in order to keep up with these great talents, you had to devote yourself totally. I didn't go home. I slept in my dress room. We didn't have a Saturday off, we only had Sunday off. And that practice all the time. And I don't think I changed at all. I just learned how to apply myself. And what about people's perception of you? That must have changed. The picture came out what year, I don't remember what year, in ninety two, something like that, you're a movie star now, correct, Well I was popular. They couldn't believe a young girl had gotten that far and no talent, no no experience. So I was newsworthy. But in those days we had movie magazines and they'd write all kinds of stories for free. You know, the studios would give It was the golden era. So what kind of story did they write about you? Then? When you're only seventeen eighteen years old? What do they make it up? You know, they'd give a little party. They'd give a party. They had Rock Hudson going out with his secretary. You know, Rock didn't want to go out with this secretary. It was Paul. Yes, that's John, Sam and Joe. What's the next picture you did. After Singing in the Ring, After Singing in the Rain, I did How the West was One with every star you've ever heard about. The first movie I ever saw in the movie theater, My Life Ever was a wonderful picture. Spencer Tracy narrated the whole thing starting You'll Never See Again, and John Wayne was in that everybody. It took two years to make that picture. I started out playing a sixteen year old and ended up a ninety year old, so it felt like my life. I worked very hard on that picture, and Henry Hathaway was the director, and he was really tough and very hard on everybody. You know, it's not very kind of actors, but we were all a little bit stupid and employees slow. He thought it was slow. So he I had heard this about him. You know, he was a very tough director. So when he came over to Fox Studio where I was making another film with Andy Griffith, I said to him, he wanted me to do it the first part of it, How the West Was On. I said, well, sir, the truth of it is that I've heard really such bad things about you. I don't want to work with you. So I just stared at me, said, what the is that? What? He's cussed like crazy? Oh? Yeah, cuss, he said, you little snot nose it little? Oh yes, he attacked you aggressive. He bawled me out. He just said, you have no right to say that I'm boss here, that I cuss and all that. I said, well, what are you doing now? For goodness sake, what do you think You're yelling at me? For the commissary there are people staring at everything. I said, this is why I would never work for you, because I don't want to be miserable. So I turned it down. And then he wouldn't let me turn it down. He said, no, you're going to do it, and he talked to the president of Fox and MGM, which owned my contract. They said I had to do it, So I had to do it. There's a one missing where I'll build you a home in the mid So back then, you signed those contracts and people, I think the the distance that the studio system has now, which we seated so far for audiences today, they don't understand that notion that you signed a contract and you didn't get to pick the films. You were in your own It's like a bondage is indentured servitude. That's exactly. How did the picture go with him? Was? He was? He was? He? Well, I went on. I did the first section is the one that I was signed for, and went on location and he said, all right, walk over there. I said, where am I walking? To sir? You just walk where, I said, pointing to I said, I have to understand where Why am I walking? What am I saying? He said, no, you're Oh, you just do what I say. I said, this is what I told you that day we had the lunch that you were going to be rude and terrible to work with then. So I'm going to go lie down to rest. He said, no, you're not. You're going to walk over there and you're going to shut up. I said, no, I'm not. I'm going to faint because you've upset me too much. So I fainted, and what happened. I love this. I'm gonna do that one. I'm going to do that now. You just pass out when I need a director like I'm gonna faint. Oh my god, you've upset me some boom boom fall. Just fall down. Just let him kick you. It doesn't matter. So laid down so if you're lame dude, half awake, come up and kick you did he kind of poke you with his boot. He poked me. He poked me with a boot. Seriously, No, you know this foot. You know he poked me because you wake up your silly some what you cussing kidding me? I wouldn't open my eyes at all because I was just in my mind. I said, just stay here all day, just say they can't wake make you wake up. So they put some that chlora what's that stuff under ether under your nose. Yeah, well I didn't still wake up. I just breathed really deeply like yoga. You know, no, I was doing this iron vading breathing of smelling souls. That's how obstinate you were. I was not going to wake up. He couldn't get me up. Was the conclusion with this what happened, I'm assuming because you're here, you eventually got up. He walked away from it, and he said, she's faking. I know she's faking, and I'm gonna kill a little kid. And then he became amused by it because he thought he knew I was faking, but I wasn't going to wake up, and he kind of respected you a little bit. I wasn't going awake. He knew I wouldn't do it. I was a lot like Hathaway say, so you really aren't this wholesome that Nazarine from Burnbank. You're with me, you can feel like trouble day trouble, but no, I just get very wilful. I'm aries, I'm born April Fool's Day. Who's a director that you loved? I really loved all the directors. I loved Hathaway too. I became very dear friends and visited together areas are you're in areas and I'm not big on astrology, but people who are areas there, we say they love to bury the hatchet and have people get along. And even though you can have a bad temper and you can have grudges against people, they don't laugh. You just speak up right. You're kind of rigorously honest if we if you will, but for you, you buried the hatchet with Hathaway and he became a friend. You're someone that doesn't like the hold of grudge with people. No, I don't, but I'm rather like an elephant. I I remember everything. And Debbie Reynolds has had her share of hatchets to Bury. In nineteen fifty five, she married singer Eddie Fisher. It was the show business wedding of the year. Four years later, Fisher famously left Reynolds for her best friend, Elizabeth Taylor, whose husband had recently died in an airplane accident, but she patched things up with Elizabeth the years later. They had known each other since they were kids. You know, when a man wants to go, he wants to go, he goes. I've learned that that certainly, So of course I forgave her years after that, because she she forgave her. So Marriages two and three were less public, but no less painful for Reynolds. Now she's sworn off that institution. In a minute, she'll talk about her relationship with her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher. I'm Alec Baldwin, and here's the thing. Take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policymakers and directors like Judd Apatow. I need constant approval of my writing as I'm doing it, so I will show people the first scene, the first ten pages. Anybody, listen to more of my conversation with judd apataw at, here's the thing, dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin. My is Debbie Reynolds. In six she played Albert Brooks mother in his film Mother. It was her first starring role in over twenty five years. The other one is he staying with me for a while. In real life, Debbie is mother to Carry Fisher, who introduced Debbie to her friend Albert Brooks. Carrie Fisher is of course a star in her own right. Her solo show Wishful Drinking discusses her battles with drugs, alcohol, manic depression, and being the child of Hollywood royalty. It's poignant and hilarious. Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, you know, anything, I don't care. All right, fine, not acting, but what about like a tiny one for writing? I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. I am apparently very good at it, and I get honored for it regularly. So she is so funny. Oh, yes, she's idiot. She's a brilliant. The children were really little. I was very worried about my health. I was on the road and I was just working like mad in Vaudeville, and I was concerned and the children were very small, and I called up Jeane Dixon, who was a prophet and lived in Washington, and I mean she did you know she did with the government and all kinds of and she was it was the truth. She was sensational. Gave me an appointment and I sat down and she told me exactly what my children have become and everything that happened. She told me I was married to Harry Carl at the time. She said, when you go home, you're going to have to face the divorce, and he has taken all of your money. When you go home, you will find that out, so you don't know anything about it. I said, well, no, I I let him take care of the money. She said, well he is. Carrie was going to be in white robes and sand on a stage. Astrologer Jane Dixon, Jane Dixon, who is very world famous. Did she predict Kennedy's assassination as well? She predicted everything. Yes, Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Jack Kennedy. Yes, you wrote in your book that you're unlucky in love? Why were you unlucky in love? What do you mean because I'm just too old fashioned, you know. Well, of course I picked the wrong man, but that's because I am easy. You know, I'm easy. I don't ever argue. I mean, you need the money here, you take it? Oh you need that? Well? Do you trust people? Well, I'm very trusting. How was Carrie like you? And how it was Carrie like Eddie? Can you see the lines that? Well, Carrie was born with Eddie as the father, and he was on speed. So Carrie was born was manic, depressive, bipolar. So she will have that for the rest of her life. And it's a dread disease. Got that from him, Yes, from Eddie. It was very sweet of him. Carrie has an illness that is a severe problem over the whole world, and they do not have any answers for you. She's taking shock of treatments right now and it's the family's pain. We all have it because we so want carry to be well, and that's what we pray for all the time. And she's so funny. Her daughter is divine and she goes to school here in New York and she's the most beautiful young smart, really smart, and she's taking accounting. So I think we'll be all right, those things will come to me for about money. And Carrie's going to be fine. She's brilliant and she's a great writer. Get from you, from me, what did she get? Laughter? If you could give people laughter, that would be the ideal thing. I know this is going to sound really cliched and kind of silly, but you know, you come from such a great era of movie stardom. Your name means something. When you say someone's name, you kind of go okay. But your name, you say a certain kind of a film. People automatically think, like the big Golden age of Hollywood musicals and you and Kelly and all these movies and Unsinkable Molly Brown and all these great films. Even though people don't realize that you stopped making films. I wrote this down. You stopped making films by and large and around What's the Matter with Helen in seventy one, and then from nineteen seventy one to six, according to your biography, most of what you do is voiceovers or retrospective releases like that's entertainment. You know. You don't work a lot during that period in films. I just do nightclubs, I work theater. I would do a club act over forty two weeks a year. I would every day. Where would you go? Everywhere? Colorado to the country, Sex is, Yes, Australia, England. I did five a day in England. So came a vaudevillion for twenty years to make a living from my children. And then and then you go and do the movie with Albert Brooks? Yes, I did. Mother. Did he convince you to do that movie? No, Carrie called me, she's a mother. I read a script Albert Brooks, who they were very good friends, did, and it's so funny. You have to do it. I said, well, you know, nobody wants me for movies anymore. Dear. She said, well, mother, I want you to fly up here. I was in Vegas and I owned a little hotel and I had a nightclub and I was happy as a hog in heaven. So she said, well, no, I don't care, mother, you have to fly. So I flew in and I met Albert and I read a scene for him and he said to me, you've got it. And I said, what does that mean, Albert? He said, well, you've got it. You you've got the part. I said, Albert, I have to meet the director oh, I am the director. Debby. Oh, I didn't know Albert, and I said, because you know I know him since he's a young boy. And then I said, well you have to see the producer, then, dear, you can't just suddenly hired Debby. Well, I, yes I can. I'm the producer. I'm the producer, I'm the director. I wrote it. And yes, you're going to do I said, Albert, you'll get into trouble. He said, no, you really are going to get it now because you're bossing me. So now you're just like my mother. So you've got the partner shore. Can you eat lamb chops? What the hell is a lamb? It's meat. I told you I don't eat it. That's not a cow. I didn't know if it was the animal. You were siding with the whole thing. It's open, wasn't she Albert was very sweet. He wanted Doris today, but she just wouldn't do it because she would have been terrific. But as we all know, Doris doesn't want to go back on the screen. And I didn't want it because I was in Vegas and I was running my hotel. I'm happy, I did. I think a lot of films on a lot of TV shows since then, Will and Grace, Where did you play? Well, what do you mean? I played Grace's mother. You're Grace's mom Adler. Her name was Adler and so as she sang a lot did impressions. It was a lot of fun to do. And you have you stopped the club actor? You're still doing that? You still I still do my club act. I've been under the weather for about four months, so I've been kind of taking it easy and getting my health contest. And you look fantastic. Well, you look gorgeous. You give me me my birthday party. You look beautiful. Thank you, dear, And I wish you all happened is with your new wife and a baby. Your life is all ahead of you. I love my baby so much. And even though they're all grown in your age, practically, you know, there's nothing like it. It's just so special. I'm really looking forward, you know when I think of you and you being part of that, you know, great era of studio filmmaking. Do you ever watch your stuff that you did? You ever go back and watch those films? You don't bother? Well, some of the films I watch everybody else's films Bettie Davis, so I loved her in Katherine Hepburna. When you watch a movie, you watch a movie from back then. Oh, yes, I only watch all movies. You don't go to see You don't exactly, So you don't go see movies today, not really don't. Not even screeners from the Academy or DVDs at home. If someone tells me it's really wonderful, I'll go, Like Titanic, you'd watch or something. No, I did go to see You've been there. No, I did that movie. So I just did a film with It was about Liberaci Behind the Candelabra Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas and played Mrs Liberaci because I like to do dialection and I knew Mrs Liberaci and I knew Lee. We were working a now very good friend. Yes, we were really dear friend. Ends and you know, he's called me up after the show and we go out together and say, were white all white Danby and your jewelry And then he'd arrived in the limousine with the chauffeur's hat on and he drive me. I mean, he was so much fun. I lovedly Broach. She was great so I did his mother. How was Soderberg to work with? Did you like Soderberg? Oh, he was wonderful. The director was wonderful, great director. I just had a little part, you know, and she had antsy, she was she was the Only thing hard is dialected to be real and to have to do doone when you're doing their dialect is polish, and so you have to talk like really the real little one and to be unbelievable. Because I am very good at dialects, I love to do them. You know what's amazing to me, is you still enjoy doing this? Yes, even though this is something that you came into almost accidentally. You know, you won the contest and you would over to Warner Brothers said we want you to be in the movie business, and you laughed when they said that. And yet here you are when you were sixteen years old and now you're eighty one years old, sixty five years later. You still enjoy doing this, don't you. Absolutely? If you're blessed enough to be able to have something to do that you love besides marriages, I mean, that's the only thing that's been a disappointment to me in my life. Honey, You're looking at the man you should have married here. It's me here, I am. I wouldn't have stolen your money, will you? And I would be home right now watching turn of classic movies, eating popcorn. I'll be giving you a foot, rub. I have a wonderful life, I really do. God bless everybody. I really am very But you're another thing you have and you don't have to confirm us. But I bet you I know another thing you have, which is when you meet people you're fans. I bet you they just love you. They're my friends. Are not my fans. You know, everybody I meet, I just feel like I know them six five years and they they made me, they gave me my work, and they stay by me all these years. You know, I work in Vegas all the time, and I work in Loughlin, which is called is invad right, Yeah, anywhere there's a job I work. You enjoy doing it live that way? How long is your show? Sure? The whole act of our half hour and a half an hour and a half. I do a lot of comedy. Well, I mean I try to make it funny. Let me end with this. Acting for me is very strange. Now I'm kind of done with it, and I mean, I don't think I want to do it much longer. And the world has changed now, as you well know, it's very different. The way is that your phone? I think it is your phone? Where is my Isn't that odd? Yeah? Where's Oh? What you're listening to now is Debbie Reynolds taking her it's my son, I'll bet you Patty Reynolds is now taking out all the kucham on her little asia. But I don't. I can't find you can't find them. Let's find it there, it is there, it is well, and this is this is how my son was born, nine pounds three ounces. Took a long time to get it out. I was hello, good heavens, that's hard to find. Can you say it again? Hello? Did I get you too late? That's the story of my life, isn't it? Must be a man? Well, I'm going to hang up now. I'm visiting with Alec Baldwin. He's a big star. Yes, he lives in New York. Just got married again, a young girl. They always pick him younger. Yeah, I'm might as that's one thing that hasn't changed. Yeah, then nothing has changed. I wanted to say I'd love to work with you one day. I'd love anytime. I'd love to work with you one day. If there's a movie and there's a partner of for you to play my crazy aunt, will you come in there? Would be fun to do the crazy ant or the street lady or anybody you like that. I like to do characters where I could faint. Debbie Reynolds's latest book is Unsinkable, and she has a huge collection of Hollywood memorabilia that you too can have a piece of. I'm selling an online. So if Debbie Reynolds, Debbie mill studio store dot com, Debbie Reynolds Studio store dot com, You're of wonderful things, I'm going to go buy something on there. Okay, Chaplin's Aunt, how about that? Coming up My next guest film historian Robert Osborne, who had this to say about Debbie Reynolds in the minute she came on the screen. It's a very young girl. She was so adorable, so bright, so comfortable on camera. But I think I admire the most about her, though, is her survival instincts. Even when she wasn't so popular anymore, She's stuck in there and she's still forged ahead and still kept this career going, and she truly is unsinkable. Film historian and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osbourne. After this, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The next film in our Oscar marathon saluting nominees and winners in the category of best Screenplay is one of the real biggias from that banner of film year of nineteen nine. It's Wuthering Heights from Robert Osborne has been hosting Turner Classic Movies for almost two decades. I was lucky enough to guest host the show with him for three of those years. Now, something you may not know about the Third Man is there were actually two versions of this film. No one knows more about movies than Robert. He's the master of the relevant anecdote. He serves as an ambassador to a bygone era that he's helped make more popular than ever. In Osbourne's own story, the players are legendary, the backdrop his epic, and the plot twists will make you say that could only happen in the movies. We opened in Colfax, Washington, just west of the Rockies, a world away from Hollywood. I grew up in a small town where I went to the movies a lot and fell in love with all these people also fell in love with the movie business, so all I saw were actors on the screen. So I thought, well, that's what I have to be if I want to be a part of the movie business. He headed to Los Angeles, where he met an agent who took him to Fox, where he signed a six month contract and was cast in a television show. The TV show finished and he went to the casting director to thank him for the work. The casting director suggested that he contact Lucille Ball's office. Lucy herself picked up the phone and invited him over. She said, let's watch your screen tests. Now, Lucy was somebody that the minute she wanted something, she did it. So when it was over, he didn't really say anything. She's just thanked me for coming by, and I thought, well, she wasn't that impressed, but at least I got to spend some time with Lucille Ball. Okay, like a week later, a message comes on my voice, Uh, you're answering. Absolutely answering service called Lucille Ball's office right away. Here's the number. Hello Lebray nine two, calling this answer phone. Yes, I called the number, and the second he said, well, Lucille Ball wants you to come to dinner on Friday night if you're available, and meet DESI. I thought, well, that's interesting. So I go to Lucy's house at Friday night. There's no Desi, but there's Lucy. There's Janet Gayner, there's Joseph Cotton, there's Kay Thompson, Chuck Walters, Charles Walters, the director Roger Eden's, and a couple of other people, and her sister Cleo who was actually her cousin but raised as her sister, and me. After the dinner and they were all chatting and laughing and all of that drinking. Not Lucy wasn't no drinker at that point. She she learned how to drink a little bit later on, but not at that point. So we went in the living room and where was the house on Roxbury right next door to Jack Benny exactly, and just down the street from Ira gersh one and around the corner from Cety. Map with you. So anyway, after dinner we went in the living room. She pushes the button and the painting goes up, puts an the button, the screen comes down, and I'm thinking, did you ever believe that you would ever be? And then I thought, no, wait a minute, I always knew I was going to be here. I remember that thought. I first started to say automatically, did you ever think God this and that was the beginning for you? Yeah? And I thought no, I always knew I was going to be with people like this. And I relaxed. Then I really relaxed as I thought, no, this is where you're supposed to people. Yeah, and do you when you love? This is where I'm supposed to be where? What movie do you remember? Funny Face, which was which was about three years old? That what? No, But what was great about it was there's a part in Funny Face when Kate Thompson and Andre Heppurn get up and do a number called on how to Be Lovely Together. Kay Thompson got up by the screen and did the numbers. So and it was, you know, fun watch the movie. The movie was over, everybody starts to go, so I think, well, I'm supposed to go to I still don't know quite why I'm here, and it certainly wasn't. Lucy was saying, you know, stay around a little boy or anything like that. Wasn't that. So we got to the front door. I was thanking Lucy for the evening. She said, well, have you signed the papers yet? And I said, put papers. I want you another contract. And I said, well, nobody's ever mentioned we're doing business, yes, you idiot, nobody's ever mentioned anything about a contract or anything. And she said give them the address tomorrow and signed the paper anyone, So I was under contract. Then Todesku didn't pay us much money at all, but it was like a masterclass for me. That's when I first met Bettie Davis. Bettie Davis came to l A in a play called The World of Carl Sandberg. So she took us to the play and then took us backstage afterwards to meet Betty Davis and Vivian Lee. Came a duel of angels, and so she went backstage and settled it vivianly. It took us with her. Anytime there was somebody like that, Noel Coward or Marlena Dietrich, she would take us there pick up the tabs because again she knew she wasn't paying enough money to keep for us to be able to do that. So we got this terrific education and she also now Desi at this point was womanizing. He wasn't around much. So she would get movies that we wanted to see her hadn't seen because they weren't that accessible in those days, and run them at her house. Or she would show us I love Lucy's show. She'd done bad ones and show us why they didn't work, then show us a good one and why it did work. She all. So, the first day any of us were in a contract there and we first met, she arrived, she's just gone to a bank and she got twelve savings accounts that she opened, put like fifty dollars in, and she gave us in each of our names, gave us the books, and she said, every week you have to put something away. And we were, as I say, making very little money, and say, Lucy, you know we don't barely enough to to live on. She said, it can be only five dollars, but every week put something away. You won't miss it. It'll add up. Very maternal, and she said, no matter what the thing you must do is have enough money that you don't have to make decisions based on money. For a kid from Colfax, Washington, this was just invaluable. I've been to college, but I never had these kind of life lessons. In the course of it, she meant, my folks, and she got to know me. She said to me early on, you can do this as an actor. But she said, and I think you could do well, but it's not gonna make you half babe. This is not the right line of work for you. And she said, you love old films, you love history, you love everything about the business. And you're a journalist and major in college. We have enough actors. You should write about movies. And the first thing you should do is write a book. She said. It doesn't even have to be a good book, but find a subject about the movies that nobody's done and write a book about it. And I said why, She said, if you write a book, it shows you have the discipline to sit down and do that. Yes, I did. What it was a book about the oscars? Is this the book right here? Oh my god? Yeah, academy words the listeners to know that stunned expression. Yes, indeed, a copy of the book. Yeah, and that is amazing. Yes, there he was. Do you think you clearly make a choice at this point in your life made for you well. The choice was kind of made for me because I was not getting parts like Night mus Fall that I love doing. And I did a soap opera for a couple of years called The Young Married's. I was always in a suit with the tie and with a briefcase, helping the plot along. But it wasn't interesting, and I wasn't interesting. Did a lot of commercials. I thought, you know, if this is the best I can do at this point, I gotta get out of this altogether, because I would look at a part and I think George Bopard could do this so much better than I can, or Tony Perkins would be great in this. He fell out of love. Yeah, and I was on stage struck an example. Instead, Robert decided to pursue a career as a writer in Hollywood, and he continued to land himself in right time, Right place situations. He interviewed actress Olivia to have aland, who later called on him to escort her to a tribute to Betty Davis. Being friendly with the Haviland led to an appearance on the Dinah Shore Show. There, he confronted a furious Shelly Winters about her false Academy award nomination to claim people took note that Robert Osborne knew his stuff. He met with Teach Wilkerson Miles, the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, but the interview fell flat. One day, an old friend who worked at the Reporter called. She had a plan to get him in, but Robert Osborne still had a day job and I said, well, I'm working in the box office of the Greek Theater. And she said, well, can you get off for this two week period? Thank Grant, who writes the main column Rambling Reporter, is staying in vacation and they've asked me to write the column for him. And she said, I'll tell them I will, and then at the last minute I'll tell him I can't for some reason. I'll recommend you do it. They'll have to get somebody to do it. This is your life story. Well, there's a lot of struggle in there beforehand, but once it started, it started going, it really started. But this is a great opportunity for you. Yeah, so I got called in. I had stories ready, I've been doing it for about three days. I'm gonna call from teaching Wilkerson Miles and she said, do you work for us? And I said, no, I don't, but I'm just coming in to help out. She said, would you like to work for us? And I said yes I would. She said, well, you've got a job. It's lu come up here now. So I showed up for work. She was not around. She was on some trip. The editors said, well, I don't have any room for you in here, so just kind of wander around and get to know the paper. When she comes back, we'll ask her what she plans for you to do. Just before she came back, Marjorie, who wrote a column called on Location where you go visit film sets for the paper. She got in a fight at the paper and she quit. And when she was going out the door, they said, what are we gonna do your columns? Do you have to have a column for tomorrow? She said, have Osborne do it. He's not doing any anything around. Isn't it amazing how people who don't know these kinds of businesses, like the newspaper business, how it's really true? How do you become the drama critic? Yeah, you're writing the gardening column and the drama critic drops dead at his typewriter, and like Osborne get over here and and so that's exactly what's right here. So all of a sudden, I wasn't writing for the in the editorial department. I had a column. How do you feel about that? I loved it, except I don't think I was very good at it because I'll tell you what, it really is supposed to be a gossip column, or at least have inside dirt. And I never felt comfortable intruding upon people to want to keep a secret, because I think secrets are important to have. You're very discreet. I've been around you many, many hours, and you're never seen. So there's a story that so and so to me, and you never get into that, and so that was problematic for you, and writing that it's like, you know, it's it's so. I'd worked for during one period during for a PR firm, and for a while Rock Hudson was a client of ours, so I knew him well, and so I knew when he got AIDS that he had AIDS, but I would not write about that. At that time, I was also doing the evening news because all TV stations at one point had entertainment reporters. The Lady Who a wonderful lady, Marsha Brandwyn, who was the kind of news head there, and I got in a big argument that she knew I knew about Rock Hudson, and she said You've got to go on the air with that, and I said, no, he doesn't want that. Know, this is a very sick man. I said, if it was the president that affects all of us in this country, he's an actor. So I wasn't that good at that. I mean, I think I wrote a lively column and an interesting one. How long did you write the column for Oh Boy? For about twenty years? So you're doing the Reporter. It's twenty years at the Reporter? And then okay. Then the CBS morning program in New York asked me if I do entertainment reports at night in Los Angeles that could be put on the air on a new CBS morning program and the next day. I'd always wanted to live in New York, so I said, what if I did them live in New York. The minute I got to New York, I thought, I can't ever go back. What about New York? Appealed to some more serious to know. Every time I was in New York, I felt alive. I saw people reading books and I saw there was so much activity going on. Yes, and it was also cars, and you only you had to drive to get anywhere on the New York. You're on the street, you run into somebody and you go have a drink with them. I mean, I loved all that. That's when Dorothy Lamore came to town and she said, look, they're honoring Jimmy Stewart. I'm gonna come back for two days. Why don't you take me to the Jimmy Stewart Thing. I have the tickets and everything, and then we'll finally have that dinner the next night. So I said, where would you like to have the dinner and she said, well at one when I was a star. That's about the only place that's still in New York. That was around when when I used to come to New York. So I took out the Jimmy Stewart thing and that night she said, look, I got a problem. I'm doing some promotional work for AMC, and the people at AMC want to take me to dinner. And the only night I can do it is the night we were going to go to twenty one? Would you mind if very nice guy Brad Siegel and a publicity guy with him, Jim Weiss, if they joined us, and I said no, not at all. And we all just sat around and at her favorite table and we talked and told stories and all of that. And soon after Brad called me and he said, you know a lot about movies and I said, yeah, I guess I do. And he said, well, we're going to get rid of our afternoon guy at AMC. I'd love you to come and be the afternoon guy. This was a big deal and I thought it's perfect for me. Everything was negotiations were underway. All of a sudden he called. He said, I'm I'm not going to be here. I'm leaving. I'm gonna go work for Ted Turner in Atlanta. And I was really disappointed because I like Brad's siegal a lot. And uh. A couple of months went by and then he called and he said, Hey, have you signed with the AMC thing yet? And I thought he was badgering me to and I said no, no, but I got the papers all do He said, well don't. Ted's gonna start his own movie channel and I want you to be the head guy. He said, I just want to tell you if you come with TCM, you'll start with only six million viewers. If you go with am C, you'll have sixty million. If you come with t c M, you're gonna have to come to Atlanta at least once a month. If you go with a m C, you can work in New York. But the library, he said, if you come with t c M, you're gonna have the MGM Library, the Archaeo Library, the Warner Brothers Library, and all of that. And so there was really no choice. They launched TCM. You as of that vehicle. Now, I want to go back to something you said, which is that you saw that film business had changed, and you were in those rooms with those people and you were their friend, and then realism came. What was a movie you saw at that period that you said to myself, my god, the movies have changed. Well, Easy Rider. I happen to be in London, a place I never went to very often, but I happened to be at the Royal Court Theater. In the row in front of me was Dennis Hopper, who had just come back from I believe the can Film Festival where they showed Easy Rider and it won some award, or maybe it was the Venice film test whatever, and they were talking about it, and I thought the way the papers were writing about that, I thought, this is something very strange that that movie about a couple of motorcycle guys on cycles and no stoking, a lot of grass stories and no plot. You know, this is this is really a seminal change. I think that was a big turning. Do you think that the Vietnam War was responsible for that change? I think I think Kennedy being assassinated changing has changed the world. That shot changed everything about America and made a cynical and made people discontent angry. You know, for me, when I was young, there was a man who when you saw this man on TV, he was the movie business, and that was Walt Disney. And to me, you are the Walt Disney of your generation. You come on TV and right away people because you have become so synonymous. I mean, people just love you, they love your show, and you mean the movie business. To do you sense that when you're out of the street with people. I get a sense of that, but I honestly don't see it. Who do you think you're talking to when you talk to the camera when you do the three people? I talked to my aunt who lives on a farm who loves old movies but doesn't know much about him. I can't say Berta Lucci without explaining that he's a director. I also talked to a guy that is now a young man, but he was in his early twenties worked for the Hollywood Reporter. That called me one time and said, you know, I just saw this great movie the other night. I was wondering if the lady in it made any of the movies. I'd like to see some of those movies. And I said, well, what's that was the movie? Said I didn't get the name of it. Well, who's the actors? I don't know what her name was. Will describe the movie to me. He described it and it was gilded with three to Hayworth. He's interested in movies. He wants to learn about movies and all of that. And I'm also talking to a friend of mine who died recently, called Robert Rosterman in Chicago, who knows as much about movies as any of us know. And he worked for years as a booker for twenty century Fox. Kind yeah, but he was a dedicated movie fan. But I want to say something in each introduction, that's also going to be news to him. So I tried to gear it for those three people, my aunt and my friend John and Robert Rostherin to cover all basses. Robert Osborne is eight one. Last year, I went to a book party for Keith Richards. I found myself seated directly opposite Richards and his wife, Patty Hanson. The long story short as Patty Hanson says, we just so love you, Alec, we love you on that TV show, and I thought, oh good God, to go. Patty Hanson to Keith Richards, don't watch thirty Rock. This is preposterous. She's just being so polite, and she says, what's that show? She says, it's Keith, that show we watch every week. We watched and Keith Richards looks at the Eagles. We watch you on turn a Classic Movies Man every weekend. It was so fantastic. We love that show. And I thought Osbourne has staged me again. M take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations with artists, performers, and policymakers like Martin Horn, former head of New York City's Department of Corrections and Probation. I would legalize drugs across the board. You would really legalize which draft all of them? You would legalize all drugs. Yes, that's a pretty well stunned well, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that while I worked for a governor or a mayor. Learn more about the impact of the drug war from Martin Horn and David Simon of The Wire and Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Boutine and Kathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon Mashehe and Louekowski. Thanks to Larry Josephson and the Radio O Foundation. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Oh,