Actress, longtime Las Vegas performer Debbie Reynolds dies 1 day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher

Debbie Reynolds, an Oscar-nominated actress, Broadway star and longtime Las Vegas performer and former hotel owner, died Wednesday at age 84.

Her death came a day after her daughter, “Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher, died at age 60.

“She’s now with Carrie and we’re all heartbroken,” her son, Todd Fisher, told The Associated Press.

Speaking from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where his mother was taken by ambulance earlier Wednesday, he said the stress of his sister’s death on Tuesday “was too much” for Reynolds.

“She said, ‘I want to be with Carrie,’” Todd Fisher said. “And then she was gone.”

Reynolds’ Las Vegas career spanned from at least 1962 through 2013. In later decades, she had an especially strong connection with Las Vegas locals, who supported her shows at off-Strip casinos The Orleans, Suncoast, Rampart Casino and South Point.

For a time, Reynolds owned a Las Vegas casino. In October 1992, Reynolds bought a 193-room hotel at 205 Convention Center Drive at auction for $10 million and branded it the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel. Her son Todd Fisher helped outfit the 350-seat showroom and walk-through museum., which culminated in a video about classic Hollywood in a 100-seat theater.

The museum included some of the 4,000-pieces of memorabilia Reynolds bought at auction from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s collection, which included sets from Oscar-winning films and actor-worn costumes.

Reynolds would sometimes meet guests on property, hanging out for the lounge revue “Jazz & Jokes.”

“Debbie’s got 40 years in showrooms,” production manager Joe Bianchi noted when the Debbie Reynolds’ Hollywood Hotel opened in 1993. “This is the ambience she wanted.”

Reynolds’ hotel ran into financial trouble during her ownership, a victim of its off-Strip location and possibly for lagging Reynolds’ prime popularity by years. She filed for bankruptcy protection in July 1997. The World Wrestling Federation bought the hotel for $10.65 million in a bankruptcy proceeding in August 1998.

The property, also known as the Royal Americana, Paddlewheel, Greek Isles, and the Clarion during its 44-year history, closed Sept. 1, 2014, and was imploded in February 2015.

According to Review-Journal clippings, Reynolds performed for 18 years at the Desert Inn. A 1972 Review-Journal story noted that an audience for a Reynolds performance set the attendance record at the Desert Inn’s Crystal Room.

Through the Desert Inn, Reynolds found her way into Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Thompson wrote of catching Reynolds and Harry James there, only to be tossed out for laughing as Reynolds “yukked across the stage in a silver Afro wig … to the tune of ‘Sergeant Pepper’ from the golden trumpet of Harry James.”

The fictionalized memoir was anchored in the truth of Reynolds playing the Desert Inn during the Mint 400 in March 1971. Reynolds would play herself in the 1998 movie version of “Fear and Loathing.”

In November 2014, Reynolds performed with her daughter, Carrie Fisher, her son, Todd Fisher and her granddaughter Billie Lourd at the South Point.

Las Vegas performer Wayne Newton remembered Reynolds fondly Wednesday. He and his wife, Kathleen, were friends with Todd Fisher and his wife, Catherine, who had a home in Las Vegas. Newton recalled that Todd had hung his mother’s framed movie posters throughout the house.

“The world has lost not only an incredible talent who spent her life bringing happiness to others but also a quintessential lady who I will personally miss,” Newton said. “The only solace is that she is with Carrie.” 

Reynolds also was remembered by comedian and film star Jerry Lewis. She performed on several Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethons, and also appeared with Lewis and Dean Martin on the radio program “The Martin & Lewis Show” in the early 1950s.

“She was what I would call a ‘high-button shoe,’ which means she was up and out, and all over the joint, all the time,” Lewis said Wednesday night. “She was a great entertainer, a natural who could do so many things onstage. She made everything you did better just by being with her. She was a great performer and a great dame, too.”

Lewis continued: “It’s a shocker … It’s just very difficult to talk about somebody you have known that long and they are gone. It’s very difficult, very sad, and it hurts my heart.”

Mary Francis Reynolds was born April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas. Her family soon after moved to Burbank, California. At age 16, she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest, leading to her first contract with Warner Bros. and her Debbie Reynolds screen name. Biography.com said Reynolds entered the beauty contest for the prizes — a chance at a silk scarf, a blouse, and a free lunch.

Reynolds found superstardom early. After two minor roles at Warner Bros. and three supporting roles at MGM, studio boss Louis B. Mayer cast her in “Singin’ in the Rain,” over the objections of star Gene Kelly. She was 19 — the same age Carrie Fisher was when she started work on “Star Wars.”

“Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be,” Reynolds told The Associated Press in 1999. “I had to learn everything in three to six months. (Co-star) Donald O’Connor had been dancing since he was three months old, Gene Kelly since he was 2 years old.”

Reynolds earned her lone Oscar nomination for her role in the 1964 Meredith Willson musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1973 for starring in the Broadway revival of “Irene,” in which Carrie Fisher also appeared.

In 1955, Reynolds married singer Eddie Fisher. The union produced Carrie Fisher and Todd Fisher, who was named for Eddie’s friend, the showman Mike Todd. Todd died in a 1958 airplane crash. Fisher consoled Todd’s widow, Elizabeth Taylor, whom he later left Reynolds to marry.

Reynolds had a No. 1 hit on the pop charts in 1957 with “Tammy,” the Oscar-nominated song from her film “Tammy and the Bachelor.”

Meanwhile, Reynolds’ film career flourished. She starred with Glenn Ford in “The Gazebo,” Tony Curtis in “The Rat Race,” Fred Astaire in “The Pleasure of His Company,” Andy Griffith in “The Second Time Around,” with the all-star cast in “How the West Was Won,” and Ricardo Montalban in “The Singing Nun.”

Reynolds married twice more, wedding shoe magnate Harry Karl in 1960 and Virginia real estate magnate Richard Hamlett in 1984. Reynolds married to Karl ended in 1973 when she discovered that Karl, a compulsive gambler, had devastated her assets.

In 2013, Reynolds told former Review-Journal columnist Doug Elfman about getting around Las Vegas and seeing Elton John perform. She also shared memories of traveling with Las Vegas star Liberace.

“I have all happy memories of fun, and the days when you could get on the plane without being shot at. Liberace and I, we used to travel together, and we would walk right up the ramp with a bottle of champagne, having a wonderful time. Things are different now.”

In 2013, in her last role, Reynolds played Liberace’s mother in the Home Box Office movie “Behind the Candelabra.” She received the 2014 Screen Actors Guild life achievement award.

Tribute artist Stephen Sorrentino, best known for his impression of Elton John, worked with Reynolds on and off the stage for four years beginning in 2010. While performing in “Legends in Concert” at Harrah’s, Sorrentino received a call from Todd Fisher, who said he had an opportunity for a plum opening-act role but offered no details. At first, Sorrentino declined.

But Reynolds called Sorrentino, saying she expected him to be at the Riverside in Laughlin at 4:30 the following afternoon.

“I kept saying, ‘I can’t — I already have work,’ ” Sorrentino said. “And she goes, ‘You keep saying that. I’ll see you tomorrow at 4:30.’ She had me.”

Sorrentino showed up for that day and many others. He opened for Reynolds, performing not in any character but as himself, through the end of 2014.

“She would make sandwiches for the crew and bring them onto her private plane,” Sorrentino said. “Everyone had to have a sandwich. If you were vegetarian, you got a veggie sandwich … that’s how she was. I loved her like a mother, I really did. Being friends with her was the greatest honor of my career.”

Impressionist Rich Little, who headlines at the Tropicana’s Laugh Factory, met Reynolds in the 1970s. They appeared together on popular talk shows, including “The Mike Douglas Show,” “The Merv Griffin Show” and “The Tonight Show.”

“What a talent she was, my God. She could do everything,” Little said Wednesday. “She was a great comedian, a great singer, a great dancer and actress. She was beloved by everybody, too. … She was one of the best pure entertainers we have had.”

In 2013, Reynolds told Elfman that she performed for applause, not plaudits. She said didn’t think she’d ever win a lifetime achievement Oscar and didn’t care.

“That doesn’t matter to me. I’m not in the business to receive awards. I get my reward from having an audience there, and that care enough to come out of their house and leave TV for a minute and come and share a moment.

“I have enough plaques and awards, honestly. I’m in the business strictly because I love it. It’s fun. It’s really wonderful onstage.”

Reynolds won an honorary Oscar after all. In 2015, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, but was too ill to attend the ceremony. Lourd accepted the statuette in her honor.

Review-Journal staff writer Mike Weatherford and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Contact Matthew Crowley at mcrowley@reviewjournal.com. Follow @copyjockey on Twitter. Contact John Katsilometes at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.