The story of Debbie Reynolds’ troubled relationship with daughter, Carrie Fisher

A SAD childhood, a bitter falling out and a 10-year estrangement — this is the story behind Debbie Reynolds’ troubled relationship with her daughter.

Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds died just a day after her actress-writer daughter Carrie Fisher. Picture: Getty Images

THE mother-daughter relationship between Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher was like the script to a tragic blockbuster film.

There was the glamorous icon of Hollywood’s golden era, her bookworm daughter who had no interest in the limelight, their fractured relationship and a decade-long estrangement.

Unlike some bleak art house movie, this tale had a happy ending — eventually.

Growing up, Fisher’s life revolved around her star mother and pop singer father Eddie Fisher, whose obsessions with their respective careers meant the youngster often slipped down the list of priorities.

“The family is organised with the parents raising the child normally,” Fisher once said of her childhood.

“Mine was organised around the parents.”

Later in life, Carrie Fisher spoke candidly about her difficult relationship with her famous mother Debbie Reynolds. Picture: Getty Images

That emotionally neglected girl grew into a troubled teen, who slipped into the grips of Tinseltown’s dark side — parties, drugs, and her first stint in rehabilitation clinic by her early 20s.

Her father was absent, after leaving Reynolds for her best friend Elizabeth Taylor.

Her mother did her best to juggle the dimming of her own star with the escalating needs of her daughter.

Eventually, Fisher and Reynolds fell out and barely spoke for more than a decade.

“We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s,” Fisher told Oprah Winfrey in a 2011 interview.

DEBBIE FORESHADOWS DEATH AFTER CARRIE

“I didn’t want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter.”

Perhaps it was that need to carve her own path, to be known as something more than the offspring of two famous people, that pushed Fisher into acting.

It was a place she never aspired to be — she saw only sadness in fame.

“The scary thing about (fame) is watching celebrity fade,” Fisher told Winfrey.

“You’re part of their audience. Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time, eventually all fame will disappear, and I watched it happen (to Reynolds).

“I never wanted to go into show business. I watched that world be heartbreaking.”

But her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars in 1977 propelled her into notoriety in her own right.

Carrie Fisher says she never wanted to go into acting and had only seen sadness in fame, thanks to her parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Picture: Lucasfilm

She continued to struggle with addiction over the years, as well as bipolar disorder, and it wasn’t until her 30s that Fisher’s rift with her mother was finally healed.

“It took like 30 years for Carrie to be really happy with me,” Reynolds told People Magazine.

“I don’t know what the problem ever was. I’ve had to work at it. I’ve always been a good mother, but I’ve always been in show business, and I’ve been on stage and I don’t bake cookies and I don’t stay home.”

Being apart left scars for both mother and daughter, they said in the years that followed, and for Reynolds, being “estranged” from her own daughter for so long was her life’s regret.

“That was the most difficult time of all. Very painful, very heartbreaking,” she told People.

Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher eventually reconciled and remained close until their deaths, a day apart. Picture: AP

In an interview in May this year, Fisher opened up about her mother’s health battles after a screening of their upcoming documentary Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

“It’s a lot of times terrifying watching my mother, who’s incredibly resilient, coping with certain health issues that she’s had,” Fisher told People magazine.

“We were really lucky ... we got really what probably could be her last (big project).”

Despite Reynolds’ ailing health, she was determined to keep working for as long as she could, her daughter said.

“It’s the thing that gives her life, but it was also pulling it out of her, because she’d perform and then she’d have to recover. But this is someone who wants to go back and do it now.”

Like all good epics, their story had a happy ending. Five years ago, during their rare interview together, they reflected with Winfrey on where their relationship had settled.

“I believe my mother knows now that I take her advice and I follow her example, that I respect who she is. If I’m like her in any way, I’m very happy that I am.”

The proud mother praised her daughter’s “strength in survival” during the Winfrey interview.

“I admire that she is alive, that she has chosen to make it. It would’ve been easy to give up and give in, and keep doing drugs.

“I always feel, as a mother does, that I protect her. Who will do that when I’m gone?”

In the end, she never had to find out.

Debbie Reynolds died today aged 84 after suffering a stroke, reportedly while planning her daughter’s funeral, 24 hours after she died following a heart attack, aged 60.

Originally published as The story of Debbie Reynolds’ troubled relationship with daughter, Carrie Fisher