What’s My Line? Mystery Guest: Debbie Reynolds

You have to go quite a long way back for a question like, “Have you ever appeared in a Technicolor picture?” to be a relevant fact-finder. Here, we go back to 1954, a year before Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher were married, with Fisher making a surprise appearance at the end of the round.

There’s no way in hell Arlene Francis was not prompted in some way by the producers to inquire about whether or not Eddie was backstage, am I right? It was only a few years later that Debbie and Eddie along with Liz Taylor became the Jennifer, Brad and Angelina of their day – the world’s most scandalous love triangle. Debbie divorced Eddie in 1959, and married two more times after that. Fisher and Taylor married the same year and divorced in 1964. He went on to marry three more times, and you have to wonder who’s the brave soul willing to be a man’s fifth wife! But of all of them, his last marriage to Bride #5, Betty Lin lasted the longest, up until her death in 2001.

Here’s an interesting bit of Debbie Reynolds trivia I didn’t know about: She starred on TV’s The Debbie Reynolds Show in the 1969-70 television season, playing Debbie Thompson, a woman married to a sportswriter who is constantly trying to get herself a job on his paper. If the scenario sounds a bit like I Love Lucy, it isn’t a coincidence. both were co-created by Jess Oppenheimer. Based on what there is of The Debbie Reynolds Show online, Jess had much better success creatively the first time around. The show’s demise was further sealed by Debbie’s refusal to allow cigarette companies to advertise on her show, long before it became fashionable to do so. Check her out in a much more engaging fashion here, and note that she breaks off her necklace at 3:26.