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It seems to happen too often: at the tail-end of the year, after many of the retrospectives are complete, we lose a major personality. In this year, when several icons were lost at a relatively young age, it’s particularly poignant. Even more so, because it was mother and daughter.

I’m still feeling the shock of Carrie Fisher’s death, and now I’ve learned Debbie Reynolds passed away late yesterday. Carrie, as most of you know, was Debbie’s daughter with crooner Eddie Fisher. She never lived in her mother’s shadow, however. Her light was too bright.

Carrie was remarkably talented and equally outspoken. She had plenty of pain in her life, but never stopped moving forward, reinventing herself when necessary. As so many have noted, she was best known as Princess Leia in Star Wars, but her work didn’t stop with that character. In my life, I remember her more for her role in When Harry Met Sally… as Sally’s conflicted best friend with the peerless advice who later falls for and marries Harry’s best friend, Jess.

Her books were funny, wise and brutally honest. Like many writers, she wrote what she was feeling at that moment, and when she later moved past those beliefs, was perhaps a bit startled to be confronted by her own words in an interview. Her blunt yet thoughtful responses are a tribute to a mind that never stopped spinning, never stopped growing.

Like another great actress we lost earlier this year, Patty Duke, Carrie dealt with bipolar disorder. Her work and words on behalf of the multitudes of others who face this disease brought understanding and compassion.

Debbie Reynolds played the sweetheart role effectively, yet she was as feisty and straightforward as her daughter, hardly the demure, sweet girl many saw on the screen. She could be bawdy and raucous, but she remained gracious. And she could tell a story.

I remember seeing her in an interview once years ago, speaking about her role in Singing in the Rain. Apparently one of the first scenes they shot was of Gene Kelly giving her a passionate kiss, and passionate it was. It was her first french kiss, and she pulled away from her acclaimed co-star, gagging and coughing and demanding some 7-Up. Kelly wasn’t used to this sort of reaction from women, and remained offended for a short time — but got over it.

She endured a scandalous divorce when Eddie Fisher left her for Elizabeth Taylor (imagine the pain of that!), yet in later interviews said she understood his reasons for leaving and had moved on from that challenge in her life. In fact, she rekindled her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor years later and the two remained close until the latter actress’s death.

The reason for her understanding? She told Vanity Fair she wasn’t a very sexual woman, preferring instead to raise her children. That can be a painful truth to admit, yet her candidness was very much in character with the way she lived the rest of her life.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of these two women. Christmas will never be the same for them.

 

Most of you know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge — the miserly old man who hates Christmas, until he’s visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future and has an incredible change of heart. This Dickens story has been brought to the screen countless times, including the 1970 musical “Scrooge,” starring Albert Finney, which features this charming, upbeat song at the end of the tale.

Thank you very much, all my followers, visitors, friends and family who have visited this site this year. Thank you for your kind comments, likes and insight into the topics I’ve covered. Thank you for your own blog posts, which have inspired and moved me, made me laugh and at times made me cry.

I celebrate Christmas, and to those of you who share in the joy of this season, Merry Christmas. For those who celebrate other holidays, Happy Holidays to you, as well.

God bless us, everyone.

Over the years I’ve owned thousands of books, so many that if I still owned all of them I could start a small library. I’ve kept a few precious books from childhood, including The Wind in The Willows (from which I would, as a child, frequently quote a poem by Ratty [“Duck’s Ditty”]), some picture books, and a volume of The Complete Poetry of Robert Frost.

There’s also On City Streets, a slim, quality paperback of poems about urban life by poets such as Langston Hughes. Based on the copyright date, my parents gave that to me when I was about nine or ten. It intrigues me that they saw a healthy interest in me about other cultures here in our own country, worlds outside of my white suburban home.

I kept few of the dozens , if not hundreds, of books I collected as a teenager, except my 40th anniversary edition of Gone With the Wind, a favorite of mine and surprisingly, many of my friends as well, who generally leaned to more contemporary literature. Of course I owned a copy of Go Ask Alice, well-worn and clandestinely loaned to some of my friends whose parents wouldn’t let them read it. You can still find Go Ask Alice, and the cover is identical to the book I bought more than 40 years ago.

As an adult, I’ve donated then re-purchased several books, including To Kill a Mockingbird and Rebecca.  I save very few, but still have The Portable Dorothy Parker (such wonderful short stories!) and several of Anne Tyler’s novels (I keep watch out at the nearby used book store for hardcover  editions of Breathing Lessons or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.) Many of the books I buy today I forward to my mom after I’ve finished reading them. In fact, I frequently scour that same used book store for something I think she’d like. She’s always looking for a good book.

I think of stories long out of print that had an impact on me, such as Garson Kanin’s A Thousand Summers. I wonder if I’d find it just as engrossing today.

I wouldn’t have room for all the books I’ve owned over the years, and perhaps it would be selfish to hang on to them anyway, when so many others could be enjoying them. Still, I’d like the opportunity to peruse that “library” and pick out a few to keep today.

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Panoply