Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds, who personified celebrity life in Hollywood’s Golden Age through roles in classics like “Singin’ in the Rain” on screen and a paparazzi-feeding family life off-screen, died Wednesday after having a stroke. She was 84 years old.

Ms. Reynolds died a day after her daughter, “Star Wars” actress and author Carrie Fisher, died at age 60 following cardiac arrest on a flight traveling from London to Los Angeles.

“She’s now with Carrie and we’re all heartbroken,” her son, Todd Fisher, told the Associated Press from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where his mother was taken by ambulance earlier Wednesday.

The stress of his sister’s death “was too much” for Ms. Reynolds, Mr. Fisher said.

Ms. Reynolds shot to stardom almost immediately after entering the Hollywood studio system of the 1950s. Her first leading role came in 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain” as Kathy Selden, a voice dubber who becomes a star as the film industry transitioned to talkies.

In 1957, she starred in “Tammy and the Bachelor” and recorded a song for the film, “Tammy,” that was a bestseller that hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. She received an Academy Award nomination for best actress of “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” in 1964. Her other film credits include “The Catered Affair,” “How the West Was Won,” “Mother” and “In & Out.”

Ms. Reynolds became an embodiment of mid-century Hollywood, where studios controlled the image of stars on screen and off. Born in El Paso, Texas, as Mary Frances Reynolds, she became “Debbie” when she signed with Warner Bros., a perpetually fresh-faced and all-American woman often appearing in several features a year.

That control was tested in 1959, when Ms. Reynolds’ husband, singer Eddie Fisher, left her and two small children for Elizabeth Taylor. Ms. Reynolds and Mr. Fisher had been best friends with Ms. Taylor and her recently deceased husband, producer Mike Todd. (Ms. Reynolds had been the matron of honor at their wedding.)

The affair and subsequent divorce became one of the signature celebrity scandals of 20th century Hollywood, and solidified a paparazzi playbook that took more interest in stars’ personal lives than in their careers. Ms. Reynolds took on a new role: the beautiful single mother left with two children to raise in Beverly Hills.

If Debbie Reynolds stood for Hollywood poise under pressure, her daughter represented a total rebuke of polished control. When her mother moved her to New York to star alongside her in the Broadway revival “Irene,” Ms. Fisher didn’t pretend it was some teenage dream come true. She later joked it must be because “chorus work is more valuable to a child than any education could ever be.”

“I grew up knowing I had the prettiest mother of anyone in my class, as long as I was in class,” she wrote in her 2008 memoir, “Wishful Drinking.” Ms. Fisher routinely described her mother as a doting, eccentric matriarch and would draw on her relationship in the 1987 semi-autobiographical novel “Postcards from the Edge,” which was later adapted into a movie starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep.

Debbie Reynolds received a Tony Award nomination for best actress for “Irene” in 1973. She made numerous guest appearances on television shows and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on “Will & Grace.” She recently starred as Liberace’s mother in the HBO movie, “Behind the Candelabra.”

Debbie Reynolds married twice following her divorce from Mr. Fisher, to shoe businessman Harry Karl and real-estate developer Richard Hamlett. She is survived by her son, Todd, and a granddaughter, actress Billie Lourd.