‘Mother’ Superior Debbie Reynolds Makes An Oscar-Worthy Comeback In Albert Brooks’ New Comedy

Debbie Reynolds truly is unsinkable, and she will prove it when she bobs to the surface again in the Albert Brooks comedy “Mother.”

The film, which opened a limited run Christmas Day and will hit most theaters Friday, stars Brooks as a neurotic science-fiction writer who decides to move back in with his mother. After two divorces, he concludes that he must mend his relationship with his mother if he is ever going to make it work with other women. Having a satisfying life of her own, his mother is not happy about the return of her adult son.

Reynolds’ performance, which some critics are already mentioning as a possible Oscar contender, re-establishes the actress’ star power a full 25 years after her last starring role.

“I am so shocked that I can’t tell you,” a still flabbergasted Reynolds said in her Los Angeles hotel suite. “I had already given up on my film career and figured I would be performing in Las Vegas the rest of my life.”

In fact, she still performs 44 weeks a year at the Debbie Reynolds Casino and Hollywood Movie Museum, but that could change with the sensational reviews she is receiving for “Mother.” She already has signed to appear in Kevin Kline’s next film.

Reynolds, 64, got the “Mother” role with the help of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, who has been a friend of Brooks’ since childhood.

“One night, Carrie called me and told me that Albert had this new movie and that he was considering a lot of women (former first lady Nancy Reagan is reported to have been one of them), and that she thought I should meet with him,” Reynolds said.

“Well, I met with him and did a scene, and he told me I had the job. I asked him where the producer was and all the other people who had a say in making the decision, and he told me that he was the director and producer and he made all the decisions.

“This really threw me for a loop,” she added. “I hadn’t planned to be a movie actress again.”

Reynolds’ career has been a series of unplanned adventures, starting with the Miss Burbank contest when she was 16.

Her family had moved to Burbank from El Paso, Texas, when she was 7. Except for a talent for mimicry - she kept the family in stitches with impersonations of relatives - little Mary Francis Reynolds showed no early interest in show business. She insists that the only reason she entered the competition was for the free scarf and blouse given to all contestants.

“I wore my bathing suit with bare feet because I didn’t have high heels that fit, and I did an imitation of Betty Hutton for my talent,” she said. “I really didn’t think there was any chance I’d win.

“Besides, I didn’t care about winning because the winner got a studio audition, and I didn’t want that. We were poor and there was no greater achievement than to have a steady job as a teacher, and I always wanted to be a gym teacher.”

The gym teacher wanna-be had to settle for Hollywood, because the contest judges, talent scouts for Warner Bros. and MGM, went crazy for the cute, perky little performer and had to flip a coin to determine who would sign her. Warners won the coin flip and Reynolds - with her new first name - made her debut in a small role in “June Bride.”

Four years and five films after that 1948 debut, the young actress became an overnight sensation when she held her own with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in the hit musical “Singin’ in the Rain.” She would remain a popular star under the old studio system, until her most famous role, her Oscar-nominated turn as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” in 1964. She later was nominated for a Tony for the 1973 Broadway revival of “Irene.”

As famous as she was as a movie star, Reynolds was almost as well-known for her personal calamities, most of which resulted from her marriages to the wrong men.

In 1955, when she was 22, she met Eddie Fisher on the set of “Hit the Deck” and quickly married the popular crooner, having two children - Carrie and Todd - in the process. Their breakup, by way of his celebrated affair with Liz Taylor, was one of the most written-about scandals in Hollywood history. The breakup devastated Reynolds.

She married shoe tycoon Harry Carl, but he had a series of business setbacks and, without Reynolds’ knowledge, squandered her entire $15 million fortune.

“What many people don’t know is that in addition to the $15 million, he left me $2 million in debt, and it took me 10 years to clear the books.” Six months ago, she divorced her third husband, Richard Hamlett, whom she married 12 years ago.

“If I knew why I picked these kinds of men, I wouldn’t do it,” she said with a shrug. “All I know is that I’m not getting married again.”

Through it all, she says, she believes that she was a good mother to her two children, which is probably why Brooks cast her in the part.

“He wanted me to be low-key and very real, and I think I’ve always been that kind of mother. The only difference is that the mother in the script gave up her career for her children and I didn’t. But I spent a lot of time with them, even when I was working.

“The funny thing is that Albert’s real mother is nothing like how he wanted me to play his mother. She came on the set the last day of shooting and started asking him questions about why he was doing this and why he was doing that.

“She was questioning his directing and he was so nervous, he was like a 2-year-old kid. I think he almost had a breakdown right there. I was laughing through the whole thing, of course, and just wished she had visited the set earlier so that I could have picked up some pointers.”