• Home
    • About Hollywood Yesterday
      • Privacy
    • Old Hollywood Book Reviews
      • Audrey Hepburn in Words and Pictures
      • Ball of Fire (Lucille Ball)
      • I Know Where I’m Going (Katharine Hepburn)
      • In Such Good Company (Carol Burnett)
      • Joan Crawford A Talent for Living
      • Unsinkable (Debbie Reynolds)
    • Contact Joi (“Joy”)
    • Quotes from Old Hollywood’s Stars
  • Actresses
    • Agnes Moorehead
    • Angie Dickinson
    • Ann Miller
    • Audrey Hepburn
      • Audrey Hepburn Quotes
      • Breakfast at Tiffany’s
      • My Fair Lady
    • Ava Gardner
      • Ava Gardner Quotes
    • Barbara Stanwyck
      • Barbara Stanwyck Quotes
    • Betty Grable
    • Carole Lombard
    • Debbie Reynolds
    • Doris Day
    • Dorothy Dandridge
    • Elizabeth Taylor
      • Elizabeth Taylor Quotes
    • Fay Wray
    • Georgia Hale
    • Ginger Rogers
    • Glenda Farrell
    • Gloria Grahame
    • Grace Kelly
    • Greta Garbo
    • Hattie McDaniel
      • Hattie McDaniel Facts
      • Hattie McDaniel Quotes
    • Helen Hayes
    • Ingrid Bergman
    • Jayne Mansfield
    • Judy Garland
    • Katharine Hepburn
      • Katharine Hepburn Quotes
      • Katharine Hepburn: What’s Not to Love?
    • Lana Turner
    • Lauren Bacall
      • Lauren Bacall Facts & Trivia
      • Lauren Bacall Quotes
    • Lucille Ball
      • I Love Lucy
      • Lucille Ball Quotes
    • Marilyn Monroe
    • Maureen O’Hara
    • Marion Davies
    • Mary Pickford
    • Mildred Davis
    • Mitzi Gaynor
    • Olivia de Havilland
    • Rita Hayworth
    • Shirley Temple
    • Vera-Ellen
    • Veronica Lake
    • Vivien Leigh
  • Actors
    • Abbott and Costello
    • Barry Fitzgerald
    • Bob Hope
    • Boris Karloff
    • Buster Keaton
    • Cary Grant
    • Charlie Chaplin
    • Clark Gable
    • Dean Martin
    • Desi Arnaz
    • Dick Powell
    • Edward G. Robinson
    • Elvis Presley
    • Frank Sinatra
    • Fred Astaire
    • Gene Kelly
    • George Sanders
    • Glenn Ford
    • Harold Lloyd
    • Humphrey Bogart
    • James Dean
    • Jerry Lewis
    • James Stewart
    • John Wayne
    • Laurel and Hardy
    • Ray Milland
  • Movie Reviews
    • Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
    • Critic’s Choice
    • El Dorado
    • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
    • Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein
    • Gilda
    • Grand Hotel
    • Lured
    • Rio Bravo
    • Sanctuary (1961)
    • Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
    • The Bat
    • The Haunted Castle (Silent)
    • The Major and the Minor
    • The Naked Spur
    • The Prince and The Showgirl
    • The Stooge
    • The Little Princess
    • The Quiet Man
    • The Violent Men
    • The White Sister
    • Top Hat
    • We’re in the Money

Hollywood Yesterday

Old Hollywood: Movies, Actresses, and Actors

You are here: Home / Debbie Reynolds / Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds (Review)

Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds (Review)

August 7, 2018 By Joi

Unsinkable by Debbie Reynolds

Buy Unsinkable on Amazon

I have always loved Debbie Reynolds – she was adorable (every single day of her life), a wonderful actress, great singer and dancer, and all around…. well… lovable. How anyone could ever conceivably claim to not like her would worry me.

After all, how could you not like Debbie Reynolds?? That’d be like saying you didn’t think Rita Hayworth was beautiful. Or you weren’t quite sure Lucille Ball was funny. That you were up in the air over Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis AND Joan Crawford’s acting chops.

Okay, you get the point. You can’t dislike Debbie Reynolds. Impossible.

Now that we have that settled….. I actually remember my first Debbie Reynolds movie – Singing in the Rain. 10 minutes after she first arrived on the scene, I was ready to like, love, or hate any other star or character based solely on how they treated her. She just had a certain something about her that drew you to her and every character she breathed life into.  Though I’d always been a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor, when I read about her “you know what” with “you know who,” I wrote her AND “you know who” both off.

Years later, I read that Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds had become friends again – proving, yet again, that they don’t come any more special than Ms. Reynolds.

As for “you know who…” well, I never forgave him.

I just finished a wonderful book, Unsinkable – a memoir by Debbie Reynolds, herself, and I couldn’t wait to tell you about it. I’m obsessed with Old Hollywood biographies, but when they’re about stars who happen to be favorites, I often read a chapter twice simply to make sure I’ve devoured every word possible. If you aren’t convinced of my infatuation with these biographies on that alone, I can do you one better. I take notes from each book I read. Yep – like a college student. Whether they’re Old Hollywood biographies or another passion, historical biographies (Cleopatra, Harriet Tubman, First Ladies, and Abraham Lincoln are some of my personal favorites) – I jot down quotes or information I want to remember.

As you’d imagine, I have a lot of notebooks and go through a lot of pens.

People often ask me if I prefer autobiographies and memoirs or biographies and I truthfully cannot say. Autobiographies and personal memoirs reach somewhere other biographers can’t even touch… inside the star’s head. The stars, themselves, can tell you what they were thinking and how they felt. Biographers have to rely on assumption or secondhand knowledge.

Having said that, I’ve read enough of each to know that you often get more “raw facts” from a biographer than a star. Many stars, understandably, don’t want to give everything away. Can NOT blame them for that!

Debbie Reynolds is, in my opinion, one of the most open and honest stars when it comes to her memoirs. She isn’t vindictive, didn’t have a “narrative” or ax to grind. She simply tells her fascinating stories and in a way that, quite frankly, feels like you’re having coffee with your hilarious aunt. The aunt who is as lovely inside as out, yet has a crazy sense of humor that sometimes makes you kind of blush. YES… that Debbie Reynolds. YES… that Old Hollywood’s Sweetheart.  Her humor will catch you off guard and, if she were the aunt you were having coffee with, you’d have to put your cup down often to keep from choking on the coffee.

After all, laughing and swallowing aren’t mutually compatible.

She. Is. Hilarious.

Before I continue with the book review, take a look at the picture from the cover (below). Gorgeous, right?! You know who she reminds me of here? If you watched soap operas back in the day, you’ll know who I’m talking about. If you didn’t, you’ll have to take my word for it. She reminds me A LOT of the beautiful actress Robin Strasser (Dorian, One Life to Live).

{Review Continued Below]

Debbie Reynolds Unsinkable

Unsinkable is the definitive memoir by film legend and Hollywood icon Debbie Reynolds.

In Unsinkable, the late great actress, comedienne, singer, and dancer Debbie Reynolds shares the highs and lows of her life as an actress during Hollywood’s Golden Age, anecdotes about her lifelong friendship with Elizabeth Taylor, her experiences as the foremost collector of Hollywood memorabilia, and intimate details of her marriages and family life with her children, Carrie and Todd Fisher.

A story of heartbreak, hope, and survival, “America’s Sweetheart” Debbie Reynolds picks up where she left off in her first memoir, Debbie: My Life, and is illustrated with previously unpublished photos from Reynolds’s personal collection.

Debbie Reynolds died on December 28, 2016, at the age of 84, just one day after the death of her daughter, actress and author Carrie Fisher. – From Amazon

If you read many Old Hollywood biographies and memoirs, you know that one of the funnest things about them is when you “bump into” other actors, actresses, and celebrities on the pages. Sometimes they’re expected, other times not. Either way, I always get a huge kick out of the book’s subject’s interactions, relationships, and inward thoughts about these stars.

You can often learn as much (or more!) about someone from another person’s words and/or opinion of them.  There are numerous such “encounters” on the pages of Unsinkable and they are sometimes hilarious, sometimes disappointing, and always fascinating. Unsinkable was written by Debbie Reynolds and a longtime friend of her’s, Dorian Hannaway. These ladies created a book that will go down as one of my personal favorites. Talk about a FUN read.

As with all of my reviews, I detest the thought of giving anything away… so I won’t allow myself to say too much. After all, the best way to get to truly know these magical stars of Hollywood Yesterday is to read about them. Since my number one goal with this blog is to keep these stars shining brightly, I desperately want as many people to get to know them as possible. This means I want as many of you to read these biographies as possible. If I give things away, you’ll be less apt to do that… and Debbie Reynolds is a star I absolutely want as many people as possible to get to know better.

There’s so much more to  her than her uncommonly sweet smile and beauty. A lot more… and much of it will catch you off guard.

The two things I take away the most from this book are:

  1.  Her sense of humor was outrageous. Although she isn’t known for comedy, she’d have been HUGE in the genre. She had a natural sense of humor and ability to find the fun, humor, and playfulness in just about every corner of life.
  2. She loved her family completely, intensely, and passionately. Her love for her children and granddaughter  – and her pride in everything about them – defined Debbie Reynolds. They were her world… to the very end. So much so that, after her beloved daughter Carrie Fisher passed away, it would appear that she wanted only one thing.. to follow Carrie and make certain she was safe.

This is a book I know you’ll want to read and this is a lady I know you’ll love. You can find Unsinkable by Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway on Amazon or in your favorite bookstore.

Unsinkable Photos Debbie Reynolds Family

By the way, if you were a One Life to Live fan (I was for more years than I could begin to count), you’ll recognize the gorgeous actress in the picture above with Debbie Reynolds, her son Todd, and Carrie Fisher… Catherine Hickland – one of the best actresses to ever grace daytime television OR nighttime. She played Lindsay on OLTL and she is one of my all-time favorites. She is actually married to Debbie Reynold’s beloved son Todd.

Small world… and, very often, an especially beautiful world. ~ Joi (“Joy”)

Filed Under: Debbie Reynolds, Old Hollywood Book Reviews Tagged With: Debbie Reynolds, Old Hollywood Biographies, Old Hollywood Book Reviews

Beautiful Marilyn Monroe Canvas Set (Amazon link)


Comments have been temporarily disabled, spam was completely out of hand! I am looking for a better plugin than the one I had and hope to have comments back soon. If you have something you want to say in the meantime, my e-mail address is available on the blog. Thanks!~ Joi ("Joy")

Comments

  1. mblife says

    August 22, 2018 at 12:12 pm

    Joi, thanks so much for the post.Much thanks again. Really Cool.

Welcome to Hollywood Yesterday!

Ann Sheridan, It All Came True

Ann Sheridan
My name is Joi (“Joy”) and I created Hollywood Yesterday as my personal tribute to Old Hollywood. It’s my effort to help keep the stars from Old Hollywood, Classic Television, and Old Radio Shows alive and shining forever. Old Hollywood was positively magical and I see no reason for the magic to ever die.

Be warned, I am (by nature) overtly positive, I never take anything too seriously, I say extraordinary so often you’d think I invented the word, and I overuse exclamation points to distraction. I’m perpetually over-caffeinated.. we’ll blame that.

Read more about Hollywood Yesterday (and see my personal favorites) here!

Old Hollywood Actresses

Lena Horne, Meet Me in Las Vegas

See the Old Hollywood Actresses page for the index of Classic Hollywood Actresses and Classic TV Actresses.

Old Hollywood Actors

Henry Fonda, Behind the Scenes The Grapes of Wrath

See the Old Hollywood Actors page for the index of Old Hollywood and Classic TV actors.

Old Hollywood Book Reviews

Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel by Christina Rice

I love reading old Hollywood biographies and memoirs as much as I love watching classic movies, and that’s truly saying something!

To see my Old Hollywood book reviews, please see the index listed here: Book Reviews.

Pictures of the Day

Maureen O'Hara, The Parent Trap

Maureen O’Hara

The Old Hollywood & Classic TV Pictures of the Day are published as regularly as possible. If I miss a few days, please just know that the husband, daughters, sons-in-law, grandbabies, and/or my cats were demanding my attention. I’ll be honest, nothing comes before any of them! Not even Maureen O’Hara or Henry Fonda.

Priorities, y’all.

Movie Collections on Amazon

  • Email
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • Beautiful, Talented, and in ALL Ways Extraordinary… Dorothy Malone!
  • Doris Day, Ethel Barrymore, and Frank Sinatra in Young at Heart
  • Jennifer Jones Promotional Picture for Duel in the Sun (1946)
  • Shirley Jones: Beautiful and Talented Star of Film, Musicals, and Television
  • Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan on the Set of Gigi (1958)
  • Martha Hyer: “Universal’s Answer to Grace Kelly”
  • Elizabeth Taylor, Actress and Humanitarian was BOTD in 1932
  • Esther Williams and Friends Tom & Jerry… Dangerous When Wet!

Movie Night, ANY Night…

John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and Arthur Hunnicutt in El Dorado
Have movie night ANY night with Prime Video on Amazon:  Prime Video (Amazon link)

Thank You for Visiting!

Paulette Goddard and Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times
Thank you so much for visiting Hollywood Yesterday! You truly HONOR me with your presence. ~ Joi (“Joy”)

Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland, The Adventures of Robin Hood

My main goal with Hollywood Yesterday is to keep the names, faces, and films of the stars that mean so much to me shining brightly. When I’m guilty of focusing more time on my personal favorites (such as Olivia de Havilland) than other stars, I hope you’ll forgive me. I am, by all indications, very human!

Also, please know that I try to keep my posts (except for book reviews) short and to the point, so you can enjoy the pictures, grab the information, and get back to your life. I don’t appreciate anything that’s overly wordy, so I don’t want to do that to others. For better or worse, I write as I talk, so if you ever feel like you’re reading the words of someone who’s a cross between Lucy Ricardo, Daisy Duck, and a Jerry Lewis character, that’s just because you are!

Wait. What did I just admit to?? 

Barbara Stanwyck Quotes

Another personal absolute favorite of mine is Barbara Stanwyck. Not only was she beautiful and outrageously talented, she was exceptionally bright, charismatic, and colorful. This growing collection of Barbara Stanwyck Quotes will give you an idea of just how colorful she was!

Old Hollywood Movies

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire Top Hat Cheek to Cheek

There’s nothing quite like watching a movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Whether it’s a Musical, Western, Comedy, Romance, Film Noir, or Drama – if it’s on, I’m not too far away… with popcorn and raspberry tea in hand and a couple of cats nearby.

Below are a few Old Hollywood movie reviews I’ve done on the blog. There are, as you’d imagine, a lot more to come. – Joi (“Joy”)

We’re in the Money (Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell)

The Naked Spur (James Stewart, Janet Leigh)

The Prince and the Showgirl (Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier)

The White Sister (Helen Hayes, Clark Gable)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Russ Tamblyn, Julie Newmar)

Rio Bravo (John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan)

El Dorado (John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Charlene Holt, Michele Carey)

Rio Grande (John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara)

Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (What is it With Me and These Movies??)

The Stooge (Jerry Lewis’ favorite Lewis and Martin Movie… for good reason.)

Critic’s Choice (Hilarious movie starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball)

To Please a Lady (Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck team up in a fast track movie)

Grand Hotel (Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore)

Hearts Divided (Marion Davies, Dick Powell)

The Quiet Man (John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Barry Fitzgerald)

More Old Hollywood Movie Reviews

Classic Hollywood Books & Biographies (Reviews)

Maureen O'Hara's Autobiography 'Tis Herself

‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara
I Know Where I'm Going (Katharine Hepburn Biography) and Princess

I Know Where I’m Going: Katharine Hepburn

 

Debbie Reynolds Unsinkable
Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds

 

Ginger Rogers Autobiography - Ginger: My Story

Ginger by Ginger Rogers
Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball

Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball
Vitagraph by Andrew A. Erish
Vitagraph by Andrew A. Erish
More Old Hollywood Book Reviews!

Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Dandridge Carmen Jones Poster

Getting to Know the Gorgeous and Talented Dorothy Dandridge

My Lucy Obsession

Lucille Ball

Find out just how much I (truly) Love Lucy in the Lucille Ball category. I’m warning you, I call it an obsession for a very good reason…

Legalities…

Aside from pictures of books I review, I do not claim to have taken any of the pictures on this website, nor do I own the pictures – the ones of the stars or the affiliate (product) pictures.  Other, far more talented photographers than me have the credit for the beautiful photos you see. If you would like credit for a photograph or would like one removed, please e-mail me (joitsigers@gmail.com).

Movie posters and promotional photos are used in the belief that they qualify for the Fair Use law. Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement.

When you click through an affiliate (product, book, dvds..) link, I earn a small portion of the money you spend IF you purchase anything. This does not cost you any extra money, of course. This is how I am able to work from home and support my cats! – Joi (“Joy”)

Copyright © 2023 | Audrey Hepburn Posters | Ava Gardner Posters