Mary Frances was a poor girl from El Paso, who lived in a shack with her brother and their parents. Her father was a carpenter, who occasionally shot and brought home jackrabbits for their supper, and her mother took in laundry for extra income.

Toward the end of the Great Depression, the family moved from Texas to California. Mary Frances was seven at the time. A bit tomboyish, she preferred dungarees to dresses. As she entered her teen years, she admittedly had no money, no taste, and no training. She rarely dated and was only invited once to a school dance. In fact, she wasn’t even that great of a dancer. She also wasn’t thought to be particularly attractive, but by the time she was sweet sixteen, she had blossomed and hit her stride, even to the point of winning a local beauty pageant.

It was at that very pageant where two talent scouts spotted her. Both wanted her for their agencies, so they flipped a coin for her. Shortly after, Mary Frances embarked upon a movie career. Film executive Jack Warner rebranded her, changing her given name while retaining her surname. Going forward, she would be known to the world as Debbie Reynolds. She appeared in a string of musicals and had several hit records, but in 1952, she was given a co-starring role in what would become her highest-profile film – Singin’ in the Rain.

Fast forward to 2006, when I visited Australia for a couple of days. After lunching with a friend, I climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, where I gazed down upon the famous Sydney Opera House. Later, as I stood before its impressive edifice, I thought to myself that I should try to attend a show; it was unlikely I would ever be back that way again. I consulted a marquee and was pleasantly surprised to see that that night’s performer was none other than a fellow American – the legendary Debbie Reynolds. I purchased my ticket to what turned out to be a sold-out show.

This was Reynolds’ first tour of Australia in two decades, and she did not disappoint. She sang songs, told stories, cracked jokes, and did spot-on imitations of fellow celebrities like Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand. But one of the more outstanding elements of her show was when she offered a retrospective of her movie career and shared and discussed clips from some of her films, including the aforementioned Singin’ in the Rain.

I’ve always felt that the song and dance numbers from that particular film are among the most fantastic in movie history, and others seem to agree. At one point, the American Film Institute ranked it as the fifth greatest motion picture of all time, and the Library of Congress has declared it to be among our nation's films that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Critics have touted it as a brilliant comic musical, a transcendent experience, top-notch entertainment, and a Hollywood masterpiece.

From the days when Mary Frances Reynolds received but one school dance invitation to when Debbie Reynolds was cast in Singin’ in the Rain, something that had not changed was her inability to dance. One of her co-stars, Gene Kelly, reportedly berated her for that inexperience and reduced her to tears. But a tenacious Reynolds worked extra hard, received tutelage from Fred Astaire, and, in the end, made dancing with Kelly and Donald O’Connor down staircases and over furniture seem effortless. The catchy “Good Mornin’” shoot took 15 hours, and Reynolds’ feet bled. She would later say that film and childbirth were the two hardest things she ever had to do. Perhaps this helped prepare her with the grit she would need for her memorable character in a subsequent film, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which would earn her an Academy Award nomination.

In 1970, Reynolds, who was also a renowned film history preservationist, came to my neck of the woods in northwestern North Carolina, where she cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the “Land of Oz” theme park on Beech Mountain. As one of the park’s investors, she supplied it with a variety of original costumes and props from its inspiration, the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz.

I was only five years old in 1970, and in the absence of a driver's license, I missed this event. But I am happy to have seen Reynolds in person nearly four decades later and 9,500 miles around the world.  It was worth the time and distance to be in the presence of the once poor tomboy from El Paso, who transformed into a leading lady and one of the world’s most talented and effervescent entertainers.

You just never know what unexpected opportunities a two-day layover might bring!