Debbie Reynolds

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At the age of 19 Debbie Reynolds sealed her status as a Hollywood legend with her spirited performance as aspiring actress Kathy Selden in the 1952 musical classic Singin' in the Rain.

Her daughter Carrie Fisher was also just 19 when she auditioned for the role that would define her career as the feisty Princess Leia in the Star Wars films.

Reynolds died at the age of 84 following a stroke that came on just one day after her daughter's death - the stress was "too much", according to her son Todd Fisher.

"She wanted to be with Carrie," he said simply.

• US actress Debbie Reynolds dies aged 84
• Tributes flood in for 'Hollywood royalty'
• In pictures: Debbie Reynolds
• Obituary: Carrie Fisher
• Reynolds: 'I would have retired earlier' [2015 interview]

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Born Mary Frances Reynolds on 1 April 1932, in El Paso, Texas, her father was a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the family moved to California in 1939.

She made her entry to the world of American entertainment after being spotted at a beauty pageant in 1948, aged just 16, and she won a contract with film giant Warner Bros and later MGM.

It was her wholesome appeal that made her a major star by the mid-1950s, and she appeared in a string of films through the decades. Reynolds even made a stab at a career in pop music with her album entitled "Debbie" in 1959.

Her performance in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, a true-life rags-to-riches tale of a brash society doyenne who survived the sinking of the Titanic, earned her an Oscar nomination.

When accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild she told the audience: "My favourite movie was the Unsinkable Molly Brown and in that movie I got to sing a wonderful song called 'I Aint' Down Yet'

"Well I ain't," she asserted to huge applause.

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Her gift for dancing and performance ensured her dozens of roles in the musicals and light comedies Hollywood churned out in this era, but few came close to the fame Singin' in the Rain earned her, considered one of the industry's greatest musicals.

Throughout her life she was devoted to the heritage of Hollywood, the industry that made her, by assembling an astonishing collection of memorabilia that included Orson Welles' fur coat from Citizen Kane and a pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

While she remained largely wholesome on screen her private life was not spared scrutiny.

Reynolds was married three times. Her first husband was singer Eddie Fisher in 1955 with whom she had two children; Carrie Fisher and Todd Fisher.

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Image captionDebbie Reynolds and husband Eddie Fisher in 1957

Their divorce became one of Hollywood's most notorious scandals when Fisher had an affair with actress Elizabeth Taylor who was at the time a friend of Reynolds'. The story gripped the public with Reynolds sometimes cast in the role of "America's Sweetheart". Years later Taylor and Reynolds revealed they had reconciled.

But in 2010 Reynolds disclosed: "I forgave, but I don't forget."

Reynold's second husband was millionaire businessman Harry Karl. By the time that marriage ended in 1973, Karl's gambling and investments meant Reynolds too was facing financial difficulties. She filed for bankruptcy in 1997.

Reynolds was also married to real estate developer Richard Hamlett from 1984 to 1996.

"All of my husbands have robbed me blind," she said in 1999. "The only one who didn't take money was Eddie Fisher. He just didn't pay for the children.''

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Image captionElizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd at Derby Day with Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds in 1957

In her later life, a different image of Debbie Reynolds came through in the writings of Carrie Fisher. Theirs was a tempestuous but close relationship and Fisher's 1987 novel Postcards from the Edge is thought to be a thinly disguised portrait of Fisher's struggle with drugs and her sometimes difficult relationship with her Hollywood royalty mother.

In a 2010 interview with the New York Times , alongside her mother, Fisher says: "If anything, my mother taught me how to sur-thrive. That's my word for it. She would go through these amazingly difficult things, and the message was clear: Doing the impossible is possible. It's just not fun."

Shortly after Carrie Fisher died, Reynolds posted a poignant message on her Facebook page: "Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter. I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop."

She signed off simply: "Love Carrie's mother".

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Image captionDebbie Reynolds with daughter Carrie Fisher in 2015

Graham Taylor

Graham Taylor will be remembered by many for his unfulfilling spell in charge of England - but by plenty more as an outstanding club manager at Watford and Aston Villa and one of the nicest, most genuine men in the game.

The reaction to Taylor's death on Thursday at the age of 72, and the affection expressed for him, was the true measure of his standing inside and outside football.

Born in Worksop in Nottinghamshire, Taylor was the son of a journalist and rose to prominence in the game as a manager after retiring as a player with Lincoln City in 1972. He became manager and coach at the club, winning the Fourth Division title with them before moving to Watford in 1977.

It was here, in tandem with his chairman Sir Elton John, that he produced arguably his finest work, taking the club from the Fourth Division to the top flight in the space of five exhilarating years.

Taylor nurtured Watford legends such as Luther Blissett and John Barnes, remarkably finishing second behind Liverpool in their first season at that elite level and reaching the FA Cup final in 1984, where they lost 2-0 to Everton.

Not so long ago he joked with me, with his usual broad smile: "You know I have never watched any of that game from that day to this - but I don't need to see it again to know that second goal from Andy Gray was a bloody foul on our goalkeeper Steve Sherwood."

Taylor's unlikely partnership with the flamboyant rock star worked against the odds, the manager's down-to-earth approach dovetailing with his chairman's lavish lifestyle. They remained friends for life, as demonstrated by Sir Elton's heartfelt tribute.

On trips abroad when he worked as a BBC Sport pundit, Taylor would gladly tell stories of that partnership, always with a laugh and underlining the genuine affection they shared.

Taylor's brilliance inevitably attracted attention from elsewhere and, perhaps feeling he had achieved all he could at Vicarage Road, he left for Aston Villa in May 1987.

Villa were in reduced circumstances having been relegated to the second flight. Taylor soon put that right by winning promotion in his first season - and, not content with that, rebuilt the club with such success and shrewd management that he took them to second place behind Liverpool in 1990.

Taylor's methods were tried and trusted and yet he often received criticism for what his detractors perceived as "long ball" football. He, with much justification, pointed out his willingness to use wingers and flair players such as Barnes and the young Mo Johnston, whom he brought to England from Partick Thistle.

England inevitably looked in Taylor's direction after Sir Bobby Robson left following the 1990 World Cup in Italy, where his side lost to West Germany on penalties in the semi-final.

This was, without doubt, the darkest and most frustrating period of Taylor's career and is one of the reasons his other work has been so criminally underrated over the years.

Taylor took over at a tough time after the loss of England mainstays such as goalkeeper Peter Shilton and past captains such as Terry Butcher and Bryan Robson. He gave players like Alan Shearer and Martin Keown their first England caps - but he drew criticism for selecting players many simply felt were not international class, such as Carlton Palmer.

England reached Euro 92 in Sweden under Taylor but produced a series of disappointing performances, going out at the group stage after losing 2-1 to Sweden in Stockholm.

Taylor courted controversy and criticism in that decisive game by substituting England captain and main marksman Gary Lineker for Arsenal striker Alan Smith with a goal still needed - it never arrived and Lineker never played for England again. The manager was vilified and lampooned as a "turnip" in the Sun newspaper.

The campaign to qualify for the World Cup in the United States in 1994 also ended in failure, and was brutally chronicled in the fly-on-the-wall documentary 'The Impossible Job', which gave an intimate insight into the pressures Taylor was under.

Those struggles were illustrated starkly in the game that effectively sealed his fate, the 2-0 loss to the Netherlands in Rotterdam.

He may have operated at the highest level but he never talked down to supporters and was always interested in how they viewed the game

The tortured Taylor is seen on the sidelines pleading with officials after Ronald Koeman somehow escaped a red card for a foul on England's David Platt, only to be reprieved and score the brilliant free-kick that sent the Dutch on the way to victory.

He resigned the following month and stayed out of the game until returning at Wolves in March 1994. During his spell in charge he took them into the second-tier play-offs in 1994-95, where they lost to Bolton Wanderers.

Taylor left in November 1995 before returning to revisit old glories. Sir Elton John was back at the helm at Watford so it was no surprise when he turned to Taylor to come back to Vicarage Road as general manager in February 1996.

It was once more the perfect fit and he was back as manager a year later, winning the third-tier title in 1998 before putting Watford in the Premier League at the end of the following season after a play-off final victory over Bolton.

Watford, despite an early win at Liverpool, were relegated and the following season Taylor decided to retire - only to change his mind and make a comeback at Villa in February 2002. He retired for a second and final time after they struggled the following season.

It was the end of one chapter and the start of another as Taylor became a respected pundit on BBC Radio 5 live, a role he performed with total assurance and perception.

Taylor was part of the radio team that covered England. It was a sign of the esteem in which he was held by fans as well as players that whenever he encountered supporters abroad, he was treated with complete respect.

There was barely a reference from England followers to any of his struggles in charge of the national team. To them, Taylor was a true gentleman, to be given his due not just for his work but for his warm personality and willingness to discuss football matters with anyone he met.

He may have operated at the highest level but he never talked down to supporters and was always interested in how they viewed the game.

• Archive: Media treated me like dirt after England - Taylor
• Archive: Taylor told me to stick to cricket - Botham

As a BBC Sport colleague, Taylor was unfailingly co-operative and the consummate professional, willing to take a call at any time, even when he was meant to be spending time with his beloved wife Rita.

And as well as a fount of knowledge and a man with strong opinions, Taylor was also an endless source of entertainment and stories, just as happy to poke fun at himself as everyone else.

Graham Taylor was a top-class manager at club level and a true gentleman inside and outside of football. He will be greatly missed and perhaps now his work in management, viewed through the prism of this sad news, will finally get the credit it fully deserves
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Liz Smith

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Liz Smith found fame as an actress at an age when most people are considering retirement.

It was a long road to eventual stardom, during which she struggled to raise a family after a broken marriage.

She became best-known for her roles in The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family but her talents encompassed serious drama too.

And while she made something of a name playing slightly dotty old ladies, the real Liz Smith was far removed from these on-screen personas.

She was born Betty Gleadle in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, on 11 December 1921.

Her early life was not happy. Her mother died in childbirth when she was just two years old and her father abandoned her when he remarried.

"My father was a bit of a sod, really. He just went off with loads of women and then married one who said he had to cut off completely from his prior life and that meant me."

She started going to the local cinema with her grandfather when she was four and she quickly gained a fascination for acting.

Image captionHer mastery of comic timing came to the fore in I didn't Know You Cared

By the age of nine, she was appearing in local dramatic productions, often playing the part of elderly ladies.

World War Two thwarted her plans and she joined the WRNS because, as she later told the BBC's Desert Island Discs, she loved the cut of the naval uniform.

She continued appearing in plays and entertainments while serving in the Royal Navy. She met her future husband Jack Thomas while she was stationed in India and the couple married at the end of the war.

Her grandmother had left her enough money to buy a house in London. Smith later remembered that she had picked it at random from a magazine and bought it without crossing the threshold.

Entertainer

But what had been an idyllic marriage failed shortly after the family moved to Epping Forest in Essex and she was left to bring up her two children alone.

With money tight, she worked in a number of jobs including delivering post and quality control in a plastic bag factory.

But her love for acting remained and she began buying the theatrical magazine, The Stage, and sending her photograph to casting agents.

Eventually she became part of a group studying method acting under a teacher who had come to the UK from America.

Image captionThe dotty parishioner she played in the Vicar of Dibley was far removed from her own character

She performed at the Gate Theatre in west London and spent many years in repertory, as well as spells as an entertainer in Butlins holiday camps.

In 1970, she was selling toys in London's Regent Street when she got a call from the director Mike Leigh to play the downtrodden mother in his film Bleak Moments.

Leigh cast her again in Hard Labour, part of the BBC's Play for Today series, a role that allowed her to shine.

She received critical acclaim as the middle-aged housewife who endures a life of domestic drudgery, constantly at the beck and call of her demanding husband and daughter.

Glamorous

It was the breakthrough she had sought for years and, as she later recalled: "I never went back to grotty jobs again."

She was seldom off the screen over the next 20 years, with appearances in a number of TV programmes including Last of the Summer Wine, The Sweeney, The Duchess of Duke Street and The Gentle Touch.

She was cast as Madame Balls in the 1976 film The Pink Panther Strikes Again, but her scenes were left on the cutting-room floor. However, she did appear in the role six years later in The Curse of the Pink Panther.

In 1984 she received a Bafta for Best Supporting Actress when she played Maggie Smith's mother in the film A Private Function.

Image captionHer role in the Life and Loves of a She Devil was one of her favourites

Two years later she appeared as Patricia Hodge's alcoholic mother in the BBC drama The Life and Loves Of A She Devil.

It was a part, she said, that she really enjoyed as it gave her the chance to wear more glamorous outfits than her usual roles required.

And she was able to dress up again for her next film appearance, this time in the role of Grace in Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.

She was still much in demand at the beginning of the 1990s, appearing in the sitcom 2point4 Children and in the series Lovejoy and Bottom.

Lucky

In 1994 she became a household name with her portrayal of Letitia Cropley in the series The Vicar of Dibley.

The character was famous for her idiosyncratic recipes such as parsnip brownies and lard and fish paste pancakes, but was killed off in 1996.

Two years later Liz Smith starred as Nana in The Royle Family, a sitcom that ran for nearly four years. She took the part again in 2006 in a special edition in which Nana died.

Typically, she attributed her success to Caroline Aherne's scripts rather than her own talent.

Image captionShe credited Caroline Aherne's scripts for her success in The Royle Family

"They were great roles," she later remembered. "I was so lucky that things did come my way then."

Unlike some actors, she watched recordings of her own performances looking for ways in which she could improve her acting.

She continued to appear in feature films, playing Grandma Georgina in Tim Burton's 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and she was the voice of Mrs Mulch in Wallace & Gromit -The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

In 2006 she published her autobiography Our Betty and moved into a retirement home in north London but continued acting.

She appeared in the BBC's Lark Rise to Candleford, finally announcing her retirement in 2008 at the age of 87.

It was a belief in her own talent that drove Liz Smith on when her life was at a low ebb. "All I wanted was a chance," she told the BBC. "It was wonderful when it did happen."

Carrie Fisher

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Carrie Fisher's acting career was dominated by her role as Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars franchise.

It was a part that catapulted her into the limelight as one of the most famous faces on the planet.

But the fame brought a price and her personal life was dogged by failed relationships, mental health issues, and drug and alcohol abuse.

She later turned to writing before returning to Star Wars in the 2015 film, The Force Awakens.

Carrie Frances Fisher was born on Oct 21 1956, the daughter of Academy Award-nominated actress Debbie Reynolds and pop singer Eddie Fisher.

Fisher's parents divorced two years later, after her father had an affair with one of Reynolds' closest friends, Elizabeth Taylor. Her father and Taylor later married.

She was a self-confessed bookworm as a child reading poetry and classical literature. Her high school education was disrupted by the lure of the stage when she appeared in the musical Irene alongside her mother, and she never graduated.

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Image captionHer relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was not always easy

She moved to London where she enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama before returning to the US and attending the Sarah Lawrence arts college near New York.

Fisher made her big screen debut in the film Shampoo (1975), alongside Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, but it would be another two years until she got her big break in Star Wars.

She told the Daily Mail in 2011 that when she got the part in a "little science-fiction film", she just thought of it as a bit of fun. "But then Star Wars, this goofy, little three-month hang-out with robots did something unexpected," she said.

"It exploded across the firmament of pop culture, taking all of us along with it. It tricked me into becoming a star all on my own."

'Long-ago experience'

Fisher's memoir, The Princess Diarist, released in 2016, revealed for the first time that the then 19-year-old actress had an affair with co-star Harrison Ford, who was then married to Mary Marquardt. The affair ended after three months.

In the memoir, she wrote: "I don't remember much about things like the order we shot scenes in, or who I got to know well first.

"Nor did anyone mention that one day I would be called upon to remember any of this long-ago experience."

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Image captionStar Wars became one of the biggest film franchises in cinema

In 1980 she reappeared in The Empire Strikes Back and, three years later in the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi.

She married singer Paul Simon in 1983. The pair had been in a relationship for five years, but they divorced just a year later.

Fisher had other roles during the decade, including in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and When Harry Met Sally (1989), but none had the same impact as the Star Wars franchise.

She also made a number of stage appearances during and after the filming of Star Wars.

Addictions and illness

Having managed to kick drugs and alcohol, she was rushed to hospital in 1985 after accidentally taking an overdose of sleeping pills and prescription drugs.

The episode formed the basis for her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, in which she satirised her own dependence on drugs and the sometimes difficult relationship she had with her mother.

Three years later Fisher adapted it into a screenplay, and it was made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid.

Image captionShe admitted to having taken cocaine during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back

There were three further novels, Surrender the Pink, Delusions of Grandma and The Best Awful.

She had a number of minor roles in various films but she found herself unable to recapture the profile that Star Wars had given her.

Fisher - who had bipolar disorder - also wrote and frequently talked in public about her years of drug addiction and mental illness.

In 2001, she told Psychology Today: "Drugs made me feel normal. They contained me."

Remarkably frank

She also featured in a 2006 BBC television documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive.

By the turn of the century she had made something of a reputation as a script doctor, revising and polishing screenplays by other writers. Among the films she lists as having worked on were Hook, Sister Act and Lethal Weapon 3.

In 2007, she wrote and performed her autobiographical one-woman show Wishful Drinking, which was released as a book the next year.

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Image captionFisher and her daughter Billie Lourd at the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015

It was confirmed in 2013 that she would reprise her role as Leia in Star Wars VII which screened in 2015 as Star Wars - The Force Awakens. She appeared alongside original cast members Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.

Billed as a sequel to The Return of the Jedi, the film became the highest grossing episode of the Star Wars franchise. Her character leads the resistance against the First Order, as she continues to seek the missing Luke. She won a Saturn Award in 2016 for Best Supporting Actress.

Days after the release of the film it was announced that Fisher would return in Star Wars VIII in 2017.

As well as her marriage to Paul Simon, Fisher also had a three-year relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd, which resulted in the birth of her daughter, Billie Lourd.

Carrie Fisher's fame as an actress rested on just one role, but it was a role in one of the best known and most successful film franchises in cinema history.

She was remarkably frank about the personal difficulties she had fought and overcome.

"There's a part of me that gets surprised when people think I am brave to talk about what I've gone through," she once said. "I was brave to last through it."