‘A Trailblazer and a Hero’: The Internet Reacts to the Death of Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds, a legend of the Hollywood musical and the mother of actress Carrie Fisher, died on Thursday a day after her daughter at the age of 84. Fans and fellow celebrities displayed an outpouring of condolences for the latest passing of a beloved figure in a year that appears to have seen so much artistic loss.

Her son Todd Fisher told the Associated Press that the death of his sister — who was immortalized as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy — “was too much” for their mother. “She’s now with Carrie and we’re all heartbroken,” he told AP.

Reynolds got her big break in 1952, when she played an aspiring actress in Singin’ in the Rain alongside Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. In 2015, she won the Screen Actors’ Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, crowning a career that spanned more than half a century and during which she starred in dozens of films.

Below are a few of the online tributes made by Reynolds’ loyal fans.

Mark Hamill, who starred alongside Carrie Fisher in Star Wars, was still reeling from yesterday’s news.

Photos of Reynolds with her daughter Fisher were widely shared. Here’s one of Fisher as a young girl watching her mother onstage in 1963.

This tweet, which went viral following Fisher’s death on Wednesday, resurfaced with new meaning.