By Raquel Ruiz
Part One of Sleeve Magazine x Raquel Ruiz’s Daughters Trilogy
I love the Golden Age of Hollywood. That might be one of my favorite eras – mainly because, as an intense media consumer, the main musicals I was raised on were West Side Story and Singin’ in the Rain. My Mami would play the soundtrack on loop every single morning on the way to drop me off at school. Debbie Reynolds, who plays Kathy Selden in the movie, was my favorite character. I wanted to have a singing voice as beautiful as hers. I want to delve into the fame of Debbie Reynolds and another famous actress of that era, Judy Garland, who is widely remembered for her role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
While movie stardom can seem full of glitz and glamour, I wanted to get into the grittiness and how stressful it must’ve been for the daughters of these two iconic actresses to deal with the spotlight. Did they feel too attached to their mother’s image and try to step out of the spotlight to do other things? What struggles did they face while being a part of the silver screen? I’m going to break down all of those questions because there is more relatability than meets the eye in what these Hollywood daughters experienced.
Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds, was mainly remembered for her role as Princess Leia, the space princess of Alderaan in the Star Wars Universe. To understand the state of the relationship between Debbie and Carrie, I conducted extensive research, watched interviews, and read ‘The Princess Diarist’, a memoir written by Carrie Fisher about her time on the Star Wars sets and her youth. The gravity of the mother-daughter relationship is intriguing, to say the least, and even a little eccentric.
In an interview with Carrie Fisher on the Oprah Winfrey Show, she said, “I did not want to be around her, I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter.” She was very vocal about her dislike of her mother during her childhood. Debbie Reynolds even stated that Carrie didn’t speak to her for 10 years due to the nature of their complicated relationship; there were numerous arguments between them during Carrie’s teenage years. I watched an MTV interview that Fisher did during her press junket for the film Postcards From The Edge.
“My mother is the expert on what I should do. She’s always right-” This quote from her interview reminds me of two things: the song ‘Mother Knows Best’ from the Disney film Tangled, and a conversation I had with my Titi at my Abuelita’s house. My Abuelita just finished having an argument with my Titi, and then she slowly exited the living room to her bedroom, holding her cane, and blew me a kiss. She didn’t have the energy to storm to her room like a teenage girl, given her age. I’ve seen my Titi give my Abuelita the silent treatment, too – which includes putting on her headphones and listening to the court cases she needs to work on or playing some sort of Harry Potter online game that I only know about because I’ll subtly look over her shoulder to see what she’s doing because I’m nosey. After their argument, I asked her why she was mad at Abuelita and why she still lived with her. She responded that no matter how much they argue, she’ll still love her once the sun rises again the next day, and why would she move away and leave Abuelita alone?
It didn’t seem right because my Abuelita had given birth to her and said that, even though they don’t agree on everything, she knows that Abuelita always has the best advice, having been through so much throughout her life. I aspire to have a mother-daughter relationship like the one my Titi and Abuelita share one day. That you’re so dedicated to your family that you will stay with them, even if it feels like they are breathing down your neck all the time. For me, the constant criticisms and comparisons I face from my Mami have made me want to drive far away and never return to the house again. I still wish that somehow I’ll have enough money to move away, disappear in the night, and never give my parents my address. Isn’t it convenient that this piece is about classic relationships between mothers and daughters in the celebrity world, while I’m dealing with a situation, albeit not in the limelight, but rather in a small town in New England, where the back-and-forth arguments occur?
After having my headphones in for five hours listening to the audiobook of ‘The Princess Diarist‘, I’ve never felt more connected to Carrie Fisher. She’s relatable in many ways, and I think more educated, not just about her Star Wars set life but also about what it’s like to be a daughter. The bond between a mother and daughter is unbreakable, even though you may be far apart from one another. At the beginning of the book, she discusses how Debbie performed in a Broadway musical and was a backup singer – “Where they usually seem to lurk.” Carrie was accepted into The Central School of Speech and Drama, and this was the opportunity Carrie was looking for. The right door was open, and the chance to “stop living with her newly divorced, emotionally broken mother.” That just gives us a glimpse into their relationship, and it seems comical, like what I felt when I moved to Florida after getting a job and being able to live on my own. During the read-throughs of the horror film Carrie and Star Wars, a noticeable difference in the writing style was observed. The Carrie script involved the mother in a dark scene, and “the scene in Star Wars, there were no mothers there. There was authority and confidence.” I believe it was fate that she got the role of a character with no parental figures, who was independent and in charge of the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire. What made me most emotional was how Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, helped mend and bridge the rocky relationship between Debbie and Carrie. Carrie worked hard to have a good relationship with her daughter and wanted to break the cycle that started between her mom and her.
In the current age and social climate we are living in, there are insecurities and stereotypes placed on young women and daughters. I spent a lot of time compiling conversations I’ve had with my friends about their relationships with their mothers and other parental figures. I wanted to be as honest and genuine about the women in my life and how, as daughters, we should feel secure and confident in ourselves and our identities. The media and other people’s opinions can definitely reflect how we treat ourselves and how we want to change. We feel insecure about taking up space, speaking our minds, and holding our ground. One of my biggest insecurities that my friends have related to is feeling unwanted. I’ve let other people’s opinions influence what I do and where I go.
I held back from going to karaoke bars or going out because someone said I can’t ‘hold my liquor.’ I started going out to the gym more once someone told me that my boobs were my only personality trait, and that’s why guys came up to talk to me. Not because of my enthusiasm and my interests but because of my body… I’m more than my physical attributes, and I hate that people perceive me like that. So I isolate myself, I stop going out to social events or hanging out with people, and just stick to being the homebody daughter who watches Columbo with their parents and listens to audiobooks 24/7. I don’t want to be known as someone who’s treated like a child because I’m 22, and some of the people I talk to are older than me and coddle me almost, kind of like a parent.
You can be a daughter at home, but once you leave the house, those expectations can disappear. Reflecting on my relationship with my Mami, I realized how much I’ll defend her over my father. Other than the fact that she birthed me, she gave so much up and put my sister and my needs before her own. She was always the last one to eat dinner at the dining table because she wanted to make sure my sister and I were healthy and full – she was okay with eating less at our expense. Whenever she burned a grilled cheese sandwich, she wouldn’t throw it out. She would eat it herself, even though my Papi told her that charcoaled or burnt food could give you cancer; she didn’t want anything to go to waste. She was conservative with her money, never going out and spending her checks on clothes for my sister and me – she is the true definition of a selfless person and mother.
My family has unintentionally developed a family trait where we’re known for avoiding conversations and situations, even running away from them literally. Whenever I argue with my mother, and she says something I don’t like, I’ll just walk out of the house and just keep walking – no destination in particular. Sometimes I’ll walk to work; other times I just see how far I can walk till my legs get tired. There was a time when I blamed her for not supporting me with my dreams and aspirations. She just went off saying that I don’t appreciate how hard she worked to raise me and how she gave up getting a Master’s degree to focus on me. That guilt-and-disappointment card made me upset and made me feel like I wasn’t experienced enough to have a conversation with her. I’m 22 years old, I know my brain isn’t fully developed, and neither is maturity, I suppose. After that argument, I distinctly remember walking to the school I substitute at in the pouring rain – my hair was soaked and looked like linguini pasta, in stringy-like strands that were stuck to my face. It felt like something out of a movie, like Ladybird. I cried for over an hour, pissed at myself and my mother, and feeling like a failure. Crying while walking in the rain, I was punishing myself in a way. I could’ve just turned around and walked back to the nice warm house, but I didn’t feel worthy of that. And don’t we all feel undeserving of our family at times? As the eldest daughter, there is somewhat of an obligation to stay home and take care of your parents, to be the obedient daughter who doesn’t talk back and gives up their dream career and settles down in the family house. My Titi did that as the middle sibling and youngest daughter.
Liza Minelli, the daughter of Judy Garland, is famously known for her Oscar-winning role in Cabaret. When comparing Judy’s relationship with her mother to Liza’s relationship with Judy, there is a stark difference in the way the two were raised. Judy Garland’s mother, Ethel, who gave Judy pills at a young age to give her energy boosts for the day, is why she began to deal with a substance abuse addiction later in her life. On set, Ethel was very controlling, manipulative, and abusive, even to Judy, caring only about her daughter’s image and appearance. Liza was treated differently from Judy, and Judy learned not to follow her mother’s tendencies; instead, she gave love to her children. Judy Garland’s death was due to an accidental overdose of pills, which caused a toll on Liza’s life. In the documentary “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” Liza says she cried for about eight days after learning the news. I can imagine that as a mother, you always want to have a strong relationship with your children, and I can only begin to imagine how much this death affected Liza Minelli within the entertainment industry and the outlying factors that come along with being a part of Hollywood royalty.
Heredity has both physical and emotional effects on us. I think about all the times my neighbors or my Mami’s friends would tell me that I looked exactly like her – that I was a mini version of my mother. My cousin said to me that people will view my sister and me as extensions, even entities of my mother, pieces of her beauty, her grace, her compassion, her forgiveness. And that since my Mami is “perfect” in their eyes, then we must be. Heredity can also influence what we think our futures should be like. A majority of my mom’s side of the family attended Rutgers, so I wanted to participate in that tradition as well. It wasn’t as if I felt forced to apply there, but I thought that, given my nature to attend, I should be able to get in. When I received the rejection letter, I racked my brain to figure out what I had done wrong – I had the grades, perfect attendance, it’s in my genes to attend Rutgers, so why didn’t I get in? That’s a question I still ask myself to this day: Am I even related to my parents if I’m not on the same skill level as them?
With Hollywood daughters, there is a feeling that you’re behind the curtains and how the construct from their mothers has impacted their own image. Carrie Fisher wanted to be her own star without her mother’s help. There are disadvantages and consequences of living in your parents’ shadows in the entertainment industry because there are assumptions about nepotism, everything was handed to you in life, and you never learned how to be independent and live on your own. The daughters of Hollywood starlets are waiting for their moment to shine, for that moment in the spotlight to come where they will be seen for thwart they truly are and not be a copy of their parents – I believe that what makes Hollywood daughters insightful is that other celebrities within the entertainment industry think you have the same aspirations and goals as your parents did and place you in a bubble that you didn’t ask to be in the first place. Daughters often feel constantly overshadowed by their parents’ accomplishments. Still, also the failures, the affairs and drama that their parents experienced that were exposed in the media, so that’s the other part of the double-sided coin, people will perceive you as someone who accepts their parents’ scandals and drama, which to media outlets means you’re liable, and that’s not fair. Still, those are the consequences of being born into a life of fame and the scrutiny of cameras. I’m thinking about one of the final scenes in Singin’ In The Rain. Don and Cosmo have Kathy sing from behind the curtains while Lina is “singing,” and then they pull the curtain to reveal that Kathy Selden is the real singer and the real star of the movie.
I wonder if that’s how the daughters of Hollywood starlets felt, not at first being in the spotlight but eventually having their time to shine and being seen for who they truly are.
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