We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
DEBBIE REYNOLDS HAS died, grief-stricken over daughter Carrie Fisher’s death a day earlier.
The 84-year-old suffered a stroke at son Todd Fisher’s Beverly Hills home after telling him “I miss her so much, I want to be with Carrie,” he was quoted as telling celebrity news website TMZ.
The “Singin’ in the Rain” actress tap-danced her way into American hearts as a star of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Reynolds was the girl-next-door lead of a string of hit musicals in the 1950s after being discovered by MGM studio bosses at a beauty contest in southern California, going on to earn an Oscar nomination for playing the title role in 1964′s “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
“We have lost a unique talent and a national treasure. Coming so close to the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, this is truly a double tragedy,” Screen Actors Guild president Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.
“Their imprint on our culture is profound, and they both will live on.”
Reynolds is best remembered as sweet but shy voice artist Kathy Selden in “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) and holding her own despite being cast opposite tap-dancing superstar Gene Kelly, who was more than twice her age.
Off-screen, she was known as the wronged party in one of Hollywood’s most notorious scandals, when her husband, singer Eddie Fisher, left her for her friend and fellow screen icon Elizabeth Taylor.
Reynolds’ daughter Carrie Fisher, who catapulted to worldwide stardom as rebel warrior Princess Leia in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, four days after suffering a heart attack on a transatlantic flight.
Media reports said Reynolds had been at her son’s house to discuss funeral arrangements.
‘Broken heart’
Fans and fellow celebrities struggled to come to terms with another devastating blow so soon after Fisher’s death.
“Debbie Reynolds was one of the last of Hollywood Royalty. It breaks my heart that she is gone,” “Star Trek” actor William Shatner said on Twitter.
William Shatner / TwitterDebbie Reynolds was one of the last of Hollywood Royalty. It breaks my heart that she is gone. I'd hoped that my grieving was done for 2016.
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) December 29, 2016
He added, referencing the long string of celebrity deaths this year: “I’d hoped that my grieving was done for 2016.”
“There is nothing harder than having to bury a child. Debbie died of a broken heart, but she’s with her daughter now,” tweeted Shatner’s “Star Trek” co-star turned social media personality George Takei.
“Dear Debbie Reynolds, I totally get it. Hug her so tight for all of us,” added “Charmed” and “Who’s the Boss” actress Alyssa Milano.
“I can’t remember a year ending with so many bold faced obituaries. Godspeed,” morning chat show host Al Roker said, posting photos of Reynolds, Fisher, singer George Michael and 1980s sitcom actor Alan Thicke — all of whom died this month.
Reynolds, who received a humanitarian award at the Academy’s “Honorary Oscars” last year, was just 19 when she got her big break in “Singin’ in the Rain,” which celebrates Hollywood’s transition from the silent era into “talkies.”
Her 2013 autobiography “Unsinkable: A Memoir” detailed the highs and lows of her rocky personal life and a career which was still going strong into her 80s as she performed her one-woman stage show.
“‘Singin’ in the Rain’ and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life,” she wrote in an earlier autobiography entitled “Debbie.”
Reynolds was known at one time as the foremost collector of Hollywood memorabilia. Taylor’s “Cleopatra” headdress and Marilyn Monroe’s billowing “Seven Year Itch” frock would become part of the 4,000-piece haul of costumes, props and furniture, most of which Reynolds eventually auctioned for more than $25 million.
Wholesome heroine
Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932 in El Paso, Texas, the second child of railroad carpenter Raymond Francis Reynolds and his wife Maxine.
Now synonymous with tap, Reynolds had never danced professionally, according to the Internet Movie Database, when picked to star in “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Several more MGM musicals followed, with Reynolds typically cast as a wholesome young heroine, before she turned to more serious screen acting, as well as a career on Broadway.
Married three times, Reynolds once said she had more luck selecting restaurants than men.
First, she had to overcome the humiliation of losing Fisher to Taylor, although the two women remained close until Taylor’s death in 2011.
In another turn of misfortune, Reynolds’s second husband, shoe magnate Harry Karl, gambled away most of her savings.
Her third marriage to real estate developer Richard Hamlett in 1985 wasn’t much more successful, ending in divorce in 1996.
To support the family, Reynolds performed at her casino in Las Vegas, where she housed her memorabilia collection until it shut in 1997.
Reynolds, admired for her versatility, starred in her own sitcom, “The Debbie Reynolds Show,” in 1969-1970 and was also known for her Emmy-nominated role as Grace’s quirky mother on NBC’s “Will & Grace.”
Her career in cinema was largely over by the 1970s, though she continued to star in TV movies and series. She also acted on stage and portrayed Liberace’s mother Frances opposite Michael Douglas in 2013′s “Behind the Candelabra.”
“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds,” a documentary about Reynolds’s at-times rocky relationship with her daughter, premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is due to air on HBO in March.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
This must be some kind of joke, right?
Crowd funding by it’s very nature is usually consumer-centric. So I would imagine this is a bad suggestion for a B2B SME. And a lot of SME’s in Ireland are B2B.
Is there a crowd funding platform out there that isn’t consumer-centric and is based on getting shares for investment?
You’re looking more at angel investor route there. You could also look at a co-destiny arrangement with significant customers. That is where there is extremely close cooperation between a service provider and a customer such that they are almost one (e.g. A well functioning outsourcing arrangement). In such a scenario, your customer may work with you and help you grow your business as the rate of return for spare funds in a bank is so poor at the moment.
Contact me on twitter if you have any questions and I can talk you through a few things if you want.
NEWFLASH FROM ERSI….Banks are shite, banks are shite!! Just whats needed…the out of touch preaching to the untouchables!!
The very fact that Dr?? Martina Lawless would suggest Crowdfunding as a viable option for anything over 1-2% of SMEs in Ireland shows her and her organisation’s detachment from reality…The ERSI is the place that needs to ‘catch up’ and give some real alternatives to the banking sewer that is the unavoidable staple for so many self-employed and SMEs in Ireland.
The idea of borrowing from tax-funded bailed-out banks so you can make money to pay them interest and pay more taxes on any profit you make to pay ad finites for their bail-out is insane!
Really? You seem to have a loose grasp on business there.
The options are very straight forward:
Bank loan: will seek concomitant funding and/or security over loan against personal assets. Benefit is funding / risk is losing it all.
Equity swap: in return for a capital injection from a private investor or investors, a business gets access to funding but loses some of its independence. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does mean you pay an awfully high price for what can be a modest level of start-up funding if you become successful. It just depends on how confident you are about your business and how much you’re willing to relinquish to have a shot at success.
Co-destiny funding: two businesses share business expansion plans and without formally joining help each other realise each other’s expansion plans. One may have spare cash that they are willing to advance because of the close relationship for a reasonable return like 5%. The other gets the funding and can expand operations such that it can take on new customers and build the size and scale to be able to support their co-destiny partner’s business.
Flotation: alternative investment markets for products and service but this tends to be down the line.
Crowd-funding: raise small amounts of modest funding levels in return for equity or some kind of benefit in kind.
There aren’t too many other ways to do this beside merging and then losing independence. Sin é, that’s it. So there aren’t alternatives. Besides it’s not ESRI’s job to innovate, it is a SMEs job to find a way.
@robespierre. Your post is informative and succinct but I fear from its tone that you may give your advice from behind a desk(no offence meant and apologies if I am wrong). The options you speak of all infer a loss of independence to some degree and if you have worked, planned, saved, discussed ad nauseam every detail of your start up/expansion/survival, I fear the way you have delivered the options to finance in your post would not be so ‘clinical’. I have listened to many advisors who never took the ownership/self-employed plunge, and they all had answers from a book but never from experience unfortunately. Re ERSI, you are right, they are not the innovators, however may I suggest that they should just give the facts then, not opinion, and allow us, the innovators, to decide for ourselves without the gratuitous dog-on-the-street ‘advice’.
Nope, I left a well paid position in a tier one consultancy to run my own business. I am building from a modest base of my own savings and am running one business (an advisory one) to build the business I quit to set-up primarily through equity sharing with individuals I convince to take the jump with me.
The options are simple and few and that may seem clinical. Simple and easy are two very different things however.
Absolutely correct but when 50% have now website and a large amount of the other simply have a magazine sites crowd funding is like going to mars.
Ultimately it’s adapt or die. Micro financing and crowd sourcing or angel investors are a great bet but so many small businesses offer generic services without significant differentiation that this kind investment is not really relevant. On the product side crowd sourcing is easier and more obvious but generational mind sets can affect this.
Finally, as a small business owner, we’re right to be wary of banks. The first thing they look for is a personal guarantee or a hold over your family home. We’ve seen how that has worked out over the past 7 years.
My top tip is I give a 10% discount for half the money up front. It means I am guaranteed a break even level of cash. While you need loans / capital to expand and build scale without cash you have no business. Bird in the hand is very much my perspective.
It is called invoice discounting and service providers don’t do it enough. It’s harder for products but you may be able to do it on high volume order to reduce non payment risk and maintain adequate working capital reserves.
Do you need Personal Loan?
Business Cash Loan?
Unsecured Loan
Fast and Simple Loan?
Quick Application Process?
Approvals within 24-72 Hours?
No Hidden Fees Loan?
Funding in less than 1 Week?
Get unsecured working capital?
Email us:(flourishloancredite@gmail.com
Application Form:
=================
Full Name:…………….
Loan Amount Needed:.
Purpose of loan:…….
Loan Duration:..
Gender:………….
Marital status:….
Location:……….
Home Address:..
City:…………
Country:……
Phone:……….
Mobile / Cell:….
Occupation:……
Monthly Income:….
Email us(flourishloancredite@gmail.com)
Dear Sir/ Madam
Are you interested in obtaining a loan at an interest rate of 3%, you
need a loan for a business transaction, buying a car, house
purchase bad credit card and other E.T.C we give out long term loan
for five to fifty years maximum with 3% interest in
Maybe you like it
well tell us the amount you need so that we will send to you the terms and
provided that, if you’re really interested in getting
loan from us,
Loans issued in Great British Pounds and U.S. dollar.
We can give you the best satisfaction in getting a loan from us. as
given guarantees and insurance that you will get your loan amount in your
Personal bank account in your country. What takes only 48 hours
Banking process. We also provide software and
unsecured loans for
Running your business. you can kindling reach us via < ponyeefastloan.ch@cash4u.com << <<
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say