Debbie Reynolds died on Wednesday, the day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher, at the age of 84. And while mourners from all over Hollywood are sharing heartfelt memories and condolences, the best tribute to Reynolds already came, a year ago, from Fisher herself. Fisher presented her mother with the 2015 SAG Lifetime Achievement Award, and her speech is exactly the moving, funny, and ribbing testimonial to Reynolds’s legacy to be expected from Fisher’s sharp wit and insight. In the speech, Fisher speaks lovingly, and — because they were one and the same to Fisher — teasingly of her mother, who’s “actually been more than a mother to me. Not much, but definitely more.†Those additional roles included “grandmother to my alleged daughter,†neighbor, “unsolicited stylist, an interior decorator, and marriage counselor,†as well as being the kind of person who would “give you the shirt off her back … if Vivien Leigh hadn’t once worn it in Gone With the Wind.†Of Reynolds’s death, Reynolds’s son and Fisher’s brother, Todd Fisher, told Variety, “She wanted to be with Carrie,†and that powerful mother-daughter camaraderie is on full display as Reynolds accepts her speech, with Fisher standing onstage by her side the entire time. Watch above.
