Inside Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher’s Dramatic Love Triangle: Complete Timeline

Reynolds Met Taylor for the 1st Time as a Teen

At age 16, Reynolds won the Miss Burbank beauty pageant and was scouted by studio heads from Warner Bros. and MGM. Soon after, she met the England-born film star for the first time.

“I went to MGM when I was around 17, and Liz was there too, but she was already a star,” the Three Little Words actress told People in January 2015. “We went to school together on the lot when she was in between films. I was just a beginner, and she and I were not in any manner alike, but we got along very well because I was in awe of going to school with Elizabeth Taylor. And if anyone said they weren’t, then they were lying. Or blind.”

Reynolds Married Fisher in 1955

Reynolds walked down the aisle with Fisher, a teen idol and singing sensation, in 1955. In 1957, Taylor married her third husband, Mike Todd. Reynolds served as a bridesmaid while Fisher was the best man at the wedding. One year after their nuptials, Mike died in a plane crash. After the tragedy, Fisher and Taylor grew closer, taking their friendship to the next level with intimacy in secret.

“I never felt bitter about Elizabeth,” Reynolds told People in 1983. “A man doesn’t leave a woman for another woman unless he wants to go. You know, when Mike Todd died, I sent Eddie to help Elizabeth. I don’t think she ever really loved Eddie. He was an interim interest during her mourning period.”

Reynolds Found Out About Her Husband’s Affair

“I was the last to find out about the affair,” Reynolds told Daily Mail in April 2010. “There had been hints in the papers and I had noticed that when I turned up at functions or parties on my own, my friends were whispering.”

Reynolds and Fisher, who shared kids Carrie and Todd, officially divorced in 1959. The “Thinking of You” crooner married Taylor that same year. While filming Cleopatra in the early ‘60s, Taylor began an affair with costar Richard Burton, ultimately leading to the demise of her marriage in 1964.

Reynolds and Taylor Rekindled Their Friendship

Despite the drama that surrounded them, Reynolds and Taylor patched things up during a chance encounter years later.

“We got on the same boat to go to Europe — the Queen Elizabeth. I sent a note to her, and she sent a note to me in passing, and then we had dinner together,” Reynolds once said, per Vogue. “She was married to Richard Burton by then. I had been remarried at that point. And we just said, ‘Let’s call it a day.’ And we got smashed. And we had a great evening, and stayed friends since then.”

A Friendship Fueled by Forgiveness

Through her years in the spotlight, Taylor was married eight times to seven different men. Reynolds was married and divorced two more times after her split from Fisher.

“I had another person after that who was a louse and another husband after that who was another louse. So, I’ve had my share of louses,” Reynolds said of her marriage history. “So, it wasn’t all Elizabeth’s fault. I had much more pain to go. I had many more bumpy paths to go along the way.”

They Shared the Screen Together

Reynolds and Taylor costarred in the 2001 television film These Old Broads, proving that they put the past behind them.

A Final Goodbye

They remained friends up until the Academy Award winner’s death from congestive heart failure at age 79 in 2011.

“She was very ill. She was feeling really miserable, just trying to survive, to rise above it … She expressed how scary it was,” Reynolds recalled of her final conversation with Taylor. “We talked about that for a while, that it’s really hell getting older. We were complaining to each other about that. Like two girls would.”

Reynolds died in 2016 at age 84 after suffering a stroke just one day after the death of her daughter, Carrie.

Todd Tells All

More than 60 years after news of the cheating scandal rocked Hollywood, Todd opened up about his parents’ marriage.

“My father left my mother for Elizabeth Taylor,” he said in an October 2023 interview with Fox News. “A lot of people were mad about that … A lot of people were like, ‘So your dad left the good girl for the bad girl.’ … Liz made no bones about being the bad girl. She came a long way from National Velvet … So, when my mother was put in the position of being humiliated by my father … my mother was a classy person.”

Above all, Reynolds did not let the drama define her and continued her illustrious career with top billing until the very end.

“My mother loved to entertain. She loved live entertainment more than the movies,” Todd continued, adding, “What kept her going was a passion for loving to [perform]. If she didn’t like to do it at any given point, she could have retired long ago and she never did because it drove her.”

New Details Unearthed

Ahead of the release of Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes on HBO in August 2024, director Nanette Burstein told Closer that Taylor was “happiest” during her marriage to Mike.

“I can tell you that very certainly,” she said.

“I think that was her true love,” she added. “I think that he made her confident. I think he made her feel special. I think she felt like she could do anything in the world and I think he would’ve been and continued to be – he was and would have continued to be – the great love of her life, but then he died in a plane crash.”