#15: Love Is A Thing by Debbie Reynolds

City: Hull, QC
Radio Station: CKCH
Peak Month: July-August 1959
Peak Position in Hull ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Love Is A Thing”
Lyrics: N/A

Mary Frances Reynolds was born in 1932 in El Paso, Texas. He father was a carpenter. Her mother took in laundry for income, while they lived in a shack on Magnolia Street in El Paso. “We may have been poor,” she said in a 1963 interview, “but we always had something to eat, even if Dad had to go out in the desert and shoot jackrabbits.” When she was seven, her family moved to Burbank, California. Attending public school, Reynolds recalled later, “when I started, I didn’t even know how to dress. I wore dungarees and a shirt. I had no money, no taste, and no training.” In 1948, Reynolds was a 16-year-old student at Burbank High School, and she won the Miss Burbank beauty contest. Soon after, she was offered a contract with Warner Brothers and was given the stage name “Debbie” by studio head Jack L. Warner.

In 1948, she appeared in her first feature film, June Bride. In late 1950, she sang a duet with Carleton Carpenter titled “Aba Daba Honeymoon”. The song was a number-one hit in several radio markets including Fitchburg (MA), Troy (NY), Cambridge (MA), Pittsburgh (PA), Cincinnati (OH), Brattleboro (VT), Norfolk (VA), Spokane (WA), Milwaukee (WI), Atlanta, Dearborn (MI), Gonzales (TX), Braddock (PA), Mobile (AL), Chicago, #2 in Los Angeles and St. Louis, and #3 in Boston, Lexington (KY), Denver, Bridgeport (CT), Washington DC, and New Orleans.

Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter sing “Aba Daba Honeymoon”
in Two weeks in love.

In 1951, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the New Star of the Year – Actress category, for her performance in Three Little Words.

In 1952, she was given top billing, along with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, in the musical film Singing in the Rain.

The theme song was featured in the 1974 Hollywood musical retrospective film That’s Entertainment! In 1953, Reynolds appeared on tour performing the musical Best Foot Forward.

Reynolds was subsequently given top billing in 28 films that she starred in between 1953 and 1971. These include I Love Melvin and The Affairs of Dobbie Gillis (1953), Susan Slept Here and Athena (1954), Hit the Deck (1955), The Catered Affair (from 1956 with Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine), and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957).

Between 1953 and 1956, Reynolds released a half dozen singles on MGM Records. Some of these were Top Ten hits in local radio markets in the USA. In 1957, Reynolds received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her performance in Bundle of Joy. However, she became a household name that year with her number-one hit record from Tammy and the Bachelor titled “Tammy”. In Canada, the song topped the pop charts in Hull (QC), Montreal, Ottawa, Regina (SK), and Toronto. “Tammy” was awarded a “gold” record by the music industry, and was nominated for Best Song at the Academy Awards. It lost out to “All The Way” from The Joker is Wild.

“Tammy” has subsequently been featured in the films The Long Day Closes, The Big Lebowski and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Stan Freiburg parodied the song in 1963 in the sketch “Gray Flannel Hat Full of Teenage Werewolves,” from his album Madison Ave. Werewolf: “When I hold your sweet hairy hand tight in mine… Clammy! Clammy!” “Tammy” has been covered by Polly Bergen, Ray Conniff, Sam Cooke, Bing Crosby, Chet Atkins, Andy Williams, Trini Lopez, Nancy Sinatra, Slim Whitman and Mary Hopkin. Olivia Newton-John has stated that her performance of “Hopelessly Devoted To You” in the movie Grease is inspired by Debbie Reynolds’ performance of “Tammy” in Tammy and the Bachelor.

In 1958, Reynolds had a Top 20 hit titled “A Very Special Love”. Later in 1958, her theme song from Happy Feeling was a Top Ten hit in Chicago, New Orleans, Sydney (AU), Melbourne (AU). Her 1958 single release, “Love Is A Thing”, appeared on the pop charts in Hull (QC) in 1959.

“Love Is A Thing” was also a track on the 1960
Dot Records album, Am I That Easy To Forget?

“Love Is A Thing” was a track included in Debbie Reynolds 1960 album Am I That Easy To Forget? It was written by an obscure songwriter named James Aton. The song was released as a single in the USA and Canada.

The song offers a list of metaphors to understand what love is:
1) A thing, 2) a sting, 3) a fling, 4) a binge, 5) a blight, 6) a fright, 7) a thief in the night, 8) a noose, 9) a ruse, 10) a word, 11) a bundle of sound effects, 12) a wheeze, 13) a sneeze, 14) a pop, 15) a cop, 16) a crow, 17) a chicken, and 18) a dove.
The bottom line: “love is a thing that no one can live without.”

The liner notes to Am I That Easy To Forget? state,

“Maybe being born on April Fool’s Day gave her a sense of humor. And maybe being born in Texas made her an independent spirit. But whatever the reasons, Debbie Reynolds knows what she can do and does it with flair. There was a time that Debbie was regarded solely as an up-and-coming young actress. Not one to be typed, however, she turned to recording, and one of her first releases was her smash hit Tammy. As a matter of fact it had the distinction of making a hit out of the picture instead of the usual vice-versa. And just about the time people would begin to figure Debbie as a singer of quiet ballads, she’d take a deep breath and throw “Aba Daba Honeymoon” at them. She wasn’t trying to prove her versatility, she was just singing the songs she liked to sing. And working on this premise, it wasn’t long before she came up with another big hit, the title song of this album – “Am I This Easy To Forget?” ….
No one as cute as Debbie could help but be love-oriented in her choice of material. So while some of the songs on this album have been her big hits, and others have yet to be heard, all of them reflect the warm heart and twinkling eye that are so famously Debbie.”

Love was a word that found itself in the titles of numerous songs in the 1950s. Among these are “Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing” by the Four Aces; “Love Is (The Tender Trap)” by Frank Sinatra; “Love Is Strange” by Mickey & Sylvia; and “Love Is The Thing” by Nat “King” Cole from his chart-topping 1957 album, Love Is The Thing.

“Love Is A Thing” peaked at #2 in Hull (QC).

In 1959, Reynolds switched to Dot Records. In 1960, Reynolds “Am I That Easy To Forget” was a #25 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It cracked the Top Ten in Fort William (ON), Montreal and Ottawa. Her last charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 was also in 1960 titled “City lights”, which stalled at #55.

In 1962, Reynolds appeared in the $50 million dollar blockbuster movie, How the West was Won. She co-starred with Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Carroll Baker, Agnes Moorehead, Walter Brennan, and John Wayne. In 1964, The Unsinkable Molly Brown earned $11 million at the box office. For her performance, Reynolds was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Best Actress  (Motion Picture Musical or Comedy).

In 1966, Debbie Reynolds starred in The Singing Nun, a film about the life of “Jeannine” Deckers; A nun who was known as Sœur Sourire (French for ‘Smiling Sister’) and often called The Singing Nun in English-speaking countries due to her number-one hit in the winter of 1963 titled “Dominque”. In 1967, she co-starred with Dick Van Dyke in Divorce American Style, which earned $12 million at the box office. Variety commented “Comedy and satire, not feverish melodrama, are the best weapons with which to harpoon social mores. An outstanding example is Divorce American Style . . . which pokes incisive, sometimes chilling, fun at US marriage-divorce problems.”

In 1973, Debbie Reynolds was the voice of Charlotte in the animated movie Charlotte’s Web. In 1994, she appeared in the Hollywood musical retrospective That’s Entertainment! III.

Debbie Reynolds released another dozen singles between 1960 and 1973. They were minor hits in some local radio markets in the USA, none of which charted in Canada. In her film career, she appeared in over fifty motion pictures (including some documentaries). In 1973 she was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards for her Broadway performance in Irene. This was a revival of a very successful 1919 Broadway show about an immigrant shop assistant Irene O’Dare, who is introduced to Long Island’s high society when she is hired to tune a piano for a society gentleman. Reynolds also starred in a self-titled Broadway revue, Debbie, in 1976. In 1983, she replaced Lauren Bacall in the final months of the Broadway show Woman of the Year. And in 1989, she went on tour with the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. In 1996, Reynolds was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Best Actress – Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

In 1969-70, she hosted the TV sitcom, The Debbie Reynolds Show. For her effort, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

In 1981, she appeared in eight episodes of the TV comedy Aloha Paradise. Between 1999 and 2006, Reynolds appeared in a dozen episodes of Will & Grace. Between 1963 and 1989, Debbie Reynolds appeared 33 occasions as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She has appeared on nearly 30 episodes of various iterations of Hollywood Squares. She also appeared in one episode of The Golden Girls, another in Roseanne, and as a judge in RuPaul’s Drag Race. Over her career, she’s had guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Bonnie Hunt Show, Larry King Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jerry Lewis Telethon, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, Late Show with David Letterman, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Dick Cavett Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Sally Jessie Raphael, The Don Lane Show, The Sonny and Cher Show, The Mike Douglas Show, The Merry Griffin Show, The Bob Hope Show, The Perry Como Sunshine Show, The Dick Cavett Show, The David Frost Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Barbara McNair Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Jim Nabors Show, The Pearl Bailey Show, Dinah!, The Ed Sullivan Show, What’s My Line?, The Eddie Fisher Show, The Steve Allen Plymouth Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar, American Bandstand, The George Gobel Show, Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood, and more.

In the fall of 2012, Reynolds was hospitalized and had to cancel shows for three months due to an adverse reaction she had to medication her doctor had prescribed. In 2015, Debbie Reynolds was given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards for “outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes.”

In her personal life, Debbie Reynolds married singer Eddie Fisher in 1955 and divorced him in 1959 after she learned Fisher was having an affair with Elizabeth Taylor. Their daughter, Carrie Fisher had a successful career as an actress.

October 21, 2024
Ray McGinnis

References:
Julia Carrie Wong and Stephanie Convery, “Debbie Reynolds dies one day after daughter Carrie Fisher,” Guardian, December 29, 2016.
Stan Freburg, “Gray Flannel Hat Full of Teenage Werewolves,” The Madison Ave. Werewolf, Capitol Records, 1963.
Clive Barnes, “Theater: ‘Irene’ Bustles Merrily and Relentlessly,” New York Times, March 14, 1973.
“Irene (musical),” Wikipedia.org.
Roger Ebert, “Mother,” rogerebert.com, January 10, 1997.
“Debbie Reynolds hospitalized, cancels three months of shows,” FOX NEWS, October 10, 2012.
“Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016),” imdb.com.

CKCH 970-AM Hull (QC) Top Ten | August 1959