Todd Fisher recalls mother’s bold move to launch his showbiz career

Todd Fisher fondly recalls how his mother, Debbie Reynolds, used her influence to give him an early start in show business.

During a recent live episode of the Behind the Stage Doors with Todd Fisher and Catherine Hickland podcast, released March 28, the business executive reflected on what would have been his mother’s 94th birthday on April 1.

He shared the story of how Reynolds ensured he could work on her productions as a teenager.

“So I had stopped doing her show. I was probably 14ish and I had stopped being in the show and I started doing sound,” Todd recalled.

“Gary Wood, who was the entertainment director at the Desert End… would take me up and let me run the board, but he’d be sitting there when I did it.”

However, Todd’s ambition hit a roadblock: union rules.

“At a certain point, my mother said, ‘I want him to run the sound rather than the curtain puller.’ But the union stepped in and said, ‘No, he has to be union. He can’t be union till he’s 18,’” he said.

Rather than accept the restriction, Reynolds personally intervened. She called John Flity, head of the New York Local One Union (IATSE), and pleaded her case.

“She said, ‘I want my son to do my sound in Las Vegas. They’re saying he can’t do it unless he’s a member,’” Todd explained.

The result was unprecedented: Todd became one of the youngest members of the high hats union, giving him full access to work on his mother’s productions.

“That’s why mother called John Flity… and I was the youngest, and I am to this day the youngest member,” he said.

“Back then, it was unheard of that a 14-year-old would become a member. Then I started getting to do her sound. It was a fun thing, and then they couldn’t tell me not to touch anything anymore.”

Todd went on to work closely with Reynolds throughout her life and now manages her estate following her passing in December 2016, just a day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher.