Reynolds, who is 84, was at the home of her son Todd Fisher when she reportedly suffered a medical emergency. Mother and son had been discussing plans for the funeral of Carrie, who died on Tuesday (LA time) after suffering a massive heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles last Friday.

Reynolds has been a fixture on stage, screen and record for almost 70 years. She made her screen debut in 1948 and her debut as a recording artist in the early 1950s, with the soundtrack albums of Two Weeks With Love (1950) and Singin' in the Rain (1952).

In 1955, she married the singer Eddie Fisher, with whom she had two children, Carrie (born 1956) and Todd (1958). They divorced in 1959, when Reynolds discovered her husband had been having an affair with her good friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor. She married twice more, and was twice more divorced.

Last year she confessed to the Express news group in the UK that she had never been very interested in sex, and blamed that for her failed marriages.

But, she added: "I have very poor taste in men and I married all the wrong men. I've never found the right man and never hope to at this age. I think that it's too late. That boat has sailed."

Reynolds was just 17 when she was cast in Singin' in the Rain, with no dance experience to speak of. She learnt on the job, often to the frustration of leading man Fred Astaire. But she applied herself, and developed a long-running career as a genuine triple threat – someone capable of acting, singing and dancing with equal aplomb.

Though she was nominated for an Academy Award as best actress in 1965 for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and received the honorary Jean Hersholt humanitarian award at the Oscars 50 years later (in recognition for her work with various charities, and her efforts to establish a Hollywood museum, which came to nought when she was forced to sell her collection in 2009 after her foundation was declared bankrupt), in recent decades she became best known to a younger generation as the mother of Carrie Fisher.

Indeed, she arguably became most famous through the fictional character Doris Mann, played by Shirley MacLaine in the 1990 film Postcards From the Edge. Like the semi-autobiographical book on which it was based, the film about the relationship between a drug-addicted actress and her narcissistic, alcoholic former star mother was written by Carrie Fisher.

Speaking to Larry King on CNN just before the film's release in 1990, Reynolds said "Everyone thinks it's about me, but it's not. Carrie wrote a novel".

Even so, Reynolds could see herself in the role, in more ways than one. As she confessed in her 2013 autobiography Unsinkable, she wanted to play Doris. But when she asked director Mike Nichols to let her audition, he told her: "You're not right for the part."

Reynolds was reportedly devastated by her daughter's death, which came just a day after she announced to the media that Carrie was in a "stable" condition. But it is unlikely anything but serious illness could keep her away from the stage for too long.

As she told the Express last year: "I want to sing and dance through the rest of my life. I want to be able to enjoy the last years that I have and be happy.

"That's a lot to ask," she added, "but I hope to achieve that."

Sadly, it was not to be.