On January 25 the 

Shrine Exposition Center 

in Los Angeles played host to the 

21st annual 

Screen Actors Guild Awards. 

The following productions represented in 

Merrick Library's DVD collection 

were honored at the ceremony:

"Boyhood" - Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Patricia Arquette)



"Downton Abbey" - Best Ensemble in a Television Drama Series



"House of Cards" - Best Actor in a Television Drama Series (Kevin Spacey)



"The Normal Heart" - Best Actor in a Television Movie (Mark Ruffalo)

"Orange is the New Black" - Best Ensemble in a Television Comedy Series, Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series (Uzo Aduba)





The highlight of the program was the presentation of this year's Lifetime Achievement Award to entertainment legend Debbie Reynolds. Presenting the award and narrating a retrospective of Miss Debbie's career was her daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher.

It was six years after being signed to Warner 
Brothers and then going to MGM that Debbie Reynolds achieved her first leading lady role in the now classic 1952 musical "Singin' in the Rain." Miss Fisher revealed in the retrospective that her mother had to practice dancing for three months to measure up to the quality emulated by her co-stars Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor ("Singin' in the Rain" may be found in Merrick Library's videocassette collection).

It was also pointed out that Miss Reynolds identified strongly with the title character she portrayed in the 1964 film musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." Portraying one of the more famous survivors of the Titanic disaster was a role Miss Reynolds repeated years later in a Broadway revival of the production. It is small wonder her 2013 book (in Merrick Library's Biography section) is entitled "Unsinkable: A Memoir."

The Library congratulates Miss Debbie Reynolds on receiving the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award by listing items in its collection featuring her many talents:


On DVD: Behind the Candelabra
              One for the Money
              Mother (The International Press Academy gave its 1997 Satellite Award for Best  
Supporting Actress to Miss Reynolds for her work in this movie)  


Miss Reynolds also provided the foreword to Steven Bingen's 2011 book "M-G-M: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot (to be found in Merrick Library's Oversized Book area).