While their love for one another was strong, Reynolds and Fisher had a somewhat complicated bond — most memorably documented in Postcards from the Edge, the 1990 movie based on Fisher’s 1987 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name.  Desperately seeking her own identity from the shadow of her mother’s fame, Fisher became estranged from Reynolds. The two barely spoke for almost ten years. “We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s,” Fisher told Oprah. “I didn’t want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter.”  Fisher had started smoking marijuana at 13, and by her early 20s her drug use had spiraled out of control, as she abused everything from cocaine and heroin to painkillers and LSD, she said. Later, Fisher would ascribe the drug use to a form of self-medication for her bipolar disorder, which she was diagnosed in her 20s.  “It’s very hard when your child doesn’t want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them,” said Reynolds. “It was a total estrangement. She didn’t talk to me for probably 10 years. So that was the most difficult time of all. Very painful, very heartbreaking.”  Ultimately, time began to heal their relationship. “It took like 30 years for Carrie to be really happy with me,” Reynolds told PEOPLE. “I don’t know what the problem ever was. I’ve had to work at it. I’ve always been a good mother, but I’ve always been in show business, and I’ve been on stage and I don’t bake cookies and I don’t stay home,” she added.  After their deaths, Reynolds’ son Todd Fisher tweeted a touching drawing of his mother and sister — writing, “This is a beautiful love story to witness in my 58 years. I miss them both so much. Love is everlasting.”
After the back-to-back deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds, HBO has moved up the premiere date of its highly-anticipated documentary about the two Hollywood icons