president—elect donald trump has praised russian president vladimir putin, after mr putin said he will not expel any us diplomats in response to washington's expulsion of 35 russians. writing on social media mr trump said, "great move on delay. i always knew he was very smart!" police in rio dejaneiro are questioning the greek ambassador‘s wife and two other people on suspicion of involvement in the envoy‘s killing. investigators say the ambassador‘s body was found in the boot of a burnt—out car. the nationwide ceasefire in syria is now over 2a hours old. while it appears to be holding in most areas. moscow says it calls on the un security council to back the deal and support new peace talks. in a change to the scheduled hardtalk programme, here's a chance to see again the remarkable interview the actress debbie reynolds, who died earlier this week, gave to jonathan charles for hardtalk in april 2010. she starred in one of the best—known

films of all time, the musical singin‘ in the rain. for a staggering six decades she has been a big name in show business and she is here in london's west end, treading the boards again. her life, though, has been touched by scandal and hollywood has changed dramatically during the years she has been involved. our guest on hardtalk today is debbie reynolds. debbie reynolds, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. why are you still so driven to carry on performing? well, now, if i wasn't, if i was not having a wonderful time i would be bored to death and i would be sitting at home and i would not know what to do with myself.

i have always been busy, active and home in the states i travel 42 weeks a year and that is just constant. i've never stopped working since i was 16. it isjust like, i am used to it. i get really nervous if, let's say i had a two—week vacation, then i am nervous. i have to keep busy. when you started, though, at 16 years old, could you have imagined you would still be doing it at 78? no, i thought i'd most probably be dead. that's why they named the tour alive. alive and fabulous. when they called me they said, "debbie, what should we name the tour?" i said i did not really know but some people say "debbie reynolds, is she still alive?" so then they went with that. 0k, we will call the tour ‘alive and fabulous‘, they added ‘fabulous‘. and when people see me they will see i am. you say you are very driven but it is more than that, isn't it? you have to do this financially. it has not been an easy life for you financially. when i say ‘driven‘, it is what you want to do.

do i have to work? yes. everybody has to work. there are always bills. i raised five children. they all went to university and they always had a mother that worked. they had a lot of cars, colleges, you know. so i think that all parents work. don't they? well, especially if they have a divorce. that is the thing, isn't it? your third husband left you bankrupt, didn't he? the second one left me bankrupt. and the third one. the third husband, he didn't leave me bankrupt, hejust left with all the money. that must be very difficult, because as a hollywood star you had amassed a huge amount of money until your second and third marriages. i know, but husbands spend a lot of money. i could shop all day on what they spend. do you regret that you trusted your husbands so much financially and in the end itjust didn't work out that for one reason or another, in the case your second husband, he gambled a lot, i think, didn't he?

the third husband, the hotel complex investment that didn't work out? as a woman, i have to answer you really honestly. when you fall in love, you don't really ask, is the man in love with me? you really think that he is. otherwise you would not get married. you just really do believe. i'm rather victorian and i think that if a man says, "i love you, debbie, and i want to be with you for the rest of my life," you must believe him, or you wouldn't marry him. i'm not a complete fool until after the fact. but then i was. yes, i have been married three times. twice, the second one went bankrupt and the third one went bankrupt but he didn't get everything. he took all the money and ran but he did not get everything. and i have great resilience, you know? they don't tackle me on the way out, theyjust leave me fallen like a good punch. back in 1988, though, it all looked very different, didn't it? you were quoted in an interview

saying two more years and you would have enough money to retire. that was prior to the marriage crumbling and leaving you penniless again. i always say you can make it back. i give myself not really a two—year period, a five—year plan. i always say there is a light at end of the tunnel, so i can get through, because if there is a tunnel there is a light. so i can make it. i never give up. what did bankruptcy mean for you, though? how did it affect you? it means the government gets all the money. what does bankruptcy mean to me? a bankruptcy is a very big setback but you didn't do it, your husband does it. and in california, it's california taxes, community property so the government steps in and you have to pay back what your husband owes. some people say, "how this could happen?" ‘cause we always hear the stories about hollywood stars and they have people to protect their business interests. you have got the impression there is someone doing everything for them.

but in this case clearly not? no, there is often someone stupid like me. so you didn‘t get advice, or...? i had great lawyers and they advised me to always get always a promissory note, which i did, but that does not hold up in bankruptcy court. somehow there‘s a different thing in community property. so, they win. and you are still working as a result of that? you see, the good fortune that i had was to be in show business. and in show, business if people care about you and if you have a good show and you work really hard your entire life and you have learnt to sing and dance and do mimicry and just be good at your craft, people want to come and see you. cast your mind back to those early days when you were first discovered at the age of 16. mh—hm. what did it feel like to be on the verge of a hollywood career? well, who knew that? i was 16, i was in school. i entered a local beauty contest just for fun because they gave

away a free blouse and scarf. that‘s why you did it? because you thought you might win a free scarf? well, i mean, a silk scarf. i never had a silk scarf. or a beautiful blouse. did you want to be an actress? no. no—one in my family was in show business and i was just a kid going to school and i wanted to be a gym teacher. i was working hard because i wanted to go to college and i could go if i got a scholarship. so i had to keep my grades up and that is what i wanted to do, and that‘s what i hoped to be. a local, you know... but they had this local contest in burbank and i won the contest. there was a talent scout there and they took me to warner brothers and they did a screen test and they asked me why i wanted to be in the movies and i said, "i don‘t." that must have been a bit surprised by that, because every young girl in those days wanted to be an actress. especially in california. i truly had no thought about it. i loved to go to the movies but why would you think you would be

in the movies? i mean, it is one thing to go the movies and to see movie stars but why in the — why would you think you were ever going to be there? if no—one in your family was, if you were not exposed to it at all, i had no dream of that. so then, all of a sudden, i guess, they thought i was so crazy that i would fit into show business. ‘cause you have to be a little crazy to be in show business. i have decided that. you came from a pretty poor background. not an easy background. yes. my family were very poor. we have enough food on the table but my father did not make much money. he worked for the railroad and so there was very little to go around. we didn‘t have furniture. we had a little home my daddy built and i can‘t say that we knew we were poor, because everybody else was poor. so there was no—one to, like, guide you to say, "0h, don‘t you feel terrible?" we did not feel that we were different than anybody else because everybody was poor. you made some fantastic films, i mean, the unsinkable molly brown, how the west was won and the one i suppose that always sticks

in my mind, singin‘ in the rain with gene kelly. a fantastic musical. when you were making it at the time did you think it was going to be a great film that people would remember for decades afterwards? well, no, i wouldn‘t know that because i was just a little girl. i was only 17 when i made that picture, they put me in the picture and i had never danced and then the head of the studio said "gene, this is debbie reynolds." mary frances was my real name. so "this is debbie." they changed my name to debbie. they said she will be your new leading lady. gene said, "really? do you dance?" isaid, "well, no." and i‘m sure he was aghast. and there are complicated dance scenes in that movie, aren‘t there? i‘d say. i think as tough as you could get. how did you tackle it? they asked if i could do the time step. and i could. and then he asked "can you do the maxie ford?" and i said "i don‘t have a car." because a maxie ford... is a dance step. so then he knew he was dead,

that he had to teach me how to dance. so i did and i worked like a dog. i had five different teachers and in six months they prepared me to work and i worked really hard because he‘s a taskmaster and a great dancer and this was his idea. and gene kelly and fred astaire and stanley donen, they were the creators. donald o‘connor could dance to drop dead. his family were all from the circus, you know. he was great. he could run up the wall around backwards. they say he was taskmaster and some people say he was tough on you. not always very nice to you. no, no, he was tough. you‘ve got the right idea. did he shout at you? he had a microphone and he used to yell at me. gene kelly? he had a microphone and he used to yell at you? he would tell me "smile, be bigger, be louder." he was always coaching. you were his love interest in the movie and you fought off i suppose quite a lot of other actresses who were in the frame to get the role originally. people like leslie caron and judy garland and in the end

it was the unknown, debbie reynolds. well, i did suit the role. it was supposed to be an innocent virginal little girl and i was that, but i think it was a tough deal for poor gene to be stuck with me who had never danced. it would have been far better for him to have a great dancer, but i worked so hard that i think in the end, when i look at the performance of that little girl, i think i did a good job. it must have been a fantastic time in many ways in the 19505. you were also hanging out with frank sinatra and the rat pack, this great partying mob, and there were you with your innocent little girl image. how did you fit in with the rat pack, who were going off having these wild times? because i was not having a wild time when i started. iwasjust16,17,18. but then i did my first nightclub act and i did a movie with frank sinatra called a tender trap. so he kind of adopted me like a little sister and he is the one who advised me never marry a singer.

which you did in the end. yourfirst husband was eddie fisher, probably one of the best—known singers of that time. i mean, a massive star in the 19505. yes, ah, 20 gold records. well, why should i start out right? why didn‘t you listen to frank sinatra? becuase that marriage ended in disaster, in the end, of course, after eddie fisher had run off with elizabeth taylor. but, you see, i make all these mistakes. i started out wrong the first time, i did wrong the second time and then i did wrong the third time. then i called myself out. your daughter carrie fisher said that she thought the courtship between you and eddie fisher was a sort of press release, that‘s what carrie said. "they were riding the wave of being a media couple more than having any real compatibility." she said you probably didn‘t have much in common with eddie fisher. well, probably, but i did not know that. you know, i was in love, young love. what did i know about love? i really didn‘t know anything. i thought it was terrific. he was darling, he was handsome, he was a wonderful looking fellow and a star, and here

i was a young star and... quite a scandal, though, when he ran off with one of the world‘s best—known actresses, elizabeth taylor. yes, elizabeth. we went to school together at the mgm lot. we were good friends. she was the most beautiful woman in the world. i certainly was not. and the most sexual woman in the world. i certainly was not. you said you could see why eddie fisher wanted her but why would elizabeth taylor want eddie fisher? what did you mean by that? she wonders too, now. of course she found that out right afterwards. i told eddie, i told him that what would happen was that in 1.5 years she would realise that he was really nothing and she will throw you out. that‘s what happened. she met richard burton and he was out. a lot of scrutiny when that story broke. it must have been unbearable. at one stage you said it‘s bad enugh when a man walks out on you but to have millions of people watch it, the fact that the public took it as an affront to them, that was unbelievable. this was very much played out in the public gaze, wasn‘t it? isn‘t everything in show business?

everything‘s in the public eye. carrie was talking to me one day and she said that "mother is like brad and angelina and jennifer aniston today." you and eddie and elizabeth. it was a similar story. i always make a joke of it. i say, well, elizabeth went down the nile. eddie fisher has always challenged your version of the break up, hasn‘t he? at one stage he said "debbie has never forgiven me for what happened. she knows i didn‘t leave her for elizabeth, we were apart long before that." "but that‘s not the role she plays for the public." poor boy. i feel so sorry for him. he has to make up some story. but in his book he is even less generous about you. he said that debbie reynolds was the girl next door — that was your image — but only if you lived next door to a self—centered, totally driven, insecure, untruthful phony. well, the good thing is we found out he could read. laughter have you forgiven him? it doesn‘t sound like it from the comments.

i kid about it, but, yes, i have forgiven eddie. but i have never really understood a man leaving his children. i can understand leaving the woman but he never really came back around to be a very good father. so i don‘t particularly admire that. i mean, i have wonderful children and i am their parents. so, if you ask if i have forgiven him, i say that with a bit of anger because i have a son, that is his only son, and he misses having a good dad. so when eddie left, he really left. do you think hollywood has changed a lot since those days? life is still lived out in the public glare but these days, is probably even more frenetic. 24—hour entertainment channels. you almost feel celebrities are being watched around the clock. well the world has changed, hasn‘t it? when i came into films, the studios owned the release of the films and then congress took that over and they could no longer release their films so than television entered the scene so that the film industry was cut

in half, their earning power. television then took over and then movies, the golden era ended, nobody was under contract any longer, they dropped clarke gable, then greta garbo, all the great big stars were let go, i was really the only one left under contract. you spent 17 years under contract at the studios. in those days, they told you, right, this week you will be in this film, next week that film, it was very a controlled life for an actress and it‘s not the way these days. no, i think it‘s much harder now. you have to buy your own product, buy your book, produce it yourself, raise the money, much harder. we were really produced. they were finding the movies for you. we were owned, we were under contract. but it was a wonderful life. we were very sheltered, we weren‘t paid nearly what they get — today they get $20

million a picture. what you think about that? i think they should save their money. some people say the thing about the hollywood system in the past, they produced bad movies big as well because they needed to find movies for you to do and it wasn‘t always... well, they‘re not all good today either but i think they made some very good pictures and i think they make some good ones today. i think they are very fortunate in the salaries that they make. i wish for all of the stars great success and i hope that they give a lot of their money to charity because they have a great opportunity to help people. most of them are doing that. i admire that very much. we made $700 a week. in the beginning i made $65 a week. they make $20 million. there‘s a great deal of difference. one other difference, they talk about the golden age of hollywood but it was an innocent time in some ways. that‘s why your breakup with eddie fisher was such a scandal that played out, but the films were more innocent too, when they? boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after.

donna reed, andy griffith, corny pictures. very home body. there‘s too much violence and pornography, really, i call it pornography, today. the innocence is gone. i think a body can look beautiful through a veil, it doesn‘t have to be just boom. i don‘t really want to see a man‘s frontal or a woman. i think it‘s not appropriate for children or young people. if you want that kind of movie you can go and see it but i really don‘t think it should be for the general public. do you think hollywood is dictating the product or are the audience? television has gone much too far. television. i don‘t say the films have necessarily, but they have but really, television is pushing it because it‘s so popular and there is so much cable today. you have hundreds of programmes. before, we didn‘t even have television. you had two stations, then four stations and now it‘s... to fill that, it‘s like an octopus. to give the public what they want

is very difficult for all the networks, the competition‘s unreal. the paparazzi are unreal. it‘s relentless, a very fast world today, hard to keep up with it. that‘s why i wonder whether today it would be very difficult to endure your breakup with eddie fisher, it was very public then, but what if it was today? well, it would be awful. you just watched it with angelina with brad, they follow them everywhere. i feel very sorry for them but i went through that. i had hundreds of press in my front lawn and the backyard, the swimming pool. all around. it is difficult and it‘s not something that one likes to have happen. it won‘t happen to me again. i‘m just going to be here and visit the uk and play at the apollo theatre,

i‘m just going to have a good time and be live on stage and do what i like to do but my life can be easy now because i‘ve been in the business 63 years and i‘ve had 63 wonderful, glorious years. i‘m very happy with my life, i‘ve been through all of it now and i‘ve done all of it and i‘ve had a great life and a great time and i‘m still having it, that‘s what i like. you always make very pithy comments, you are a very direct person but you made some pithy comments about why you stopped making films. you said, "i stopped making movies because i don‘t like taking my clothes off. maybe it‘s realism but in my opinion, it‘s utterfilth." very direct about, as you were saying, what hollywood is doing now. i don‘t think it‘s glamorous, i don‘t think it‘s pretty, i don‘t think it‘s sexy. i think there‘s ways to make everything wonderful and exciting and interesting and mysterious at the same time, there‘s no need for it. depends what one wishes in life. ijust never wanted my career or my life to go that direction. i‘m a religious person, i don‘t need to go that way. i don‘t believe in that example for the young people.

i think you can be a good entertainer and a good actress and you don‘t have to. if you want to, go ahead but it‘s not something i ever wanted to do and therefore i never did it. the clock will never be turned back to that innocent age, though. i think not. i think this is it. we don‘t have to go... i don‘t really have a comment about it because we are here and today is today, but we can handle ourselves well. we can handle ourselves with class and dignity. we don‘t have to fall down amongst the masses, so to speak, meaning, if you want to be trashy, you can be trashy. but there‘s really no need, it is much more fun to have little dignity in life. you‘ve always been open about the mistakes you made in your love life and picking the wrong men. what about the mistakes you made professionally? at one stage in the late 60s, early 70s, you had a row with nbc over the debbie reynolds show because you decided to make a stand over tobacco advertising. what happened there?

everyone could smoke on camera and you could advertise cigarettes. i didn‘t know congress would pass a law that you couldn‘t within six months and i had a new show, the debbie reynolds show and it was out like the lucille ball show, the carol burnett show, a two—year contract set, a lot of money. i was having a great time doing it but then the show came out and they were advertising cigarettes. i got very upset because i said, i‘m not advertising cigarettes or liquor. you promised me that i wasn‘t. when almost everyone smoked. everybody did but you don‘t have to advertise it for the younger people, you don‘t have to and i didn‘t have to do that. so ijust told them i didn‘t want to have a cigarette sponsor and they said, well that‘s too bad, that‘s what you have. and i told them it wasn‘t in my contract and they read the contract and that was the truth. your thinking was ahead of the game.

banning of cigarette advertising in many countries didn‘t happen until many years later. i lost millions for that stand but i‘m not proud of it. i mean, i‘m happy i did it but i think it was foolish. you described it as the most stupid mistake you‘ve ever made. it was foolish for me financially but then my husbands would have then had more money to spend. one thing that has always got you through and we have seen it in the past few minutes is your sense of humour. how important is it in show business? it‘s a rough and tumble life, isn‘t it, show business. no, life is. it‘s notjust show business. life itself is hard and rough and tumble in whatever form. doesn‘t matter if you sell bicycles or work in the toy store. life isn‘t easy but life is what we can make of it and with a sense of humour, a faith, whatever faith, it doesn‘t matter, as long as we are good to other people and we‘re kind and we look around our lives and we do unto others, i think we‘ll make it through.

debbie reynolds, thank you so much for appearing on hardtalk. thank you very much, very much, good to see you, good to see you. good morning. some contrasting weather conditions to close out our final few days of 2016. take, for example, yesterday. it was cold and foggy in the south—east pretty much all day for some of us. temperatures just a couple of degrees above freezing, and not much to be seen from the london eye. by contrast, into the south—west, it was a beautiful afternoon with plenty of sunshine, as seen by this weather watcher‘s photo in st ives. 12 degrees the high here, and it was mild in the north and west of scotland as well.

but it is going to turn increasingly wet and windy. high pressure, though, into the south just hangs on, and so fog certainly going to be an issue. it is certainly worth bearing in mind if you are out and about on the roads early on, there could be further disruption to travel, as that fog may well be dense in places. so temperatures struggling just a couple of degrees above freezing, and it will be a pretty murky start. mild to the north—west, but that rain is on its way. but let‘s concentrate with the fog across east anglia, down into the south—east corner, and to the south of the m4 corridor. here, some of the fog could be dense in places. so it is going to be a cold, grey start, eventually that fog lifting to low cloud. there will be a little bit of brightness, though, across much of wales and the north of england. you should get to see some sunshine, and that will stay with you for much of the day. across northern ireland, southern scotland, the winds picking up, the rain into the north—west, some of that turning quite heavy for a time, and that will gradually drift its way south through the day. we should get to see a little bit of sunshine into the north

of england and north wales. hopefully the fog lifts away, and it may well feel just that little bit milder. a bit more of a breeze around, at eight or nine degrees here, ten or 11 further north. now, as we go into new year‘s eve celebrations, unfortunately that weather front a bit of a nuisance through northern ireland and northern england, perhaps into north wales as well. so it means a wet end to the year. behind it, colder, and there will be some snow showers. so i suspect, as the clock ticks towards midnight, that weather front will be sitting, really, through the north of england and into wales. to the north of it, showery, with those showers turning increasingly wintry. to the south of it, it stays mild and quiet. now, eventually, as that front sinks south once again, the colder air digs in from the north. so we start off new year‘s day with some wet weather moving your way through the midlands, eventually pushing into the south—east corner. so a pretty miserable new year‘s day here. further north, it stays cold and showery. it will be a colder day on monday, but at least there will be some decent spells of sunshine, and it stays largely

dry as well. a warm welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to our viewers in north america and around the globe. i‘m gavin grey. our top stories: brazilian police question the greek ambassador‘s wife on suspicion of involvement in her husband‘s killing. as russian diplomats prepare to leave the united states, donald trump praises president putin for not expelling us staff in retaliation. 2a hours on, syria‘s ceasefire is generally holding. the un security council will be asked to endorse the agreement and back new peace talks. and recognition for excellence in sport, fashion and public life, we‘ll have a look at queen elizabeth‘s new year‘s honours list.