Debbie Reynolds' showbiz career exemplified an old-style versatility – singin', dancin' and actin' – that continued well into her veteran years.

Her death at 84 a day after daughter Carrie Fisher added sadness to sadness. Son Todd's comments that "she's with Carrie" and that the stress of his sister's death was "too much" for his mother showed the paralysing impact of grief.

Reynolds, who had a suspected stroke, will be best remembered as a luminous talent on stage, film and television - Hollywood royalty. Wholesome and charming in her early roles, she was later known as a brassy personality who was portrayed as an overbearing showbiz mother in Fisher's semi-autobiographical novel Postcards From The Edge.

Before Fisher played Princess Leia in Star Wars as a 19-year-old, she appeared on the Broadway stage with her mother in Irene.

Reynolds was 19 herself when she shone opposite Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor​ in another classic movie, the musical Singin' In The Rain (1952). But with little experience as a dancer, which led to clashes with the brilliant Kelly, she needed help from Fred Astaire for the dance scenes. One sequence that was shot from 8am to 11pm reputedly left her with bleeding feet.

"Singin' in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things I ever had to do in my life," Reynolds later said.

Her other movies included Three Little Words (1950), earning the first of five Golden Globe nominations, The Affairs Of Dobie Gillis (1953), The Tender Trap (1955), The Catered Affair (1956), Tammy And The Bachelor (1957), It Started With A Kiss (1959), How The West Was Won (1962), The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), The Singing Nun (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), voicing a wise and maternal spider in the animated Charlotte's Web (1973), Mother (1996), In & Out (1997) and playing Liberace's mother in Behind The Candelabra (2013).

Such was her fame that she also had cameos as herself in The Bodyguard (1992), the That's Entertainment! compilation movies (1974 and '94), Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998) and Connie and Carla (2004).

An extensive career in television included The Debbie Reynolds Show (1969-70) and playing Grace's overbearing mother – an echo of her relationship with her own daughter – in the sitcom Will & Grace (1999-2006).

She also appeared in The Love Boat (1980-'83), The Golden Girls (1991) and Roseanne (1997) as well as voicing characters in Rugrats (2000-2002), Family Guy (2008) and The Penguins of Madagascar (2010).

On stage, she starred in Annie Get Your Gun, Woman of the Year and The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Reynolds brought her one-woman show to Australia three times – in 1979, 1982 and 2006. As a reviewer noted about her Melbourne show on her final tour, she was a brassy 74-year-old who belted out medleys from her movies, performed wicked impressions of dead divas including an emphysemic Bette Davis and told dirty jokes. "You know my first husband, Eddie Fisher – well, he went down the Nile. He . . . uh . . . went down [on] Cleopatra," she said. Wearing a gold sequined gown slit up to her left thigh, Reynolds said: "I have to show all my leg because everything else has gone", adding "I'm here but my boobs are in Geelong."

She was married three times, first to singer Eddie Fisher, who scandalously had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor, followed by businessman Harry Karl, whose gambling and poor investments left her in financial difficulty, then real estate developer Richard Hamlett.

At the Oscars this year, Reynolds won the Jean Hersholt ​Humanitarian Award, which followed a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild last year.

In an interview with NPR in the US last month, Fisher described her mother as an immensely powerful woman.

"I just admire my mother very much," she said. "She also annoys me sometimes when she's mad at the nurses but she's an extraordinary woman. Extraordinary. There's very few women from her generation who worked like that, who just kept a career going all her life and raised children, and had horrible relationships, and lost all her money, and got it back again."

As other entertainers responded with shock and warm tributes on social media, fellow actress and friend Carol Channing called Reynolds beautiful and generous, saying: "It seems like only yesterday she was having lunch here at the house and we were discussing the possibility of working together in a new show. I have such fond memories of appearing with her here at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Springs. So many laughs. My prayers go out to the family. She will be missed."

Others were struck by the poignancy of a mother dying as she planned her daughter's funeral.

"This is too hard to comprehend," said Bette Midler. "Beautiful, talented, devoted to her craft, she follows Carrie, dead days ago."

Said Debra Messing from Will & Grace: "Debbie went to be with Carrie. She always worried about her. Carrie left too soon and now they are together again. My heart is literally broken. For eight years she was my mom. She was pure energy and light when she came on stage. She was loving, and bawdy, and playful – a consummate pro – old school and yet had the work ethic and investment in her craft of a new fiery up-and-comer."

And Albert Brooks, who wrote, directed and starred opposite her in Mother, said: "Debbie Reynolds, a legend and my movie mom. I can't believe this happened one day after Carrie."