Born in Beverly Hills, California to star-crossed parents, Carrie Fisher never really stood a chance. Her father was Hollywood crooner Eddie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds the famous actress. By the time she was 2-years old, her father had married actress Elizabeth Taylor – high profile indeed – and her mother had married a shoe store owner who turned out to be a thief. Thus did the unusual life of our heroine begin. Carrie was destined for a life on the stage; she’d already lived life in a fishbowl by the time she was four, and at age 12 Carrie Fisher was a full-blown Las Vegas performer alongside her famous mom. Fittingly she attended Beverly Hills High School, a place that has inspired dozens of Tinseltown tales. As a young adult, Fisher took off for the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. In 1975, she appeared in the movie Shampoo, about the permissive Nixon era and its many foibles, but it was the movie she made in 1977 that people remember her for: Star Wars.
Princess Leia Organa is a character the whole world knows and loves. Princess Leia is in effect Carrie Fisher’s finest hour (until now!) and Wishful Drinking frames the character with stark boundaries that partition the respectable from the crazy. Funny thing is, that partition is full of holes and Fisher describes the subsequent seepage with relish.
Star Wars guaranteed worldwide fame for Fisher, fame enough to assure her any tell-all drama would be a hit. That a sex symbol who was popular enough to be sold as a toy action figure to children will now sit before you and tell you her secrets is a powerful notion. It is selling a lot of tickets; if Fisher learned just one thing from her starry ride it was how to put on a show. Wishful Drinking is a triumph of the different in a world of sameness, and we urge you to treat yourself to it.
The Star Wars trilogy took Leia into the 80s. Her final Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi, saw Leia appear in that now-famous golden metal bikini, launching her as an object of intergalactic desire for boys and men everywhere. Fisher was catapulted from the Star Wars trilogy into a succession of roles, including the notoriously vengeful ex-lover of Joliet Jake in The Blues Brothers. She also starred in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters and When Harry Met Sally. Fisher’s glamorous movie-star existence was now assured. Then she published her first novel, Postcards from the Edge.
As a backdrop to all the success, Fisher’s life had descended into battles with addiction and bipolar disorder. It is these dysfunctions that have served to provide grist for her personal humor mill – and ultimately spawned Wishful Drinking. Tickets to this show will not gather dust, they are selling fast, as everyone wants a piece of the action for themselves.