About a year ago I approached Carrie Fisher to write a column for the Guardian.
With other A-listers, it’s all too common to be rebuffed by several
layers of management, publicists and protective naysayers. But somehow –
all too easily – I found myself with an invitation to her house in
Beverly Hills.And what a house it is. Huge neon arrows and signs hang from trees in
the driveway. It wasn’t Christmas, but a fully lit tree was the
centrepiece of her living room (it was there year-round). A giant moose
head with a fez hung above the fireplace; snow globes depicting macabre
murder scenes decorated the shelves and, outside in the garden, next to a
life-size Leia stepping out of a British telephone box, was the back
end of a lion attached to the wall, its raised tail revealing giant cat
balls.Carrie was delayed, having spent the morning looking after her mum, Debbie Reynolds,
whose house is on the same grounds: a big “Debbie” made of light-bulbs
pointed the way to her property in their shared driveway. Reynolds had
suffered two strokes; she and her daughter saw each other nearly every
day. When Carrie finally appeared, she told me that Debbie, on hearing
they had a visitor, had assumed I was there to speak to her, as
Hollywood royalty, and declared: “I can’t see anyone.” Her daughter had
kept up the fiction.I had been expecting maybe an hour of her time, but somehow we ended
up spending the entire day together: I was pressed to drink bottles of
wine she had picked for their rude or amusing names (she didn’t drink –
saying she couldn’t trust her addictive personality). We shopped, ate
homemade banana pudding out of the dish and plotted how we were going to
get her a boyfriend (her desire for companionship and sex were to
become a running theme).We began chatting in her bedroom, the walls and ceilings decorated by
projections of fluttering butterflies. Gary – her French bulldog, whose
tongue steadfastly refuses to stay in his mouth – lay snoring next to a
Gary-themed gift director JJ Abrams had presented to Carrie at the wrap
party for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.… read the whole thing. Really.
My time with Carrie Fisher, a hurricane of energy, charisma and foul language
Steel Phoenix Studios 