Birgitte's Carrie Fisher Page

A postcard from Carrie Fisher

LOS ANGELES ENTERTAINMENT TOWN. Issue: Nov 13, 2000

Los Angeles is home to me. Home as it turns out is a place to which one properly belongs, in which one's affections center, or where one finds refuge, rest or satisfaction.

It's true. I swear I know it's true cause that's what it says in the dictionary. Frequently when I want to orient myself, I look things up in the dictionary. I looked up "home" because that's what L.A. is to me. And I know it's my home because whenever I click my heels together, I wind up here.

Los Angeles is, quite simply, a very uneventful place to usher in the new year. That having been said, the weather is great. And it's great pretty much all the time.

I was born here. My daughter was born here.

I am truly a product of Hollywood. I'm a product of Hollywood inbreeding. When two celebrities mate, I am the result.

I grew up visiting sets, playing on backlots and watching movies. In consequence and for a few other reasons, I find that I don't have a conventional sense of reality.

My reality has been formed by the depiction of reality ... Hollywood's version of reality. I thought that "Father Knows Best" was real and that my life was fake. Sometimes late at night, I still think so.

As a young adult, I used to work at being the first person in the house to abduct the TV guide, then spend hours poring over it, circling all the comedies. I bought a book on Laurel and Hardy and set about attempting to see every film with them in it, with the exception of some of the very early ones. I believe I succeeded, becoming the only person in my eigth-grade class who knew the identity of James Finlayson.

I moved from Laurel and Hardy to Fred and Ginger, becoming the only person in my high school who knew the identity of Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton.

I loved black-and-white films, still do, because they depicted a world that didn't look like my own. Not that there was anything wrong with my own, it was just that everything seemed to be right with this one.

I watched "Philadelphia Story" over and over and over, memorizing much of the dialogue.

"There are hearthfires banked down inside of you, Tracy, hearthfires and holocausts."

"Southbend, it sounds like dancing, doesn't it?"

"He's not a tower of strength, he's just a tower."

I put Cary Grant in my wallet along with Laurel and Hardy, Lenny Bruce and Bjorn Anderson from "Death in Venice." I was rapidly becoming a film aficionado, watching directors now. All Hitchcock, all George Stevens, all George Cukor.

I was shaped by the optimism of these films, their optimistic outcomes, the rhythms of their dialogue. I loved Frank Capra's, "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Deeds Goes To Town," "It's a Wonderful Life," and "Arsenic and Old Lace." The latter starred the only public figure I ever admired, Cary Grant. He personified class, elegance, humor and talent. In short, he was the only public figure I ever wanted to meet. Though meeting Billy Wilder -- for meeting behind the camera heroes -- was quite thrilling.

When I was about 24 my mother arranged for me to have contact with Cary Grant. But not quite in the way I had imagined. On this fateful day, my phone rang. I answered it ... "Hello, is Carrie Fisher there? This is Cary Grant calling." I sat down on my bed. It couldn't be, though it did sound like him.

"Yes," I said weakly. "This is she."

"Well, your mother asked me to call you. She's concerned that you might have a problem with LSD."

I hung my head. How could my mother do this to me? I cleared my throat. "I don't think I have a problem with LSD, I've done it but ... what does she think, I'm shooting it?"

"She's concerned about you. You know, I did LSD myself, but I did it under a doctor's supervision."

I tried to imagine what sort of doctor supervised acid trip would be like in the -- what -- '50s, '60s? Did Cary actually take it in a doctor's office? Was the doctor asked by Mr. Grant to do the LSD or did the doctor ask him? What sort of doctor was it? A psychiatrist, a urologist, a dermatologist?

I continued talking to him for quite some time. I don't remember what we discussed. Oh yes, one thing ... Chevy Chase and how he had spoken ill of him on some talkshow.
I was working on a film with Chevy at that time and we were getting along somewhat less than a house on fire.

Somehow this amazing conversation came to an end and I escaped having spoken to Cary Grant about LSD and Chevy Chase and my mother. I was thrilled and embarrassed.

A few months later I was at some charity event and saw Cary Grant across the room. Feeling awkward and unimpressive, I approached. Oh God. It's all very well to talk to Cary Grant's voice, but to confront his face combined with his voice, this was almost overwhelming. I tentatively tapped his arm. He turned. My heart in my throat, I immediately began backing up.

"Um, hi ... I'm ... Debbie Reynolds' daughter ... Carrie ... anyway, I'm sorry to bother you, I just...."

Mr. Grant followed me. "Hello there, how are you?"

He extended his hand, his classy, elegant, famous hand.

I stared at it.

"Well ...," I said to his hand. "I'm not on acid, for one thing."

I don't remember what else was said, just that it was more than I could handle. Seeing Cary Grant as well as talking to him. But at least I don't think I fell or spilled something on him or some other disaster.

Many months went by, during which time I no doubt told my Cary Grant tales to all who would listen. One day my phone rang. I answered it.

"Hello, is Carrie Fisher there? This is Cary Grant calling." I sat heavily and hung my head. "Uh oh, what did I do now?"

"Well, I ran into your father at Grace Kelly's funeral in Monaco ..."

"Uh huh," I murmured. My father had never even met Grace Kelly. What had he been doing at her funeral? Unless it was for media attention, which he was fond of.

"He mentioned that he was quite concerned about you, that you might be addicted to acid."

Now I sat up straight. "Look, I don't know what he was talking about. I rarely even see my father, I mean ... Oh, my God, I know what it is. I must have told my father that my mother had gotten you to call me about my drug problem and it got into his brain and went to some funny place and when he saw you, he got confused and ... Oh, look, I'm really sorry."

"Well, I think it's very nice of him to worry about you."

"I guess," I replied.

"I'm sure it's very difficult for him to have a relationship with his daughter after the divorce of the parents. You know, I have a daughter ..."
We went on to have a lengthy conversation about how much he loved his daughter Jennifer, and the nature of father-daughter relationships in general. All this was quite surreal to me. As I'm sure my life seems to others.

My surreal reality. But that reality is the only one I know.

When Cary Grant died many years later, I was in Sydney, Australia, and I felt a pain in the vicinity of my heart. The place where one experiences losses.

I didn't know the difference between movies and real life. In my life, they tended to overlap. Cary Grant became a family friend, even though he wasn't precisely that. And characters that my mother played in movies became confused with the person who was and is my mother. So that movies, in a way, became home movies. Home became another place on the movie star map.

I have been so distracted by Hollywood that I wrote my first movie, "Postcards From the Edge," about it. My most recent effort, "These Old Broads," also uses Hollywood as its backdrop. I admit this somewhat sheepishly, rather than shout it from the mountain top ... assuming that range was the Hollywood Hills.

I worked out at one time that my mother's classic film, "Singin' in the Rain" was a film she made when she was 19, and in which she co-starred with two men. And the blockbuster film that I co-starred in, "Star Wars," I made at age 19 and appeared opposite two men. How this is relevant, I have no idea. I just thought I'd mention it.

Hollywood produced me, shaped me and employed me, It also, when I was younger, gave me a tan. Many times over the years I have wanted to move far away from what I perceived to be its obsession with the entertainment industry. For example, its need to keep up with the shallowness. And move away I would, only to come crawling back unable for a variety of reasons to keep away for very long. As it turns out, I have history. History and a family and a car. And with these three strikes, I'm out. Way out West where I, for better or worse, belong.

Source: Findarticles.com