Fisher - Wishful Drinking

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CARRIE FISHER, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, became an icon when she starred as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. Her star-studded career includes roles in numerous films such as The Blues Brothers and When Harry Met Sally. She is the author of four bestselling novels, Surrender the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, The Best Awful, and Postcards from the Edge, which was made into a hit film starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. Fishers experience with addiction and mental illness and her willingness to speak honestly about them have made her a sought-after speaker and respected advocate. She is truly one of the most magical people who walks among us.

www.carriefisher.com

ALSO BY CARRIE FISHER

Delusions of Grandma

Surrender the Pink

Postcards from the Edge

The Best Awful

First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, 2009
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright 2008 by Deliquesce Inc.

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
and 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.

The right of Carrie Fisher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

The world premier of Wishful Drinking was presented at the Geffen Playhouse, Los Angeles, 2006

Gil Cates, Producing Director
Randall Arney, Artistic Director
Stephen Eich, Managing Director

And subsequently at Berkeley Repertory Theatre

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84739-783-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-47110-109-0

Designed by Dana Sloan
Printed by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX

PHOTO CREDITS: Bettman/Corbis: pages

To my DNA jackpotmy daughter, Billie.

For all you are and all you will be.

I want to be like you when I grow up.

Happy days are here again...

So lets sing a song of cheer again

Hi, Im Carrie Fisher and Im an alcoholic.

And this is a true story.

S o I am fifty-two years old. (Apparently.) Actually, thats more verifiable than the rest of it. Id better start off with certainties. Here are the headlines (headin so many waysbeing the operative word):

I am fifty-two years old.

I am Carrie Fisher.

I live in a really nice house in Los Angeles.

I have two dogs.

I have a daughter named Billie.

Carrie Fisher is apparently a celebrity of sorts. I mean, she was (is) the daughter of famous parents. One an icon, the other a consort to icons. Actually, thats not completely fair. My father is a singer named Eddie Fisher. What was, in the 50s, called a crooner. A crooner with many gold records. I only say my father is a consort because hes really better known for his (not so) private life than the life he lived onstage. His scandals outshone his celebrity. Or you might say that his scandals informed his celebrity in such a way as to make him infamous.

My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was in what might be called iconic filmsmost notably, Singin in the Rain. But for whatever reason, when my parents hooked up it had an extraordinary impact on the masses who bought fan magazines. The media dubbed them Americas Sweethearts. The idea of them electrifiedtheir pictures graced the covers of all the tabloids of the day. They were adorable and as such were ogled by an army of eyes. So cute and cuddly and in some ways adorably average. The Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of the late 50s, only slightly more sobecause they actually managed to procreatemaking two tiny children to fill out the picture. Or pictures, as the case turned out to be. An All-American and photogenic family.

When I was younger, starting at about four, other children would ask me what it was like to be a movie stars daughter. Once I was a little older and understood, to a certain extent, the nature of what celebrity meant, I would say, Compared to what? When I wasnt a movie stars daughter? When I lived with my normal, non-show business family, the Regulars (Patty and Lowell Regular of Scottsdale, Arizona)? All Ive ever known is this sort of hot-house-plant existence, and I could tell from watching how normal people livednormal people as depicted by Hollywood and burned into our consciousnessI understood that my life was unusual. Like many others, I grew up watching television shows like My Three Sons and The Partridge Family and The Real McCoys. And based on the lives depicted on those shows, I knew my life was a different sort of real. It was the only reality I knew, but compared to other folksboth on television and offit eventually struck me as a little surreal, too. And eventually, too, I understood that my version of reality had a tendency to set me apart from others. And when youre young you want to fit in. (Hell, I still want to fit in with certain humans, but as you get older you get a little more discriminating.) Well, my parents were professionally committed to sticking out, so all too frequently I found myself sticking out right along with them.

Now, Im certainly not asking anyone to feel bad for me or suggest that my existence could be described as a predicament of some kind. Im simply describing the dynamic that was at work during my formative years.

My parents were focus pullersand when I say parents, I mean my mother, who raised me, and my father, who checked in from time to time.

I mean, if I came into a room and said, You know how you saw your father more on TV than you did in real life? I dont think many people would say, Oh my God! You, too!