For awhile we were email buddies. Her missives were always wickedly funny. She had the world's greatest bullshit detector. And God was she smart.
At some point she stopped answering my emails. Eventually I just stopped corresponding.
A few years ago she wrote an autobiography and mentioned how the shock treatments she had received to combat depression were a God send. But there were side effects. One she mentioned was that the treatments erased some memory of people in her life. It's like part of her mental address book was deleted. Anyway, in the book she apologizes to those she no longer remembers. I was in that group I guess. But losing the relationship was a happy tradeoff for her improving the quality of her life.
Last time I saw her was a few years ago when she was performing a one-woman show. It was pure Carrie -- honest, insightful, poignant, harrowing, and hilarious. Oh, and she sang!
Carrie will of course always be remembered for STAR WARS, but for years she was an A-list screenplay doctor. You've doubtless loved her work without even knowing it.
Damn! 60 is way too fucking young.
My heart goes out to her mother, daughter, and brother. And to all of us who were lucky enough to know her. She may have forgotten me but I will always remember her.
Wow, that is truly frightening. I'm sorry you lost a friend, though it sounds like you lost her a while back.
ReplyDeleteWould you consider publishing any of that correspondence with her? Edit out or redact whatever you like, but I'd find it fascinating to get a glimpse of that side of her before book editors get their hands on it.
I got very angry yesterday at a nameless Facebook poster who told us what a massive heart attack and stable means in CCU. It wasn't mean, but it was very negative...and apparently, very honest.
ReplyDeleteWe saw wishful drinking in Berkeley. My favorite part was the Ancestry tree....really explained how small Hollywood can be....
We got a nice bottle of bubbly for New Years....I think 2017 will be a good year to start drunk....
:(
ReplyDeleteJust
:(
Super sad to hear.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a future Friday question: what were her special skills as a screenwriter and as (didn't realize this) a script doctor?
Poignant Ken.....
ReplyDeleteShe had the world's greatest bullshit detector.
And God was she smart............At some point she stopped answering my emails.
Ken, so very sad to hear. We approached her back when I was working as a consultant on a new national radio show in 1999 called "Stepping Out - The 12 Step Radio Show" (once a week, stories of addiction and recovery, still on the air) We were looking for a host and she was the whole package, fun, sharpest of wits, lots of life experience, entertaining with a brilliant mind with a deep understanding and empathy of the subject matter. Even though she turned down our job, I became a lifelong fan. (Really, you want to do movies when you can do RADIO...? Just couldn't convince her.) RIP Carrie Fisher.
ReplyDeleteI echo RSaunders. That's one talent of Carrie's few of us realized she possessed (although given her talent, I am not surprised).
ReplyDeleteI think of a moment involving a show featuring one of Ken's least favorite people (and it does demonstrate his good taste). Debbie Reynolds played John Goodman's mother on "Roseanne." On one episode, DJ, the son, walks into the kitchen, where she is reading the paper. She asks where he's going and he replies that he's off to a friend's to watch "Star Wars." He says something like, "Boy, that Princess Leia is hot." And she immediately punches him in the stomach. He cries out and then says, "Why did you do that?" She gets a funny look and says, "I don't know." It was perfect. Carrie probably loved it.
ReplyDeleteSad. Heart-broken.
ReplyDeleteMy inspiration to become an actress is no more. More than her acting it was the fact that a Jewish girl can make it in Hollywood was what inspired me.
A loss to our little Jewish community in Hollywood.
A great loss Ken.
ReplyDeleteWill you be doing a post on Carrie like the first commenter asked.
If so, who is a screenplay doctor? Which A-list screenplays did Carrie doctor? Have you doctored any screenplays Ken? How much does one get paid for doctoring and will they get any credits for it?
I'm heartbroken. Cynics will say I never knew her personally but that's irrelevant. As well as being a wonderful actress, she was by all accounts a truly lovely human being and a great intellect with a razor sharp wit.And despite the nasty jibes from Twitter trolls, she never stopped being beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your moving tribute, Ken.
That makes two(the most prominent) CGI actors in Rogue One who are now dead.
ReplyDeleteShe went through a lot and fortunately was able to find firm footing and get control of her life. I loved her openness and honesty, whether it was talking about herself or others. That kind of candor isn't common in Hollywood. Truly sad at her passing.
ReplyDeleteAnother death occurred today: Richard Adams, author of Watership Down. How very sad.
ReplyDeleteNY Times obituary here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/arts/richard-adams-author-of-watership-down-dies-at-96.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0
Well said, Ken! She was SO smart, SO funny, SO authentic! I saw her one-woman show twice and loved it as much the second time as the first. I doubt that she forgot you. She probably forgot your email address (or maybe someone deleted it from her computer because it didn't include your name in the old address.) Anyway, I'm sure she didn't forget you.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great remembrance. I believe she was the spoiled daughter in Shampoo. I also remembered her as Princess Leah, I think she was just an all around great person. Don't forget her sister Joely.
ReplyDeleteYou realize how fortunate you are to have lost a friend in that way who was capable of knowing what she no longer knew and then writing a widely-read autobiography to detail it, yes? Most of us lose friends that way and never find out why.
ReplyDeleteThe world is diminished when people of her quality leave it. We need more, not fewer, people who know their own foibles and aren't afraid to admit them.
sorry for your loss....
ReplyDeleteunfortunately, I seem to have said that to you too often in the past year....
With all the Notable deaths in 2016, how many will the Academies of Music, and Motion Pictures miss in their Memortorium this coming awards season???
ReplyDeleteoy
I totally agree that 2016 is turning out to be one of the worst (if not THE worst) years(s) ever! Because we keep losing people like Carrie Fisher and gaining other evil people in places and positions of power where they don't belong.
ReplyDeleteAside from the other obvious choices, who can forget Carrie Fisher's role in The Blues Brothers as the horribly jilted ex-fiance of Jake Blues? A beautiful, angry girl with access to flamethrowers and rocket launchers? That's a girl that's hard to forget. Her tirade on Jake - machine gun in hand - in the filthy tunnel underneath the "Palace Hotel Ballroom" (which was really the Hollywood Palladium)is outstanding, and she is just so hysterically funny in that scene. I think that sequence will probably always be my favorite Carrie Fisher memory. Heck, even Elwood was intrigued enough by her story that he went up on one elbow to listen. "Who IS that girl??"
Here's a good bit of trivia for you trivia buffs out there: in the excellent book entitled Blues Brothers: Private, by Judith Jacklin Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, it is revealed that her name is Camille, although she's never referred to by that name in the movie. The book is full of great tidbits such as that one.
Thanks for the laughs, Carrie Fisher, and may you rest in peace now.
It was when I read POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE that I began to admire Carrie Fisher. I loved her wit and her honesty. Of all the celebrity deaths this year, it's hers and Garry Shandling's that got to me. They made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteTo Bumble Bee Pendant: You need to take note that many of the earlier celebrities passings have already been mentioned in last year's awards ceremonies.
ReplyDeleteMike Barer: True. I believe Bowie and Glen Frey passed before either awards show.
ReplyDeleteThe "good" news, is that she passed quickly.
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat to get wickedly funny email from a smart lovely woman who had the world's greatest bullshit detector.
I have an MD/shrink friend who commented some years ago that ECT was regarded as a "last resort" for clinical depression that the usual designer drugs couldn't touch. She ruminated that perhaps it shouldn't be a "last" treatment.
Tradeoffs, memory lost to stop the misery - make new memories.
Besides her daughter, mother, and brother, Carrie also had two half-sisters - Joely Fisher and Tricia Fisher.
ReplyDeleteMother, Debbie now gone.
ReplyDelete"underneath the "Palace Hotel Ballroom" (which was really the Hollywood Palladium)"
ReplyDeleteThe outside scene of the Palace Hotel was filmed at the South Shore Country Club on lake Michigan, on the south side of Chicago. Just the outside, as it is not that big on the inside, and there is no tunnel underneath it. But has the big white pillars the blues brothers hid behind.
The beauty parlor "Curl up and Dye" is also on the south side. Last I checked, still has that little bit of tinsel hanging from the sign.
I have the utmost respect for both Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds but remembering Carrie's book Postcards from the Edge and some conversations she had about her relationship with her mother I can only imagine carrie making some sort of wisecrack in the hereafter ( if there is one) about how even now Debbie had to steal her time in the limelight even now.
ReplyDeleteAm posting anoy. so if on review you feel this is disrespectful please file in the digital equivilant of the round file.
Mahalo
Steve Martin was attacked for his tweet:
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a young man, Carrie Fisher she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.
He deleted it because of these Twitter nobodies.
C'mon, Steve, at your age, why do you let others tell you what to say?