Dad ran off with Liz Taylor, Cary Grant lectured me about drugs, George Lucas ruined my life: The extraordinary autobiography of CARRIE FISHER

Galaxy goddess: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 1983's Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi

I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.

I was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California. My father, Eddie Fisher, was a famous singer. My mother, Debbie Reynolds, was a movie star. Her best-known role was in Singin' In The Rain.

In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.

When I was born, my mother was given an anaesthetic because they didn't have epidurals in those days. Consequently, she was unconscious.

Now, my mother is a beautiful woman - she's beautiful today in her 70s, so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning. All the doctors were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: 'Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep - how pretty.'

And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: 'Oh look, there's Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let's go look at him.'

So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.

My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents' attention, an audience.

Mom and Dad were great friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth's side, making his way slowly to her front.

He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her by sleeping with her.

This made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie. I saw more of Dad on television than in real life.

He later wrote his autobiography, Been There, Done That - well, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. I like to call it Been There, Done Them, because it really was just about the women he'd slept with and how the sex was and what their bodies were like (so it is a feelgood read).

But after I read it, I wanted to get my DNA fumigated.

Anyway, Dad's absence meant my younger brother Todd and I were brought up by our mother in our modern house, which I called 'the Embassy' because it looked less like a house than a place you would get your passport stamped.

It had things most normal houses didn't have, such as eight little pink refrigerators and three pools ... you know, in case two broke.

There was also my mother's closet - which I always thought of as the Church Of Latter-Day Debbie because it was the magical place that she entered as my mom and emerged as Debbie Reynolds.

There was a certain hush, a smell of Albolene cream and White Shoulders perfume. It was quiet and dark.

Huge, like an enormous room, with an entrance and an exit, it was lined on each side by clothes of every kind: gowns, trousers, blouses, shoes and hat boxes.

There was a long, shimmery, white chest of drawers where she kept her underwear and bras and slips and stockings all neatly folded up and smelling of perfumed sachets.

My mother's closet wasn't off-limits, but it was very much hers, therefore Todd and I valued it. It was prized because of how highly we prized our mother.

She was often away, and when we missed her we could go into her closet and put our faces into her clothes and inhale the powdery, flowery scent of her.

Hair-brained idea: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia - complete with the bizarre coiffure dreamed up by George Lucas - in 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope

When my mother was at home at weekends, we stayed with her as much as possible, which frequently meant we watched her dress and make herself up. Next to her closet there was a huge bathroom with magenta marble and mirrors everywhere.

She'd twirl her hair up into pincurls that she'd use to pull her face tighter, then she'd put on her make-up base with a sponge. Then she applied eye make-up and false lashes, so she didn't need mascara, but there was lots of eyeliner.

Next came lipstick and rouge and powder - great puffs of glittering clouds of powder, followed by hair, which was a big deal, getting the wig on right.

Then came the earrings, then she'd step into her clothes, and then came her stockings and her tiny shoes. When she was finished, her Debbie Reynolds movie-star accent got stronger, her posture got better and she looked incredibly beautiful.

Undressing was also a process my brother and I observed. First we'd watch as she removed her make-up with a wash cloth, then she'd have a bubble bath.

Debbie Reynolds would slowly return to being our mother. The coach was once more a pumpkin, the footmen went back to being mice.

We loved to be with her when she resumed her role as our mother. She was so beautiful, and I dreamed of looking like her one day.

I think it was when I was ten that I realised with profound certainty that I would not be, and was in no way now, the beauty that my mother was. I was a clumsy-looking and intensely awkward, insecure girl.

I decided then that I'd better develop something else - if I wasn't going to be pretty, maybe I could be funny or smart.

When Mom was at home, she did a lot of sleeping because she worked so hard, so Todd and I wanted as much of her company as we could get.

I slept on the rug on the floor next to her bed, and my brother slept on the couch near the window. In the morning when Todd and I got up, we would creep out of her room so we wouldn't wake her.

It was complicated to go out in public with my mother because she was so famous. She belonged to the world. It was like being in a parade. 'Oh my God,' people would say to her, 'I loved you in Molly Brown.' Or: 'I saw you in Vegas.'

So it was not like having private-time with Mom. And I didn't like sharing her.

The first time I took drugs was when I was 13. My family had a holiday house in Palm Springs, about two hours from Beverly Hills, where I grew up.

Periodically, my mother used to rent the Palm Springs house out to some people who, after one of their stays, left behind a bag of marijuana.

Three's a crowd: Eddie Fisher left his wife Debbie Reynolds, right, for Elizabeth Taylor in 1958

My mother came to me and said: 'Dear, I thought instead of you smoking pot where you might get caught and get in trouble - I thought you and I might experiment with it together.'

At the time, and let's face it - even now - I couldn't imagine anything weirder. But my mother got swept back up in the whirlwind of her life and forgot about the idea.

Once it became obvious our proposed experiment had slipped her mind, I snuck into her underwear drawer and stole the pot, subsequently experimenting my brains out in my tree house.

I must have enjoyed it because I ended up experimenting with marijuana for the next six years until it suddenly turned on me.

Where at the onset it was all giggles and floating in a friendly haze, it suddenly became creepy, dark and scary.

I needed to find a replacement drug. This was when I was about 19, while I was filming Star Wars. So, after carefully casting about for a substitute substance, I finally settled on hallucinogens and painkillers.

You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.

At a certain point in my early 20s, my mother started to worry about my obviously ever-increasing drug ingestion. So she ended up doing what any concerned parent would do. She called Cary Grant.

In the Sixties, Mr Grant famously did a course of LSD while under a doctor's supervision. So my concerned and caring mother told him that her daughter had a problem with acid and asked him to call me.

Asking a fellow star to intervene in my life seemed normal to my mother.

Some years later, I was in London en route to my mother's wedding to Richard Hamlett, her third husband (I don't like to miss any of my parents' weddings). She called me at my hotel, and when I didn't answer she became concerned.

So she let the phone ring and ring - until finally she panicked. She knew I was in the room so, in her mind, probably the only reason I wasn't answering the phone was that I had overdosed.

So she did what any normal concerned mother might do when troubled about her daughter's well-being. She called Ava Gardner. And she asked Ava to make sure I was not dead.

Anyway, I loved Mr Grant. He was probably the only famous person I was ever really in awe of. He had it all - an easy-going class, quiet confidence, wit - all in this beyond-handsome package.

So when the phone rang and a familiar voice informed me that he was Cary Grant - even a Cary Grant who was going to give me a 'just say no' drug lecture - well, initially I was tongue-tied.

Mother's helper: Cary Grant gave Carrie drugs advice at Debbie Reynolds' request

But then we began discussing my LSD 'addiction', and after a freakishly short time I found myself chatting gaily.

I think I finally convinced him I didn't have an acid problem (which, for the most part, was true). What I did have was an opiate problem.

When our hour-long chat was up, I bade Mr Grant a grateful goodbye, told all my friends, and end of story. Or so I thought.

A few years later my father was at Princess Grace's funeral in Monaco. My father had never met the woman, but had his own reasons for going. Publicity.

So he was at the funeral of one of the few beautiful women of his generation he hadn't slept with when he spied Mr Grant. Something clicked in his brain, the dim recollection of a story he'd only recently been told.

What was it again? Oh yeah - something to do with his first-born daughter. He walked up to my hero and said the first thing that popped into his head, something along the lines of: 'My daughter Carrie is addicted to acid, and I'm very worried. Would you mind maybe having a talk with her?'

Poor Mr Grant gets back from the funeral and in due course calls me again to discuss my drug problem.

If I was embarrassed the first time he called me, this time I was humiliated.

I explained to Mr Grant, after thanking him, that my mother would probably be in a much better position to determine whether or not I was tripping my brain out on a daily basis than my father, with whom I'd spent, on average, one day a year.

Anyway, Mr Grant and I talked for more than an hour. It was great. I immediately bought him a bottle of wine from his birth year, which was something like 1907, and then he called me again to thank me. And in that final phone call, I believe he told me: 'I don't even like wine.'

We're talking about no less than three calls from Cary Grant. The guy was practically stalking me.

A few months later, I was at a charity event and found myself just a few feet away from him. Was I intimidated? Yes.

With my heart pounding in my ears, I tapped him on the back, withdrawing my hand immediately as if I burned my finger.

Whereupon Mr Grant turned, and I started backing away from him. 'Hi. I'm Debbie Reynolds's daughter. We talked on the phone? I just wanted to say hi.'

'Oh, hello, yes. How are you?' I was still backing away.

'Oh, I'm fine,' I whispered. ' Everything's great! Bye!' And I fled.

In 1986 while I was in Australia doing some terrible film, they announced on the radio that Mr Grant had died. And I remember getting this pain - the kind you get when you experience a body blow.

When I accidentally took a drug overdose, I frightened myself and threw myself into 12-step group recovery. I still attend meetings every week. I've had about four or five slips since I first started going to support groups at the age of 28.

I live next door to my mom now. She is still a little eccentric.

Whenever she calls she says: 'Hello, dear, this is your mother, Debbie.' (As opposed to my mother Vladimir or Jean-Jacques.) My brother and I talk this way to each other now: 'Hello dear, this is your brother, Todd.'

Another example of her eccentricity: she suggested several times that I should have a child with her last husband, Richard, because 'it would have nice eyes'. It hadn't occurred to her this might be odd. I think she just thought, you know, my womb was free and we're family.

A consequence of being the child of celebrities is that 'real life' is this other thing - we were always trying to determine what was going on in this distant, incomprehensible place. 'Surreal life' would have been a more appropriate description.

After my second husband, Bryan Lourd, left me, I was invited to go to a psychiatric hospital, and you don't want to be rude, so you go.

My diagnosis was manic depression - today they call it bipolar disorder. In many situations you can hardly tell there's anything wrong with me - I just have too much personality for one person and not quite enough for two.

Periodically, I do explode. Over time, the explosions have become smaller and the recovery time faster.

The symptoms are sexual promiscuity, excessive spending and substance abuse (I know - that's a fantastic weekend in Vegas for some people).

Once, in 1997, I stayed awake for six days when doctors removed my medication after two prescriptions interacted badly.

I wound up psychotic. I thought everything on television was about me. I was admitted to the lockdown ward of the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.

When I spoke about my mental illness publicly, I won great acclaim. I waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything (OK, fine, not acting, but what about a tiny little award for writing? Nope), I now get awards for being mentally ill.

I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. My family is so proud. When I heard I was in it, I was told it was with a photo. But it's not like anyone called me and said: 'Have you got a snapshot of yourself looking depressed or manic?' so for years I wondered, what picture?

Recently I found it. Anyone who'd wear a hairstyle like that has to be nuts! Right?







Lifelong impact: Carrie with Star Wars director George Lucas and co-star Harrison Ford at a 2002 awards ceremony

George gave me this idiotic hairstyle. I was terrified I'd be fired, so I said: 'I love it.' Yeah, right.



George Lucas ruined my life. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Even now, many years later, people are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was going to be that big a hit. Yes, of course I knew. We all knew.

The only one who didn't was the director, George Lucas. We kept it from him because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression.

Not only was he virtually expressionless in those days, but he also hardly talked at all. His only two directions in the first film were 'faster' and 'more intense'.

Shortly after I arrived, he gave me this unbelievably idiotic hairstyle. He said in his little voice: 'Well, what do you think of it?'

I was terrified I was going to be fired for being too fat, so I said: 'I love it.' Yeah, right.

When I got this great job to end all jobs, which truly I never thought I would get because there were all these other beautiful girls who were up for the part - Amy Irving, Jodie Foster, Teri Nunn - they told me I had to lose 10lb.

I weighed about 105lb at the time but carried about 50 of those in my face.

So you know what a good idea would be? Give me a hairstyle that further widens my already wide face.

Remember the white dress I wore all through that film? George came up to me the first day of filming, took one look at the dress and said: 'You can't wear a bra under that dress.'

'OK, I'll bite,' I said. 'Why?' And he said: 'Because ... there's no underwear in space.'

He said it with such conviction. Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn't see any bras or panties anywhere.

He explained. 'You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn't, so you get strangled by your own underwear.'

I think that this would make for a fantastic obituary. I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.

Instead of a bra, what do you think I wore for support, intergalactically? Gaffer tape.

I used to think there should have been a contest at the end of the day for who in the crew would get to help remove the tape.

George is a sadist. But despite having to wear a metal bikini, being chained to a giant slug (Jabba the Hutt) and often being about to die, I kept coming back for more.

Why, you might ask. Well, George is a visionary, right? The man has transported audiences the world over and has provided Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford and myself with enough fan mail - and even a small, merry band of stalkers - to keep us entertained for the rest of our lives.

And don't forget, George was the man who made me into a little doll. A doll that one of my exes could stick pins into whenever he was annoyed with me (I found it in a drawer).

He also made me into a shampoo bottle where people could twist off my head and pour liquid out of my neck. Paging Dr Freud!

And then there was a soap with the slogan: 'Lather up with Leia and you'll feel like a Princess yourself.'

The nice people at Burger King made me into a watch. And I'm a little stumpy Lego thing. And now there's even a stamp, which is totally cool.

Among George's many possessions, he owns my likeness, so that every time I look in the mirror I have to send him a couple of bucks. That's partly why he's so rich.







Fraught: Paul Simon wrote about his difficult marriage to Carrie in his songs

Paul Simon and I had a fight - for 12 years



Let's recap: Eddie and Debbie have me. I grow up, sort of, and I marry Paul Simon. Now Paul is a short, Jewish singer. Eddie Fisher is a short, Jewish singer. My mother makes a blueprint, and I follow it to the letter.

Paul and I dated for six years, were married for two, divorced for one, and then we dated again. We were together for more than 12 years (off and on) and we travelled a lot.

The last place we went to was the Amazon, which I recommend if you like mosquitoes.

When we got back, Paul wrote an album called The Rhythm Of The Saints - and on this album is the last song he ever wrote about me - and it's called She Moves On (an ironic title).

Anyway, one of the lyrics of the song goes like this: 'She is like a top / She cannot stop.' So yeah, he knew me. But the lyric I really wanted to tell you about was this: 'And I'm afraid that I'll be taken / Abandoned and forsaken / In her cold coffee eyes ...'

Yep, I'm a bitch. Poor Paul. He had to put up with a lot.

I was good for material, but when it came to day-to-day living, I was more than he could take.

We once had a fight (on our honeymoon) where I said: 'Not only do I not like you, I don't like you personally!' We tried to keep the argument going after that but we were laughing too hard.

Once, when I was flying to Los Angeles, we'd been fighting all morning, so Paul drove me to the airport to get rid of me faster. As I was about to get on the plane, I said: 'You'll feel bad if I crash.' And he shrugged and said: 'Maybe not.'





Todd was shot - and I had to hide the gun



When I was about 16 and my brother Todd was about 14, my mother took a part in a musical in New York, so we moved there for a year. I was out one evening when someone told me my mother was on the phone.

'I'm at the hospital with your brother,' she said. 'He shot himself in the leg with a blank.'

'What?' I said. 'He'll be fine,' she continued. 'He's in surgery now. Anyway, the police are here and they want to come to the house to examine the gun.

'I need you to get to the house before them to let them in, but also I need you to hide all the guns and bullets and - what else ... Oh yes! I need you to flush your brother's marijuana down the lavatory.'

Who knew we had bullets and guns in the house? They were my stepfather's show guns that he wore in some Christmas parade years back, but we were suddenly more like a mafia family than a showbusiness one.

So I rushed home and hid the guns and bullets and flushed an enormous plastic bag filled with pot.

It was Saturday night and you would think that this wouldn't be a particularly slow night for crime in New York. But you wouldn't know it looking at our living room because we had five policemen milling around, asking my mother pertinent questions such as: 'Did you know John Wayne? What kind of guy was he?'

Finally they told us they had established the gun could discharge live ammo, so my mother was in possession of an unlicensed firearm and had to go to the police station.

We got home just before 6am and there was a knock at the door.

Mom went to see who it was and came back laughing. 'It was a couple of reporters,' she said. 'They heard Todd had been shot in the leg and they wanted to know if I had done it for publicity for the show. I so badly wanted to tell them, "Yes, and now I can only do one more Broadway musical because I only have one child left to shoot for publicity."'



© 2008 by Deliquesce Inc. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Inc.

• Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher, is published by Simon & Schuster on December 1, price £12.99. To order your copy at £12.99 with free p&p, call The Review Bookstore on 0845 155 0713.