Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking on HBO

By April MacIntyre Jun 3, 2010, 16:15 GMT

Still courtesy of ©2009 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Carrie Fisher’s hit stage production Wishful Drinking - described as an "intoxicating tale of her life, based on her autobiographical book," is being produced for TV as a feature-length documentary by HBO and World of Wonder Productions.

The HBO special will combine moments from her one-woman stage performance, to be taped June 25 before a live audience at the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) in South Orange, NJ, with archival footage and interviews with friends and family.

An actress, screenwriter, top level Hollywood punch-up writer and best-selling author, Fisher is the daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.  Fisher famously left Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor.  Fisher has said in past interviews: "In the '50s, my parents were known as `America's sweethearts,"' Carrie Fisher writes in her memoir, "Wishful Drinking." "Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers.  They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day ... If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie."

At age 19 she turned heads as the bikini wearing, bun hairstyled Princess Leia in the first “Star Wars” trilogy.  Forever changed, Fisher battled weight, booze, drugs and family demons and chronicled them in her uproarious and sobering look at her life in memoirs.  Wishful Drinking reveals her darkest hours and the not-so-glittering side of growing up with “Hollywood royalty.”

The stage presentation was produced on Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company in association with Jonathan Reinis, Jamie Cesa, Eva Price and the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

“Wishful Drinking” (link) plays the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) Friday, June 25 at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, June 26 at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  Tickets:  $85, $65.  Call 973.313.ARTS (2787) or visit www.SOPACnow.org.