Smallscreen Reviews

Review: Carrie Fisher in 'Wishful Drinking' on HBO

By April MacIntyre Dec 12, 2010, 20:59 GMT

12/07/2010 - Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, and Joely Fisher - "Wishful Drinking" Special Screening - Arrivals - Linwood Dun Theatre - Hollywood, CA, USA © David Gabber / PR Photos

A favorite punch-up writer for many producers, Carrie Fisher hit the scene as Star Wars' resident bunned-up babe Princess Leia for Return of the Jedi, an iconic American film known the world over.

Her subsequent books reveal the humor and the curse of being a famous child of beautiful Hollywood stars.  Not easy when mom is an ethereal beauty and dad made all the girls swoon with his voice.

Fisher has thick skin and good cheer regarding all the barbs, negative reviews and remarks about her more average all American Texas/South Philly "white trash" look that has kept her not naked "for fifteen years," and refusing to wear sleeveless garments. 

Thanks to extensive therapy, stints in mental institutions, electroshock and numerous trips on and off the pill and booze wagons, Fisher's salvation it seems was always her whip-smart mind and fantastic sense of humor, combined with her lovely daughter Billie and mother's close proximity.  You cannot help but love Carrie for her endearing wit, honesty and empathy.

"As you age, it's about dignity," Fisher, 54, who to me looks pretty darn good in her one woman show "Wishful Drinking," that follows her page turning novel about the road to calm and happy.  

The HBO TV premiere is tonight, Sunday at 9 p.m.

Fisher takes us by the hand and uses charts, pictures and other props to show the surreal life she was born into, and how the cult of celebrity shaped her family.

She was married to singer Paul Simon and agent Bryan Lourd, the latter is her daughter's gay father.  Fisher says of her luck with men, "I make them bald. I turn them gay. My work is done."

Another gay male friend OD'ed dead in her bed, a Republican to boot she shares.

We are taken in the time machine to marvel at the "Brad, Angelina and Jennifer" tragic marriage bust up that saw Elizabeth Taylor snare Eddie Fisher away from Debbie Reynolds, when Mike Todd (Taylor's husband at the time) was killed in a plane crash. "He consoled her with his penis," Fisher laments for her poor shamed mother, "the Jennifer Aniston" character in the triangle.

Especially entertaining is her illustrated "Hollywood Inbreeding 101" as she tries to determine if Quinn Tivey, the son of Liza Todd, and Elizabeth Taylor's grandson, was related to her Billie.

Fisher and Liz were married for nearly five years, when a little film named "Cleopatra" put Liz, at the apex of her beauty, in the orbit of one studly Welshman, Richard Burton, and all bets were off, and Fisher was dumped.

Eddie Fisher, who died during the making of the special (September 22) is fondly recalled by Fisher as "Puff Daddy" who had a total four wives. Her mum Debbie has had three husbands.

In the end, Fisher's charm and survivor's chutzpah is matched by her incredible gift to entertain by her words, and she will snare your heart with her honest recollections of a life writ large, with klieg lights and lithium.