It was a scandal for the ages. For its time, anyway.
Follow along as we tell you about Eddie and Debbie. Do your best to keep up, it’s complicated.
Debbie and Eddie got married, and a year later, they had a baby girl. A baby boy came along three years after that.
The same year that the baby boy was born, Debbie’s best friend, Elizabeth, suffered a tragic loss: Her husband died in a plane crash.
Eddie attempted to comfort his wife’s BFF, but somewhere along the line of good intentions, Eddie and Elizabeth developed “feelings” for each other. Before the year was out, Debbie filed for divorce from Eddie. The day the divorce was finalized, Eddie married Elizabeth.
The year was 1958, and had the people involved in the triangle been unknown yokels living in Small Town, USA, no one would have known or cared. But this was Hollywood. Eddie Fisher was the leading pop vocalist of the day with seventeen Top 10 songs on the charts to his credit; his television show was popular.
Bright-eyed Debbie Reynolds, meanwhile, was “America’s Sweetheart,” a household name because of movies like the classic, “Singin’ in the Rain,” and her recording of the song “Tammy,” which became a number one hit on the Billboard charts. As for Elizabeth, well, who didn’t know Elizabeth Taylor? Elizabeth Taylor was an immensely popular and highly regarded actress who had already established herself as one of the most prominent stars of classical Hollywood cinema. By the time of her affair with Eddie, she was a critically acclaimed actress, an Academy Award nominee and major box-office draw.
The whole situation was particularly shocking because Reynolds and Fisher were considered a wholesome Hollywood couple, and their friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband, Mike, was a close one. It was an unexpected triangle.
The media was unkind, the public even more unforgiving. Eddie Fisher was labeled a “philandering, opportunistic loser,” and because of morality clauses in his contracts (this was, remember, 1958), many of his contracts were canceled, and his popularity declined.
Elizabeth Taylor was called a “bad-girl, home-wrecking slut.” Had she not already been a major Hollywood star, the scandal might have ruined her. Her professional reputation, however, remained largely intact, and she continued to get leading roles in major films.
As for Debbie Reynolds, she was seen as the innocent victim. That she had kept her dignity throughout endeared her to the public. Reynolds and Taylor eventually reconciled years later and even collaborated on a project together, but the real subject of our post is that little girl born a year after her parents had married. Only two year old at the time of the affair, the little girl din’t escape the intense media scrutiny. It influenced her upbringing, and resulted in a complicated and tumultuous relationship with her father. In a word, she would come to describe feeling, “betrayed.” Heavy stuff for a child.
Though the experience shaped her impression of Hollywood, it is perhaps ironic that the little girl would grow up to become a Hollywood icon in her own right. You will recognize her for her most famous role in the image below:
Photo by Laphaete from PxHere shared under CC0 Public Domain
Carrier Fisher was a remarkable talent in ways you may not know about. Though she is best known for her iconic role as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” franchise, she was a successful author. Her semi-autobiographical novel, “Postcards from the Edge,” was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep, and she wrote several other books. It was following the success of “Postcards from the Edge,” however, that Fisher found herself in a new career:
Script Doctor.
Carrie was already known as a talented writer, and her ability to inject humor and nuanced levels of depth to scripts was noticed. She was good at improving dialogue, and could flesh out female characters in appreciable ways. She became a highly sought after “script docor,” and her changes contributed to the success of well-known films including “Sister Act,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,””Lethal Weapon 3,” “Hook,” and “The Wedding Singer,” among others. Because the changes she made to a script typically didn’t meet the Writers Guild of America’s requirements for credit, Fisher’s work as a script doctor often went uncredited, as it happened for many script doctors. Still, Carrie Fisher was one of the most sought-after script doctors in Hollywood during her career.
Fisher was also an outspoken advocate for mental health awareness and openly discussed her own struggles with bipolar disorder, which she was diagnosed with at the age of 24. Not until she overdosed on a combination of prescription medication and illegal drugs did she fully accept her disorder, but despite periods of sobriety, she suffered relapses and was candid about the chronic nature of addiction, and her personal battle with mental illness. She used her experiences to advocate for mental health awareness, and received the Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism from Harvard University for her efforts in raising awareness.
In the end, addiction may have prevailed. During a flight from London to Los Angeles in 2016, Carrie went into cardiac arrest. CPR was administered until the plane landed, and she was taken to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center where she stayed in intensive care until she died at the age of 60. An autopsy revealed the presence of cocaine, heroin, other opiates, and MDMA in her system, though it was unclear when she had taken the substances, or even if they directly contributed to her death. It didn’t help that Fisher had atherosclerotic heart disease, and that she also suffered sleep apnea. Perhaps it was a perfect storm of issues. All that can be said now is that a tremendous talent was taken too young. As a testament to her candor and wit, it’s said that a portion of her cremated ashes was placed in a giant novelty Prozac pill, a final hat tip to being open about mental health challenges.
In a script that perhaps even Carrie couldn’t have written, a day after Carrie died, her mother, Debbie Reynolds, also died. Some say it was from a broken heart. According to Carrie’s brother, Todd, Debbie Reynolds had said, “I want to be with Carrie,” shortly before she suffered a stroke and passed away. Todd himself suggested that his mother “willed herself” to die to be with Carrie as they were very close.
It’s beyond tragic.
We’d like to think that Carrie found comfort in her dogs. Towards the end of her life, Carrie had a therapy dog, “Gary,” a French Bulldog who seemed to help manage her bipolar disorder. Fisher acquired Gary in 2013, and the Frenchie quickly became her constant companion going with her to interviews, and even on red carpet affairs. Carrie often said of Gary that he was “like my heart,” emphasizing the emotional support he provided her by helping calm her anxiety. “Gary is very devoted to me, and that calms me down” Carrie once said, and by taking Gary along to public events, Carrie highlighted the importance of having “tools” to manage one’s illness. Gary’s presence tacitly said that his mistress’ mental health needs were non-negotiable.
After Carrie’s passing, Gary was said to have gone to live with Carrie’s daughter, Billie Lourd, but in actuality, it was decided to be better for Gary if he stayed with Carrie’s former assistant, Corby McCoin, whom the dog knew well. Since we haven’t found find evidence of Gary’s passing, we assume that he is now about eleven years old, and still living with Gary.
In conclusion, we also want to mention that at one time, Carrie Fisher did own a Rottweiler named “Bubba” whom she adopted from a shelter. Bubba was part of Fisher’s life during her struggles with mental health, but specific details about Bubba’s life are less documented as compared to Gary’s.
Yes, this has been a long post that didn’t get to the topic of dogs until the very end, but we wanted to pay tribute not only to a talented force of nature who surely suffered in this life, but to the dogs who gave her comfort.