VOICES CARRIE

Are you in a relationship?

Not with another person.

I think I'm going to start trying to get the celebrities I interview to do my outgoing messages.

You definitely should.  It's the most fun.  

Will you be my first?

Sure.   My mother does some of them sometimes and then it's really funny.  Once she did, "Carrie can't come to the phone right now cause I've gotten back together with her father and we're trying to raise her right" and she did one singing "Tammy" and I'm screaming in the background like I'm being tortured.

I remember reading the Madonna interviews you did for Rolling Stone.  You said in the piece that you were taking care of your friend Julian who was dying of AIDS at the time.  Is William, the friend Cora takes care of in the book, based on Julian?

Yes.  That was heavy.  And I was late for the interview, but it was such a good excuse.  If I would leave, Julian would try to get the nurse to go, so I wouldn't have to pay for it.    It was very expensive, his insurance.  This kills me, these insurance people.   I want to fucking kill them, you know ,with AIDS.  They said he only needed insurance half day.  He was incontinent and he could not walk, so which half of the day do you think was expendable? He needed nurses care 24 hours so I was paying for half.  And I said, "I'm making this much money on this rewrite and I will go to hell if I don't share it with you" and he understood that because he felt too guilty otherwise.  But that day, he let the nurse go and, of course, he got 106 fever.

Was he in the hospital?

He was in my house. The nurse came back and put him in like an ice sleeping bag to bring the fever down, so when I left he was like that.  And I arrive to do the interview and Madonna's in a negligee.  That's what she chose to wear with me like some sex-kitten type thing, mules, the whole thing, like what those drawings wear in Playboy.  It was so surreal.  And I arrive fresh from some medical drama.  Actually, because of that, I think she was very good in the interview.  She was subdued by that information and it sort of knocked out her thing.  I didn't have to drain her that day of her blow job material, where as the first time we spoke she just wanted to talk about sex and penis size.   That really matters to you, penis size?  Anyway, he died like five days later.

Did you ever in your life think that that was something you'd have to deal with?

I never thought about it, but if I thought about it, I would think yes.  Knowing me, that's something more right for me, in terms of if you think about who I am, than like making somebody breakfast. 

Was writing about it cathartic?

I remember Buck Henry saying to me.  " I said, "Well, Julian's dying."  He said, "Julian's been dying."  and I said "No, Julian is now...like he's going to die like in a day."  And he said, "Well, don't tell me about it.  I'll read about it."  But yeah, I did need to write about it.  My friend Dr. Klein saw Julian and he said, "Are you prepared for him to die with you?" and I said, "I don't know."  See, he didn't look bad to me. I mean, I know he looked awful but when you know someone you think of them in a continuity.  I just factored Julian from all along into the Julian I was looking at and in that way he didn't look that sick, but of course, he was dying.  He was in denial about it, so I went with his thing.

You've said that when it comes to your film writing, you're great in emergency situations. 

The best, but being good at emergency situations is very different from being there with someone who's dying and having them rely on you to make the situation okay. That I could do that, that he gave me the gift of allowing me to be the person that did that with him and trusting that I would know what to do, I then knew what to do.  He let me be all right about his dying which made me be alright about mine, and about the whole issue of it. 

In the book, Cora says she wishes somebody like her would be there when she was dying...

And then I realized that I would.  But I'd be on the wrong end. 

When you first started writing and probably still, there are people who said, "Oh, Carrie Fisher's just a spoiled celebrity brat, born into privilege.  What could she possibly have to say..."  Do you think that the generosity you show in your personal life is how you...

Earn it?  Yeah.  But it's not financial.  I have to be very large of spirit.  I have to think that what is mine is not mine, but to be shared with anybody who needs it that is in effect, mine.   My choice family, or who I choose to be my family, who then comes into my circle is going to be protected by me and they know that and people that are my friends that have AIDS, I choose to think that their AIDS is afraid of me.  That's a terribly weird thing to say, but I choose to think it, because it helps me.

"And in this corner, weighing in at ninety something pounds, Carrie Fisher..."

Yeah. "Okay, go up against me.  Come on.  Come on." 

At one point in the book, Cora announces that she's officially becoming a gay man.  What do you think the connection is between you/Cora and gay men?

We're both after the same thing in a way and we don't have the sexual confusion.  We both have man trouble.   We both probably have dominant mothers.  

Is there a sense of humor connection?

Definitely.  And there's an empathy.  I really feel that my gay men friends take care of me and care about me and would go the distance for me and they know I would do the same for them.  My gay men friends are like my best friends.  It's easily 60%.

Is C3P0 gay?

Uh-huh.

Did you bond with him?

He was like one of those queens that was like a fussy queen, you know, so yes I bonded with him but the fussy queen thing is not my dominant queen energetic. 

Cora and her friend Bud fantasize about what it would be like if science could invent wonder patches for things other than to make you stop smoking; like the mood patch or the chess patch.   If you could have three patches what would they be?

The good relationship patch, the money patch and, I guess the good health patch and that would have to include stuff like that I would have to not want to do drugs again and I would not want to smoke.  It would be a patch that pretty much made me Tofu Queen. 

Bud has a name for his private parts...

Sad Jim.

Have you ever named yours?

Fuzzy Womp.  I forgot to put that in.  I'm so glad that you reminded me.  When I was pregnant I would say "Shhh, the Fuzzy Womp is sleeping."   "The Fuzzy Womp is crowded."  That's a good title, "The Fuzzy Womp Is Crowded."   I also have other names for it; The Lagoon of Mystery. 

It's better than the Temple of Doom.

That would be the name of your thing.  Billie calls hers "Hootie."   "Hootie," she says.  "Hootie open."  "Hootie closed."

Is Hootie ever sleeping?

At her age, you bet it's sleeping.

Have you ever suspected that someone was using the Princess Leia action figure as a voodoo doll?

My ex-husband.  I swear to God, he had a little doll of me and he'd put a pin in it.  I found it in his drawer I promise you.  He was made at me at the time. 

Did you feel the prick?

No.  He used to do stuff when he got mad at me that was so weird.  When I think he was probably this age that I am now when he put pins in the Princess Leia doll, it's so weird.  I should have had a V-8.  

How long were you and Paul Simon married?

We married at 26 but I'd already been with him for around 5 years.  So it was this weird afterthought, or not, and then we stayed married for a second.  I think the divorce was final after two years and then we got back together again for a while.  So, off and on for like 13 years.  There'd be a year we didn't speak, but that was the relationship.

One of the ideas in Surrender the Pink is that two people who are too similar don't work well together in a romantic relationship.

It looks like with me, hardly anybody works together.

Would you want to get into another relationship?

It would be ridiculous to do with my child because the time that you spend on a new relationship is the time that she needs.

One of the articles I read said that you'd "given up on coupling."  Have you?

No.  Not at all.  I mean, my father left when I was 1 1/2, so if I didn't give up then, and I did to a certain degree...I mean, no, I don't give up.  I'm a jerk.    I don't know. I don't have a good role model for it.  My mother is now divorced three times.  My father is married for the fourth time.  I mean, it doesn't look promising.  I would like to have other children, otherwise I would say to you I wouldn't have another relationship.  

Do you have to have the relationship to get the children?

I think that you have to at least try to give it the right configuration at the top, at least you have to be able to say, "Well, your father and I were happy when you were conceived."

Instead of saying...

"You were a test tube baby."  "I got you at a sperm bank."  I mean, those options are not open to me.  And what would they write in Us Magazine with the little shoes; "Carrie Fisher and Vile of Sperm."  I don't want that.

What was the most inappropriate thing you ever did in the Princess Leia costume?

I wore the bathing suit across the street to an Italian restaurant across the street.  The wookie used to go out in his outfit, too.

Did you ever do anything naughty in it?

You mean like have sex with someone?  Not in that outfit, no.  I'm not like that really.  We've established that I have good penmanship too.

I used to steal the way other people made certain letters and make them my own.  I was a like handwriting kleptomaniac.

I had that too about certain R's and T's and stuff.  Yet, I didn't ever say to someone, "How do you give head?"

If you were in a game of Truth or Dare and someone dared you to service an Evian bottle...

I'd do what ever the truth was.  To me, I'm much more interested in the truth anyway.  We used to play Truth or Dare in England and we got people to do amazing things.  When I went to drama school in England it was like a Hollywood party, like what they think we do here. A piano fell out of a window, say, once at a party.  It was wild.  We had a costume party and I remember opening the bathroom door and this guy dressed as Hitler was in the shower with one of the vocal coaches.  People would be mating on the floor and waving to you from underneath someone.  Someone came up to me once and said, "Lynne just threw up on your bed, but she's sorry."  Oh, well then it's okay, because I only care about good manners.  The vomiting is secondary to how she reacts to it, if she behaves well. 

Have you ever thought about writing about that time?

Yeah, but I have such a bad memory.  I was like 18 or 19 and I was a virgin.    

How did you lose your virginity?

Like 18. 

Who was the guy?

Some guy who lives here now.  He was the most normal person I ever was out with.

What people count or don't count as sex always amazes me.  I have friends who'll like perform oral sex on someone and say, "But we didn't have sex."

That that doesn't count as sex, because they didn't actually insert their genitalia into another.  That always kills me that they don't count it.  Also, they don't consider blow jobs infidelity.  "I wasn't unfaithful to you." 

"Her mouth just happened do be there."

"I laid down with him, I like, you know, held on to his genitals, I did all this other stuff, but that's not being unfaithful.   It's the actual procreative act that makes it wild and woolly."  I know people that are born again Christians that don't count that they had an affair because they would just like blow each other. 

Where do you keep the trophy they gave you for not sleeping with Warren Beatty?

It's in the closet. 

Have you ever been to a psychic?

Yeah.  The recent psychic experience was that Patty Smith went to a psychic who told her that she'd be living with a woman soon and the fire happened and her house was threatened and so she ended up moving in here with her daughter, two mice,  a dog and a cat and one of my dogs ate one of the mice. 

But you said you were sorry.

But the dog barked that it was sorry.  Her daughter wasn't real disappointed as long as she got a new mouse. 

I went to a New Years party when the host brought in a psychic but she got lost and arrived two hours late.  I was like, "Wait, you're telling me that you're sure I should change careers in mid-June, but you didn't know whether to turn right or left on Doheny?"

I got a psychic in London when we were working on Empire Strikes Back and there was a line waiting.  Someone was taking a real long time and we went in the room and (a certain director) was making out with the psychic and her top was off.

What was she basing her reading on?  "This hair pattern on your goody trail tells me..."

"That you'll be having sex with a psychic at a party soon."   That was the same party where (a certain actor) had sex with a girl in the bathroom and then left and for the rest of the party this girl was sobbing in the kitchen.  Every time when my life has been like that, it's been in England.  The English go the craziest.  The parties last really late.  There are people on every known drug.  "The person with heroin just got here."  "Really?"  "We're playing Poetry Consequences on Cocaine."  "Oh, well I don't really like cocaine but where's the heroin person?"  Parties here, you're lucky if you can get them to last until midnight.  Unless there's like the drug group that's in my bathroom. "Hey, run out yet?  Or doesn't it matter." 

I bet you throw great parties.

I'll get your number.  You'd be a good thing to these parties. 

I'm here with bells on.

That's what I'm assuming.  Literally.

You went to Liz Taylor's Disneyland Birthday bash.  What was that like?

I spent the whole evening with Joni Mitchell going on rides.  But it was only Fantasy Land and no Matterhorn. Now, come on.

I have friends who take turns being wheelchair bound so they don't have to stand in line.

We did that with my grandmother.  I want to Euro- Disney with Billie cause there's no lines because the French hate us.

Speaking of Liz, I know you like to make up perfume names.  Do you have any new ones?

Empathy; feel like them smell like this.  Arbitrary; for the man who doesn't give a shit how he smells.  Wolverine; for the scent of the hunt.  I have a lot of them written down.  It's a really fun game to play with Robin Williams because it just gets him started. 

If somebody held a gun to your head and made you do an infomercial, what would the product be?

A product for your personality.  How to make your personality better to go with your new body and your new hair and your new make-up.   I'd help people put expressions on their face and put something behind their eyes.  It would be an exercise tape for your head. 

Who would be on the couch with you like Cher is with Lori Davis?

Somebody who needed it.  Kate Moss or any one of the other ones, Christy Turlington. 

Did you see that "Model Conversation" show on MTV where they all sat around and talked about their lives as supermodels?

I think the victory is them just talking and talking and talking and they think they're saying something interesting because we're all attending it.  The other person on the infomercial is Madonna.  After the Letterman thing she's going to need that product.  I can help her into her next phase.  I think she has to start wearing glasses. 

Where do think you get your sense of irony from?

I don't know.  Just like looking at my family.  Well, my mother maybe.  We'll see this afternoon.  She's coming.  That's exciting for you, you can meet mom.  We're doing a three-way interview today with my mother and Billie which will be very interesting to hear what Billie has to say about being in the family.

Is it hard to find friends that share your perspective on life?

You find each other and it's not that easy.  It's always looking for the conversation or the kiwi. (Sings) Once you have found it, never let it go. 

You can feel a shift occurring.  Can you feel the change in atmosphere? 

My mother's here.

DEBBIE REYNOLDS:  I've had my saga of arrival.  Didn't bring my house keys, of course, because people do that who are normal.  So I get to my house and my secretary doesn't have her keys because she gave them to my houseguest...

You'll have no questions after you watch this for a while.

DR:  Could not get into my house.  Could not get into my car.  Took my secretary's car who had to go to the neighbor's house, who has a mad dog, to phone.  This goes on.  Do you got time for this?

I'm here for the duration.

DR:  This is only the last hour.  Cause, of course, I had to work two shows last night, I got to bed at three o'clock in the morning because I entertained the world.

Do you live in the Valley?

DR:  I have always lived in the Valley.  Well, in between husbands going broke.  It depends on the husbands actually, where I live.  I'm not really sure what they're losing this year.  Am I being to provocative?  I'm not ovulating.  I have Mental Pause now.

Is that what that is? Look, Angelo had me sign these first edition Franklin Mint originals.  Isn't it beautiful?  Everyone should have been done like this.

DR: Who said this for how many years?