Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Sheila Weller, on her complex portrait of Carrie Fisher

HALLIE EPHRON: It is my great pleasure to welcme New York Times bestselling author and journalist Sheila Weller to Jungle Red. She's here to celebrate the paperback release of her biography CARRIE FISHER: A LIFE ON THE EDGE.

The reviews have been... astonishing. Just for example...

"Engrossing, gracefully written....Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge reads as definitive." - The Washington Post.

"Bestseller author Weller shares a hearteflt tribute to the late Carrie Fisher -- a complex portrait of the actress, her struggles, and her extraordinary singularity... A fitting and beautiful homage." - Newsweek

"Riveting...Mesmerizing...": O, the Oprah Magazine

"A sympathetic and terrifically moving biography.": The Forward

This is not Sheila's first celebrity biography. Her Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation was a New York Times best seller. As well as The News Sorority: Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour and the Triumph of Women in TV News.

She's here to talk about how she decides who to write about, and why Carrie Fisher (My all-time favorite smart, cheeky actress/writer) in particular.(This essay was originally published in Graydon Carter's Air Mail)

SHEILA WELLER: I love writing about brilliant, risk-taking, complicated women, and Carrie Fisher had those qualities—plus bracing honesty—in profusion.

Few celebrities have confessed with as much witty, ferocious candor their self-acknowledged imperfections and serious challenges—in her case: the effects of bipolar disorder and inherited drug addiction. (And in the process of writing about them with such honesty, Carrie was a significant force in de-stigmatizing them.)

But it is one thing to be amused by a woman’s proudly overshared rule-breaking (Carrie went off her medications and defied drug sobriety many times, and admitted it in highly amusing writings and interviews); it’s quite another to learn, as I did, how deeply vulnerable she could be.

As one of her longtime friends put it, behind the charisma that lit up every room she entered “Carrie was as fragile as a butterfly.”

In her 20s, before she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, her mania-quelling use of Percoset (a balm typical of those with the disorder) once left her so weak that a male friend accompanying her to a movie had to carry her the whole way to the theater by piggyback. During the 1987 book tour of her highly praised Postcards from the Edge, the flinty wit, then freshly considered the Dorothy Parker of her time, spent many days in hotel rooms, nauseous with stage fright. That deep insecurity would never have been guessed by the fans who watched her speak with wry aplomb each evening.

I knew that Carrie prided herself on being a good friend. Indeed, she probably held a record for having more eminences who considered her one of their best friends than just about anyone else in the entertainment and arts communities did. But I learned that her caring for people extended well beyond elites. She’d deeply nurtured, in her home, some friends’ and exes’ sons and daughters.

With the words “I am mentally ill; I can say that” uttered to Diane Sawyer in a widely watched 2000 television interview, Carrie removed the shame from that self-description; after that, many a similarly diagnosed fan at a Star Wars convention merely had to introduce her or himself that way for Carrie to spend much time absorbing and opining on that fan’s personal issues.

When younger industry people below Carrie’s fame and status level were with her, several told me, they were happily surprised that she dove into their lives. At the height of her fame, she took a meeting with young, on-the-rise show-runner Wendy Kuot, who had hoped to get Carrie to star in her TV pilot. But after Carrie said no (those were the years when—hilariously, in the Netflix present—television was the lesser screen), she initiated an hour-and-a-half conversation about Wendy’s life. “I had expected her wit and lack of sentimentality, but not her attention and wisdom,” Wendy told me. “It’s one thing to have an acerbic tongue, but you don’t encounter too many people who give you deep life advice that stays with you. Carrie did.”

Many people said Carrie was the smartest person they knew (although she seemed vexingly insecure because she hadn’t finished high school or drama school), and they spoke endlessly of her generosity. Some was material generosity—if you admired a piece of art in her house, she might send it to you the next day. Some was deeper: When her friend, former Saturday Night Live music producer Julian Ford, was in the last stages of AIDS, she flew him from New York to Los Angeles and cared for him until his death. All that—and she was the proudly frank bad girl who ditched her meds and practiced drug sobriety very imperfectly.

Toward the end of her life, Carrie Fisher was known for her tough, snarky tweets, whacking back at the men who had age- and weight-shamed her. But on at least one occasion she shed tears over these insults.

“Kindness”—not a typical-seeming Fisher noun—was a word she used during that last month of her life. “Be kind. Don’t hurt other people,” she told an interviewer. She had new appreciation for “all the sort of Christian ethics stuff I thought was bullshit when I was a kid. It turns out it’s not bullshit … ” Again: “Be kind.” For one to whom tart sarcasm seemed her stock-in-trade, that these values were emerging as virtues might be surprising. But in my research on what, over the decades, Carrie had survived (severe mental challenges) and accomplished (becoming a virtual guardian to two very different Hollywood-royalty parents), combining kindness with tough-dame bravado seemed both naturally and weatheredly acquired.

HALLIE: Carrie Fisher was one of those celebrities who, even in her Princess Leia getup or reclining in a gold metal bikini, seemed thoroughly real. Sheila's book is a fascinating read--so many mysteries and insights revealed.

I'd love to know what would Sheila have wanted to ask Carrie Fisher if she'd been researching this biograhy during Carrie Fisher's lifetime? What would you like to know?


Sheila Weller is the author of the beloved New York Times bestseller Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation, and of the acclaimed family memoir Dancing at Ciro's: A Family's Love, Loss and Scandal on the Sunset Strip, as well as The News Sorority: Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour and the Triumph of Women in TV News -- and of three policy-affecting feminist accounts of crimes against women in upscale communities: Raging Heart ( the #2 NYT bestseller about the relationship of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson, Marrying the Hangman, and Saint of Circumstance. Her in-depth profiles, investigative articles on women's issues and cultural history --for Vanity Fair, Glamour, the New York Times, and many other publications -- have won her nine major magazine awards. She has been a columnist for the Washington Post's "She The People" and had her own column, "Second Opinion," for the New York Observer, has sat on the board of directors of Sanctuary for Families (New York state's largest anti-domestic violence organization) and currently sits on the board of Next Tribe, the digital magazine and community for women over forty, and contributes to Graydon Carter's AirMail. She lives in New York City with her husband, history author John Kelly.

38 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the paperback release of your book, Sheila . . . . this is definitely a book I’m looking forward to re-reading . . . .

    I thought it was interesting that Carrie discovered the need for kindness. Now, if more people would get that message . . . .

    After a bit of thought, I think I might ask this: Despite your frankness and honesty, a stigma remains attached to mental illness. What’s the next step? What will it take to make people less judgmental, more compassionate?

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    1. Thank you, Joan, for asking! Yes, mental illness is one of those subjects that we SAY we are empaathetic about but, in reality, under our good intentions, we can be judgmental. More open and honest dialogue and public accounts of accomplished people - even or perhaps especially those not in the entertainment industry -- that will help. The work of academic and author (and colleague) Stephen fried, especially with ex Congressman Patrick Kennedy, is especially good. And of course when we encounter it among loved ones, that is when we really understand its challenges and its sufferers' valor.

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  2. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction these days, but I will be reading A Life on the Edge, Shelia. I thought Carrie Fisher was brilliant and beautiful and brave. I watched her HBO special based on her one woman show (name?), and I found her so witty and entertaining.

    My question for Carrie would be: At what point in your life, what age did you come to realize that being born to Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher was not an enviable position to be in?

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    1. It's always so interesting to think about fame and what a mixed bag it is. You might be revered, but also trapped by your own image.

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    2. People - fans and friends alike - adored her, indeed. I think she understood pretty much from the beginning that being born to Debbie and Eddie was, as we say, a mixed bag. There was the hugely public divorce / scandal, involving Elizabeth Taylor. And much more. You will read it in the book and of course she has talked and written about it, too. However, she definitely used her glamorous and distinctive and complex parentage -- her Hollywood Royalty childhood. Like Hallie, I went to Beverly Hills schools and we knew a variety of daghters of movie stars. Each, to my memory, was different. She enjoyed using her background to -- as we say now -- brand herself. Like most of life and much of Carrie, her relationship to her parents and to mythic Hollywood was complex. One more thing: Her father, Eddie Fisher, had an addiction problem and was most likely bipolar. She inherited these things. So in that way it was a definite indrance. On the other hand, her mother Debbie Reynolds had extraordinary spunk -- in the real, not the cute, sense. And a valorous work ethic. She inherited that, too.

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  3. Carrie was such an icon. Lately I've been reading memoirs and bios of outstanding women. I'll have to put your book (probably ALL your books) on my list.

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    1. That is so nice of you ! I hope you enjoy it -- and them all. Yes, I love learning from iconic women; there are life lessons to derive from each one, often not what one expects!

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  4. Sheila, welcome to JRW. I saw Carrie Fisher's one woman show at the Hartford Stage several years ago. Her mother was with her. A big fan , I had always wondered where she'd gone after Star Wars had been such a huge success. As I listened to her life story, I became aware of all the many forces that played havoc with her life.

    Congratulations on the release of your paperback. This book is now on my TBR pile to read right after Biden is sworn in.

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    1. Thank you, Judy! And, yes!!! - after Biden is sworn in!!

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  5. Sheila, I have a question for you, too - You and I both grew up in Beverly Hills. Do you think there was something about that environment, steeped as we were in celebrity and also sort of immune to it since it was everywhere, do you think that shaped the direction you've taken in terms of the subjects you choose to research and write about?

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    1. I mentioned our background in an earlier answer -- about how different one movie star's daughter was from another. (I always think of DeeDee Lee - Denise Loder DeLuca -- who was Hedy Lamarr's daughter and the most astonishingly down to earth girl I ever met.) Hmmm... I actually havent written all that much about "celebrities" and it's a word i kind of go eek over. When you do a lot of magazine writing you do profiles arranged by magazines so they are often people -in entertainment. But cultural history -- of the '60s generation etc. -- is one of my specialties and when I wrote Girls Like Us it was THAT aspect -- how our generation of American females changed the way American women thought of themselves and how we lived -- that was the guiding motive. Of the many things I have written about, about the most affecting to me were the three magazine pieces I did about families of 9-11 victims. I look for strong emotional human stories; I guess we all do. But you are very very right about how we were steeped in celebrity but also immune to it.

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  6. The shared Fisher/Reynolds family history was so tragic at times, but Carrie, and her mother as well, soldiered on to the end. I always thought the hardest thing would be for famous individuals and families, similar to the Barrymores, too, to live so much raw life right in the public eye. The fans and the press have an insatiable need to muddle in personal lives of celebrities, their loves and losses, their eccentricities, and their successes and too-known failures.

    Carrie and Debbie dying within a day of each other still causing me to catch my breath a bit.

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    1. Indeed, their day-apart deaths evoked that same breath-catching feeling in so many ! shakespearean ! Debbie had been very ill the whole prior year and Carrie's death seemed to have gently but definitively pushed her to a place where, as Todd Fisher put it, "she wanted to be with Carrie."

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  7. Yes I agree Karen.
    She didn’t finish high school? Why?
    And I missed your Diane Sawyer book? Ah! Off to get the that right now. ( We once shared a boyfriend:-) —more I cannot say) .

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    1. A boyfriend with Diane - small world! Can you give me the initials/ (Kidding.) Yes, Carrie didnt finish high school because her mother, weighed under by debt from the bad marriage to Harry Karl, took her to NY to be in a play with her - IRENE.

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  8. Carrie Fisher was such a...force, I guess. As she grew older, I admired her more. I've always loved her response to a father who wrote her, asking what he should tell his daughter when she saw Leia in that gold bikini. "A giant slug kidnapped me, forced me to wear that, and I killed him." Or something like that.

    I'd like to hear more about her journey to realizing Christian values, like kindness, weren't the crap she thought they were.

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    1. Hi, Liz. That comes at the very end of her life. It is a poignant thing she said, musing that the values she had made fun of (her brother became a Christian miinister) had genuine relevance. When I uncovered those conversations, it was very moving to hear.

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  9. Congratulations on the new release. This book is definitely on my tbr. I'm curious about why she didn't finish high school and I wonder how growing up in a household with two icon parents affected how she saw herself.

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    1. Hi, Kait -- I hope you read the book - the paperback is easy to tuck in a bag. She didnt finish high school because her mother -- needing money after a bad divorce -- took her to NY to appear in a play with her. And how growing up in a household with two icon parents (and having them as such even after the brief household stage) affected her - it is complex and woven throughout the book, also woven thro0ughout her own writings and one woman show. Very complex!! Some of it negative, some of it grist for her in many ways!

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  10. Welcome to JRW's Sheila. I too will be rereading your Carrie Fisher biography very soon. If I could I would ask if Carrie went off her meds because she didn't like her thought process, perhaps felt less creative, when she was using psychotropic medication. Thank you again for researching and writing about women of insight.

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    1. Thank you, Coralee. Yes, that is one reason she went off her meds. Another was the horrendous side effects that meds can have. Being bipolar now is easier, many thanks to Carr-e, who made the condition something you could talk about. Back throgh her long life , when she was afflicted with it, it was less known, shame inducing and poorly treated.

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  11. I like to mix nonfiction in with my fiction reading as often as I can find something that catches my attention. I admired Carrie tremendously and will definitely be reading your book. Also, The Girls book--did you write anything about Jessica Savitch? She was another woman I admired very much.

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    1. Thank you. Actually Girls Like Us was the Carole, Joni and Carly book. (That's the book of mine people seem to really have a fondness for, gratifyingly eno0ugh.) The News sorority was the book about the newswomen -- and, yes, I wrote a bit about Savitch but not very much. There was an excellent book out about her. Her life was so very tragic.

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  12. Thank you everybody ! I am here to answer any more questions you may have ! I love this format and thank you, Hallie !! xx

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  13. Hi Sheila! It's wonderful to have you here today. I think Coralee's question is an interesting one. Carrie was such an icon, but I wonder what she would have made of herself without Star Wars, what different directions her life might have taken. I can't wait to read your book, and am also off now to get Girls Like Us. How did I miss that???

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    1. Thank you, Deborah! I think you will like Girls Like Us ! Plenty of new paperbacks on Amazon. Hmmm, without Star Wars?... I honestly think Carrie would have still been Carrie ! Hate to admit it (eek) but Star Wars was the least interesting part of Carrie's life, to me. She was a dynamic, charismtic, witty, theatrical, tragically but jubillantly afflicted utter original. Her other movie roles were mostly that of the friend -- nothing star-making. But thats just it --- when Postcards from the edge came out reviewer Carolyn See (a wonderful woman who graciously praised my own memoir Dancing at Ciros to the skies) said, aha! No wonder she never seemed to burn with passion in her movies or plays -- she was naturally a writer. and a GOOD one! I think she still would have been Carrie without Star Wars!

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  14. Carrie Fisher didn't finish high school, as you said, due to her mother taking her to New York to appear in a play. My question would be did she ever think about going back to obtain the equivalent? Was it a regret or a "weight" lifted that she didn't have to prove her knowledge by standardized testing and requirements? Your books sound interesting and you being here is well timed. I have discovered my niece is interested in reading women's biographies of the previous century. Your three books seem to hit the target dead center.. off to web sites to find a shop near her that will deliver and then ask my sister to hide them until December.

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    1. Thanks so much, Deana! And theres always Amazon! :)

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  15. What an amazing essay about an amazing person, Sheila. But while I could go on all day about how much I love Carrie Fisher, I'm curious about your shift in nonfiction/biographies. You started out as an acclaimed true-crime writer, but your more recent books have been what I'd describe as feminist biography. What led you in that direction?

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    1. Thank you Julia. I wouldnt really call what i did "true crime" -- it was more human stories,women;s stories...in those first cases, about women killed by their husbands, told from thie women;s and community's POV. The OJ and Nicole book was very human And they were all feminist -- because, in two of the three (and many of my articles) I wrote about how the system had to be changed to be fair and just to women. I continued to write about all kinds of injustice against women and women (and men) whove overcome. Girls Like Us was a story I always always wanted to tell -- the story of the women of my generation, older Boomers. It was through those three extraordinary women tht i knew I could tell that story. Then, with its success, everyone said: Do another three woman book so -- I did!

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  16. Carrie was such a witty, smart person. Having to deal with her parents’ issues on top of her own must have been crushing at times. How was her relationship with her brother?

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    1. Her brother came to truly save her as she sunk into deep problems with her bipolarity and addiction. It was a complex relationship all the way thru -- he was the "normal", sunny one; she was the complex wild thinker and wit. They were close as children -- two agai0st the world. It changed through the years. At the end, for the last few decades, he was a secret savior; in one case holding her hand all the way through an extreme recovery ordeal.

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  17. Carrie Fisher is one of the reasons I became a writer. Postcards from the Edge changed my world. I had such a hard time with her passing. I am definitely going to read your book, Sheila, but I may have to wait a bit so I’m not so gutted.

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  18. Carrie Fisher is one of the reasons I became a writer. Postcards from the Edge changed my world. I had such a hard time with her passing. I am definitely going to read your book, Sheila, but I may have to wait a bit so I’m not so gutted.

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  20. I worked with Debbie Reynolds on WINGS, who did indeed introduce herself as "I am Carrie Fisher's mother." And in the late 80s, when I was an entertainment journalist, I was supposed to interview Eddie Fisher. His publicist scheduled it five different times. Each time I waited for him at the designated location. And each time he didn't show up. I never wound up meeting him.

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