Entertainment Weekly
An exclusive look inside Carrie Fisher’s infamous, wild, celeb-filled house parties
By David Canfield
September 13, 2019

Speaking to some of those who knew Carrie Fisher best, author Sheila Weller crafted Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge (out Nov. 12), an anecdote-filled journey chronicling the actress and writer’s incredible life — including a fly-on-the-wall view of her wild celeb-filled house parties. Check out an exclusive excerpt below.

With money now from Star Wars, Carrie wanted an outpost in her hometown, so she bought a house next door to her friend Teri Garr’s log cabin in Laurel Canyon. It was a tiny house, and Carrie decorated it felicitously: she put a big statue of a foot on the front lawn and had cutouts of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the stairs. When she and Paul [Simon] were in L.A., she gave parties there, where a gourmet cook was on the premises, teaching everyone cuisine. The hired chef was “supposed to give us lessons,” Teri Garr recalled, “and we’d all watch him cook and try to learn how, but mostly we’d just drink a lot of wine.”

The guest list was such that celebrities got quietly excited over fellow celebrities. At one party, early on, a friend says, “When I saw Barbra Streisand walk in, I had to walk out and hyperventilate.” (In fact, it is said that Barbra wanted to hire Carrie’s housekeepers, Gloria and Mary, to serve the same southern fare at her parties, but Carrie wouldn’t let Barbra do so.)

Although these evening parties were for pleasure rather than networking, networking inevitably occurred. Albert Brooks says, “Because I met Meryl Streep at a party at Carrie’s house and I had just written Defending Your Life, I said to her, ‘You wouldn’t be interested in playing the lead in my movie, would you?’” She was and did.

Elizabeth Taylor and Carrie had long made peace (as had Debbie [Reynolds] and Elizabeth); Elizabeth was often an attendee.

Says Bruce Vilanch, “I remember at one party, where there was Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, and maybe Timothy Leary, and Carrie said, ‘Excuse me, I have to go and feed Elizabeth.’ Carrie would give her special treatment. She would trot over to fix Elizabeth a plate and clear a special area where she would dine. Carrie talked about it as if it were her duty.”

Another guest remembers this: During one party, “Elizabeth was talking with her hands, and she noticed everyone staring at her huge ring from Richard Burton, the one that went almost straight to her knuckle. So,” in a showy gesture to all the gawkers, “she popped her finger in her mouth and theatrically took the ring off with her teeth.” Another time, Carrie telephoned a friend in advance of the party and said, “You have to come! Elizabeth is coming in her wheelchair, and Eddie [Fisher] is coming in his wheelchair. And Debbie”— no wheelchair! sweet justice—” will be at the door greeting them!” When the guest arrived, the friend recalls, “that is exactly what happened. Debbie Reynolds—the queen of the world—still standing!”

EXCERPTED FROM CARRIE FISHER: A LIFE ON THE EDGE BY SHEILA WELLER. PUBLISHED BY SARAH CRICHTON BOOKS, AN IMPRINT OF FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, NOVEMBER 12, 2019. COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY SHEILA WELLER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

The post Bruce Vilanch & Others Talk of Carrie Fisher’s infamous, wild, celeb-filled house parties first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

While Carrie Fisher is best known for her work in front of the camera, she was also a celebrated writer of books and films. The late Star Wars actress and icon, who died at age 60 on Dec. 27 after a heart attack, was even responsible for writing a few key funny one-liners for Oscar hosts and accidentally covering them in glitter.

According to veteran comedian and comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who hired Fisher to be a part of his Oscar writing teams, she had several great ideas that were too good to air, like Princess Leia singing a Joni Mitchell song in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special and Whoopi Goldberg getting a massage onstage at the Academy Awards. Vilanch recently shared with PEOPLE three of his favorite memories from working with Fisher, here they are in his own words:

“In 1978, I was one of the writers of the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show that would give FDR a challenge on his ‘day of infamy’ remark. Carrie, Harrison [Ford], Mark [Hamill] and several of the more presentable robots were ordered to sing a song about Life Day, the holiday we were ostensibly celebrating in the galaxy far, far away. Nobody wanted to do this and Carrie thought she would save them all the trouble by doing, as a solo, Joni Mitchell’s Christmas ditty, ‘River,’ [with the lyric] ‘I wish I had a river I could skate away on.’ It was 1978 and there were a whole lot of chemical additives being consumed by many of us, so we thought it was a great idea. Princess Leia on skates, kind of like what Disney on Ice is probably doing right about now, since they own her ass. Everybody loved it except Joni Mitchell. Carrie quickly lost interest and we moved on to the next shiny object.

“Along those lines, about 20 years later, I brought Carrie onto the Oscar show writing team. Whoopi [Goldberg] was hosting and we were trying to figure out funny things for her to do. Enya had written a song that was nominated, and it was a typical Enya song, the kind that someone noted you only hear when you’re getting a massage. So we thought it would be funny if, after about 16 bars, a little curtain was raised on one side of the stage and there would be Whoopi, getting a massage. There were some very funny people on the staff that year, Carol Leifer (Seinfeld), Jonathan Tolins (Grease Live!), Jon Macks (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno), Dave Boone (The Tony Awards) — but it was Carrie who ran with the idea, turning it into a kind of Rockettes massage-table number, huge and elaborate. Everybody loved it except Enya. You never saw it.

“A few years later, Carrie was back on the team. On the night of the show, she arrived in a black tux pantsuit, her hair and shoulders festooned with gold glitter. I had assigned her to the green room, where people wait before they go on the air, because everybody knew her and she was a reassuring presence to a lot of actors who didn’t have a character to play that night. Of course, she hugged them all. After we’d been on the air about 20 minutes, the director called me, shrieking, ‘Tell her to stop hugging people! This looks like the god—- Tinker Bell special! Everybody’s covered in glitter!’ “

The post Bruce Vilanch On Carrie Fisher first appeared on We Got Bruce!.