→ 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.
WITH MONEY NOW FROM
Star Wars, Carrie wanted
an outpost in her home-
town, 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 “sup-
posed 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.”
Eventually, she rented out the Laurel Canyon house
and bought a house on Oak Pass in Benedict Canyon.
There, for her editor guests, especially the female ones,
life at Carrie’s was like a sorority house on Friday
night, and it often included the new custom in Carrie’s
life, which would make her a social icon for thirty
years: her legendary joint October birthday parties
with Penny Marshall. A more exclusive, A-list-filled,
in-demand party in Hollywood—or anywhere—didn’t
exist than the Carrie-Penny parties. Nina Jacobson —
now one of Hollywood’s major producers—once said
to a journalist that when she and her girlfriend,
Jen, first started attending them, “we felt bad for not
being famous,” because the guests were, by Nina’s
estimation, “85 percent incredibly famous people.
We were wondering what we were doing there.”
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
↗ What a
swinger!
Carrie Fisher
at her Bel Air
home.
1987
EW ● COM OCTOBER 2019 23
(OPPOSITE PAGE) MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/IMAGES; (THIS PAGE) FISHER: PAUL HARRIS/GETTY IMAGES
