Book #194: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

 

[Book Title]

[Author]

 Released: November 22nd, 2016

My 60th book for 2026 was Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist.  

60 books for the year.  This matches my goal for 2025.  10 more, and I'll not only have a new record, but a new goal achieved (even if the last few were relatively smaller scale children's books).

I found this book about a decade ago inside 2nd & Charles in Hagerstown, MD.  I've been meaning to read it for a long time now.  I got it for Christmas a few years back, and carried it through several moves before digging it out and getting the opportunity to read it now.

The book covers Carrie Fisher's life from growing up in Hollywood to her time filming the original Star Wars movie, which blew up into a massive overnight success.  The highlight of the book details Fisher's "Carrison" affair, where she and Harrison Ford had an affair during the filming.  The book ends on her feelings of running out of money, doing comic cons, and her excitement for the new Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes 7-9).

I never realized how late this book was published.  I remember seeing The Force Awakens when I first moved to Vancouver back in 2015.  I followed the news about a year later when Carrie passed away unexpectedly after suffering a medical emergency aboard a flight from London to Los Angeles.  Her mother passed away the very next day.  I never realized until I read this book that she died just over a month after this book was published.

The biggest detail to emerge in this book is her affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of the original Star Wars movie.  You can tell that despite assurances that she is over him, she still held strong feelings for the man who played the galaxy's most famous renegade smuggler.  She admits that she had not shed light on it for nearly 40 years, but felt the need to talk about it.  Thankfully she did, because she never got another chance.

We see a little bit about her early life with her parents coming up in the entertainment business.  She struggled with drugs and dealing with fame and success like some other celebs do.  She never expected Star Wars to take off the way it did, and it left her in a bit of shock dealing with people who admired her, and even a few who admitted to her being their "first love".  The Force was evidently too strong with them.

She also talks about her experiences doing Comic Cons, and considers it to be a "celebrity lap dance".  You pay large sums of money to "feel" connected to an actor or actress.  Pictures, autographs, fan theories, sob stories about family members who wanted to meet someone famous, and other random bits.  She cherishes her fans, but also feels there is more to be excited about in life than her in a skimpy outfit 40 years ago.

It read really well, and her journals feel normal and natural.  By that I mean that journals are a collection of thoughts that amass within someone's head.  It reveals their inner most thinkings, sometimes do not make sense, but try to convey a feeling or frustration.  In this case, it primarily involves her thoughts as she went through her affair with Ford.

Here is what I learned:

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• For George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Irvin Kershner, J.J. Abrams, Rian Johnson.
• Charlie’s Angels, Laverne & Shirley, and Family Feud premiered in 1976.
• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple in a garage.
• Red Dye No 2 causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.
• Howard Hughes died in a private jet on his way to the hospital with kidney failure.
• U2 formed in 1976.
• Carrie Fisher liked that she played Princess Leia.
• “I don’t think you could think of Leia without my lurking in that thought somewhere.  And I’m not talking about masturbation.”
• The book encompasses her diaries during the filming of Star Wars.
• 2 years before Star Wars, she was in a film called Shampoo.
• Debbie Reynolds is her mother.
• Reynolds’ final MGM Studios film was What’s The Matter With Helen?
• Reynolds worked at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.
• Carrie’s first major gig was in Vegas nightclubs singing.
• Her father Eddie Fisher had a sex and drug addiction.
• He shit Speed for 13 years which derailed his career.
• Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor.
• Maxine Reynolds was her grandmother.
• Maxine was upset Debbie could not get her tickets to see Annie.
• Carrie feels the new numbering for Star Wars is confusing.
• Her mother was not the best role model despite her intentions.
• Debbie offered to watch her daughter have sex with a costar.
• “If you want to have sex with Albert, I’ll watch if you like so I can give instructions.”
• Carrie went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in England.
• George Lucas held Star Wars auditions in an office on a lot in Hollywood.
• She met Lucas and Brian De Palma.
• She auditions for both Princess Leia in Star Wars and the title role in Carrie at the same time.
• “Making it” means to sleep with someone.
• Peter Mayhew had a condition that left him unable to stand up quickly and remain stable.
• She test read with Harrison Ford in the same building she met Lucas and De Palma.
• It was raining in L.A. the day she was cast as Princess Leia.
• Carrie stayed in her friend Rigg’s flat in Kensington for the 3-month shoot for Star Wars.
• The studio was in Borehamwood.
• Borehamwood is 45 minutes outside London.
• She had to lose 10 pounds for the role of Leia.
• She went to a fat farm called the Green Door in Texas.
• She saw the porn film “Behind the Green Door” when she was 15.
• She had never heard the term “blow job” prior to seeing that film.
• She jokingly called her bun hairstyle the “Buns of Navarone”.
• Her favorite moment as an actress was killing Jabba the Hutt.
• She had a dog named Gary who had a wet tongue.
• Carrie’s upset voice is vaguely British.
• Her not-upset voice is less British.
• She had an affair with Harrison Ford while filming Star Wars.
• She refers to it as “Carrison”.
• She sought out an affair intentionally.
• Ford was 14 years older and married.
• Simon Templeman was her first boyfriend.
• They were together a year before they were intimate.
• Her first stepfather Harry Karl would sleep in the nude, causing her to see him when he would get up to pee at night.
• She always wanted to be popular.
• She dropped out of high school to be a chorus singer in her mother’s Broadway show.
• She was a voracious reader.
• She enjoys Coke with ice.
• England doesn’t serve ice with Coke.
• She enjoyed drinking amoretto which she describes as like “awful cough syrup”.
• Harrison got into a fight with the crew to stop them from taking advantage of her while inebriated.
• Mark Hamill stayed in Chelsea during filming.
• Harrison smoked Camels.
• Carrie only smoked weed during the original Star Wars shoot.
• “Heaven’s no place for one who thrives on hell.”
• George once told her that, “If you look at the person someone chooses to ‘have a relationship’ with, you’ll see what they think of themselves.”
• She journals that she wonders if she should have gotten involved with Mark Hamill instead.
• “I am the Mad Magazine version of Psychology Today.”
• Ray Conniff once jammed with Led Zeppelin at the Troubadour.
• There is a theory that “people look for gold in a place where they are shit and shit in the places where we’re gold.”
• Harrison’s marriage ended soon after Star Wars.
• Harrison majored in Philosophy in college.
• Harrison once hung upside down on the Ferris Wheel in Seattle.
• “Chuffed” is the British word for “excited”.
• She considers signing autographs for money as a “celebrity lap dance”.

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Overall, very good read.  It offers great insight into her time filming the movie that made her a household name.  She writes well, and is a compelling author.

Highly Recommended.

On to Book #195: Somewhere Between Screens by Janna Kocha.

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Need to catch up?  See previous blog post: Super Why: Super Friends To The Rescue.