While some A-list celebrities have an air of glamour that makes them feel distant and untouchable, Carrie Fisher seemed like someone you could spend hours chatting to over brunch. And then you could head out with her for a shopping marathon.
That familiarity could seem so natural because Fisher was many people’s very first heroine. Indeed, her role as bold, brave, and beautiful Princess Leia in Star Wars is legendary.
Additionally, unlike many stars, Fisher shunned the well-worn media-savvy scripts celebrities in the spotlight usually stick to. Instead, she spoke her mind in interviews, on her emoji-heavy Twitter account, and in her three memoirs.
The actress accepted that she would forever be linked to Leia with her famous brand of dark humor. But Fisher deserves to be remembered for so much more than just her acting roles (and that gold bikini.) She wrote novels and worked as a script doctor. She even shaped up movies like Hook, Sister Act, and Coyote Ugly.
Fisher’s real life was just as fascinating as the stories she brought to the page and screen.
As children of two of the most famous actors in classic Hollywood – Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher – Carrie and her younger brother Todd grew up with megastars like Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Those celebs dropped by the house for their mother’s famous parties. Carrie also liked to party – sometimes too much – and she would be the first to tell you. She did everything big, loud, and fun, even when it came to food and dieting.
Here’s what she liked to eat and the foods she liked to share.
1. Groceries On-Demand
As the children of Hollywood royalty, Todd and Carrie Fisher grew up in exactly the kind of LA luxury you’d imagine. Their parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, divorced after Eddie had an affair with his deceased best friend’s widow, Elizabeth Taylor.
Yes, that Elizabeth Taylor.
Reynolds and Taylor made up later, after Taylor divorced Fisher to marry Richard Burton. But it was the scandal at the time.
Reynolds took custody of Carrie and Todd.
And while they had multiple houses and condos, including ones in Malibu, Spain, and Colorado, their main home was located at 813 Greenway Drive in Beverly Hills, CA.
In his memoir My Girls, about life with his super famous mother and sister, Todd reminisced.
He recalled that the kitchen had eight commercial-sized fridges and a freezer full of food intended for his mom’s big parties.
Every day, trucks delivered more party food and adult beverages.
But they also received bread, cereal, and other staples you’d expect to find in a regular family home. Todd admitted that he didn’t even go to a grocery store until he was a teenager!
2. Tea And Pastries
In 1974, Fisher left sunny LA for grey London after landing a spot at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama. Eventually, people began to recognize her for two things. She was the “American Girl.”
And she threw wild parties.
And at least one of those events ended when the police were called because a grand piano went flying through a window. One of the places Fisher and her friends used to frequent was a cafe called The Cosmo.
It was on the Finchley Road in North London.
And Fisher’s former classmate, Selina Cadell, recalled that the establishment served cakes, including intricate millefeuilles. She also noted that Fisher was always a lot of fun at the cafe.
She wasn’t the first famous visitor, though.
In fact, The Cosmo opened in the 1930s and became a haven for Jews who escaped intensifying persecution in areas of Eastern Europe, Austria, and Germany. Even psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud visited.
3. Coca-Cola
During a video filmed at a meet-and-greet, Fisher dryly mentioned that when she filmed Star Wars, her favorite food was “probably Coca-Cola.” In fact, the actress noted in her book, The Princess Diarist, that after she got the role of Leia, producers told her to lose weight despite the fact she was already very slim for her height.
And that wasn’t the only time she faced weight critiques.
Apparently, Fisher was encouraged to diet again for Return of the Jedi so she could appear in that infamous gold bikini. However, the actress told NPR host Terry Gross that she exercised but didn’t starve herself.
More recently, Fisher said producers instructed her to diet for 2015’s The Force Awakens.
The studio even sent a personal trainer to the star’s home to remove “unhealthy” food. The individual was also hired to encourage/force Fisher to work out. The Princess Leia actress wasn’t everyone’s favorite Rebel for nothing, though.
How did she respond to being micromanaged?
Fisher refused to do lunges and smuggled cans of Coca-Cola. In December 2016, on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Fisher revealed that she drank 16 sodas a day. She didn’t finish all of them, however, because she preferred them icy cool.
4. Brussels Sprouts
Food features prominently in many proposal stories during the candlelit dinner, the champagne toast, or the dessert that hides a ring. However, Fisher’s proposal story included a predictably unpredictable food twist.
What happened?
Fisher met comedian Dan Aykroyd backstage when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978. And the two reunited two years later for The Blues Brothers film. And even though the actress mainly dated Paul Simon (from Simon and Garfunkel) in the 1980s, she did manage to have a brief romance with Aykroyd during the decade. In fact, she even got engaged in a less-than-conventional proposal.
Fisher told the Chicago Tribune that she started choking on a brussels sprout at dinner.
Aykroyd saved her with the Heimlich maneuver, and then he allegedly proposed. About the event, Fisher claimed, “I thought, ‘I better marry him. What if [I choke] again?'” Whether or not that’s entirely true – Aykroyd didn’t mention the proposal – the couple was serious enough to move in together, buy rings, and talk about having children.
However, Fisher ultimately reunited with Simon and married him in 1983. Then they divorced barely a year later and started dating again. She and Aykroyd remained close, though. And her former fiancé even delivered a speech at her memorial service.
5. Southern Staples
One of the most important relationships in Fisher’s life was her BBF-ship with Penny Marshall, the woman who portrayed Laverne DeFazio in Laverne and Shirley and directed A League of Their Own and Big. SNL creator Lorne Michaels introduced the women, and they instantly became fast friends.
They even shared huge birthday bashes each year.
Similar to how Debbie Reynolds filled her Beverly Hills house with stars, Fisher and Marshall’s annual October birthday bash became the A-list event. No invitations were ever sent out, though. In Marshall’s memoir, she said they simply called their guests on the phone with the date and place.
And the guestlists were stacked.
People like Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, and Robin Williams showed up. Even younger stars like Nicole Kidman and Ben Affleck attended. These parties were so cool David Bowie and Iman had to crash them.
According to Marshall, people really came for the food.
Fisher didn’t cook, but housekeepers Gloria and Mary really went to work on the menu. They provided Southern dishes like meatloaf, fried chicken, and mac ‘n’ cheese. When Barbra Streisand tried to hire the two cooks for one of her own bashes, Fisher pulled rank and refused!
6. Risotto
Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds vehemently disagreed about cooking. In her memoir Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote that she learned to cook to give her daughter, Billie Lourd, the normality she never had. According to Fisher, though, that made Reynolds “[flip] out.”
She went on to mention:
So, one night, I’m at her house… and I say, “I’m going back up to my house to make Billie dinner.” And [my mom] grabs my arm and says “Nooo! Why are you doing this?! Please let me send Mary to make her chicken crepes.”
Despite her mother’s resistance, Fisher seemed to get pretty good at cooking. She preferred dishes like risotto that were complicated even without any added sides.
Lourd agreed.
She described her mom as an “incredible cook” who made “the best soufflé, amazing beef stew and these delicious things called popovers.” Reynolds eventually came round too, although maybe not for homemade dinner.
7. Banana Pudding
Fisher and Reynolds had a turbulent relationship in Fisher’s teen years, even before Fisher decided to learn to cook. But the Star Wars actress and her own daughter, Billie Lourd found more in common.
As of 2015, that included Star Wars.
Lourd joined the Rebel Alliance with a small role in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. She even wore a mini version of Fisher’s famous cinnamon-bun look from A New Hope.
That connection continued off-screen, too.
In the summer of 2018, US Weekly posted a photo of the pair enjoying banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery, the same chain made famous in Sex and the City. Moreover, Fisher wrote in her memoir, Shockaholic, that she couldn’t resist “cupcakes and ice cream and pies.” And in an interview with The New Potato, Lourd said that she stocks up on ice cream sandwiches and regular ol’ ice cream, too.
The sweet tooth is strong in this family.
Additionally, Lourd looks set to continue in the family tradition of throwing excellent parties. When asked what she’d serve at a dinner party, the young actress said she’d have “fried chicken, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and cornbread because comfort food brings any group of people together”. We’ll keep waiting for our invite.
8. Chocolate Boobs
Yes, you read that right. Technically Fisher didn’t eat these herself. Well, we assume she didn’t. She gave them to author Salman Rushdie at the last dinner she hosted. British actress and writer Sharon Horgan, who you may know from her dark comedy Catastrophe, was also in attendance.
The pair became friends while Fisher worked on the third season of the series.
Horgan said that even though Fisher didn’t always feel up to socializing with new people while they were shooting in London, she made the effort to visit Horgan’s one night. And they talked about her amazing life. Horgan returned the visit the night after they’d wrapped shooting the show.
That time, they ate dinner with Rushdie.
Fisher gave Horgan an antique cocktail stick holder. But she suddenly passed the next day, on a flight home to Los Angeles, CA. Horgan later paid homage to the woman in The Guardian.
She wrote:
I want everyone to remember her and all the great things she was. A wonderful writer, a fine actress, a great mother, a caring daughter, a loyal friend, a wit, a prolific present-giver, a lunatic, a legend.
9. Candy
Another time, Fisher came through with chocolate for a friend when she helped her Star Wars co-star John Boyega cheat on his diet. The British actor, who plays stormtrooper-turned-Rebel Finn, hit the gym hard for The Last Jedi.
He even hired the person who trained Michael B. Jordan for Creed.
As any athlete – and actor – knows, getting jacked is as much about what you eat as your workouts. Accordingly, Boyega ate a lot of veggies and not much candy. However, like the rest of us, his willpower only went so far.
And he knew who to go to when it was time for a little break.
“I went to Carrie’s trailer… I said, ‘I’m really hungry and I’m sick of eating chicken breasts and salad.’ And she goes, ‘Oh! Go to my fridge and get something,’” Boyega remembered.
He said that he found a treasure trove of treats.
“There was like Twix bars and junk food galore… Carrie was like, ‘I was waiting for you to fail!'” Boyega felt that this symbolized her commitment to doing things her way and noted: “What that symbolizes is her freedom within herself and the freedom of being who she wanted to be. I respect that.”
10. Ice Cream Cake
Fisher wasn’t only generous with her human friends. She also made sure her beloved French bulldog, Gary, got a taste of the high life. According to a Scottish newspaper article published in 2015, Fisher and Gary took a trip on a luxury train – the Royal Scotsman.
And the journey involved a feast fit for a pampered pooch.
While the meal options for the human travelers included gluten-free vegetarian meals, Gary received hamburgers, bacon, and vanilla ice cream. Fisher even gave him most of the ice cream birthday cake the staff surprised her with.
She only took a slice for herself.
Unfortunately, this had unintended consequences for other travelers in the actress’s group. Apparently, during a tour of Ballindalloch Castle, Gary emitted “enough gas… to power Scotland.” Back to kibble for you, Gary!
Lifestyle
We’ve covered the food. But what else did Carrie Fisher get up to when she wasn’t trying to stop the Dark Side, writing hilarious books, or making scripts better?
1. Gary
You’ve already met Gary, Fisher’s hamburger-loving flatulent French bulldog. But here’s where you fall in love with him. One of his most famous traits is his tongue. It’s quite long and doesn’t entirely fit in his mouth. In fact, his tongue made an unexpected appearance during an interview Fisher did with NPR host Terry Gross.
The sloppy licks he doled out made it into the soundbites and background noises.
Fisher told Gross she found Gary at “a very tragic pet store” in New York, adding, “everything is sort of wrong with him.” Apparently, he was actually supposed to be Lourd’s pet. He ended up with Fisher, though. And the two bonded intensely.
She only intended for him to be a pet.
But Gary became more like a therapy dog or emotional support animal. Reportedly, Gary’s presence helped Fisher manage bipolar disorder, which she was diagnosed with at 29. “Gary is like my heart. Gary is very devoted to me and that calms me down,” she told the Herald Tribune.
Gary has become an internet celebrity in his own right, with nearly 55K followers on Twitter and 180K on Instagram
@rianjohnson we @FanthaTracks want to know if you can confirm this cute little creature is #spacegary in #TheLastJedi pic.twitter.com/0if7XRiqog
— Clair Henry (@irishgeekgirl) December 6, 2017
He even has a cameo in The Last Jedi. After Fisher’s passing on December 27, 2016, Gary went to live with Fisher’s former assistant, Corby McCoin. And in January of 2019, McCoin and Gary announced that they would be moving to the beaches of Florida. McCoin also shared that Gary still gets excited when he watches Fisher in Star Wars.
2. Partying
As with almost everything else in her life, Fisher was open about the partying she got up to and the drawbacks she experienced as a result. While filming The Empire Strikes Back, Fisher mentioned she and co-star Harrison Ford went to a party with the Rolling Stones before an early call.
And they were still under the influence during filming the next day.
The actress also mentioned that she indulged in other substances “a couple of times” during the location shoot. Fisher’s not the only one who shared details about her younger years and partying. BFF Penny Marshall wrote about the pair’s adventures.
And they had many.
Purportedly, they went on a skiing vacation in Switzerland with hallucinogens. There may have been a substance trip during the filming of Blues Brothers in Chicago. And once, in New York, Fisher accidentally set her coat on fire and inspired a hunt for marzipan.
Marshall and Fisher insisted that it was great fun at the time.
However, Fisher was honest about how she ultimately received treatment for addiction. In her memoir Wishful Drinking, she shared that she attended 12-step programs and found a psychiatrist who helped her treat the bipolar and manic depression that was hidden (and possibly exacerbated) by addiction.
Her untimely demise shed light on this as well.
When a coroner determined that Fisher used multiple substances, Billie Lourd made a statement. She noted, “My mom battled drug addiction and mental illness her entire life. She ultimately died of it. She was purposefully open in all of her work about the social stigmas surrounding these diseases.” No one’s perfect, but Fisher was always honest.
3. Shopping
By her own and many other people’s admissions, Fisher loved to shop a lot. In Shockaholic, she wrote that she shared this trait with her father, Eddie Fisher. The two had a difficult relationship that only shifted in his last years.
She wrote:
Eddie and I forged a relationship from common characteristics that most people don’t actually covet… a perhaps unhealthy fondness for shopping (continuing to make purchases long past the point that we could afford to).
When asked about how she’d spend her favorite Saturday, Fisher said she’d go shopping with Lourd.
As she hinted, Fisher’s love of shopping wasn’t always entirely healthy. In his memoir, her brother Todd wrote, “Carrie was always the first to admit that she was a compulsive shopper and never let a little thing like not being able to afford something keep her from buying it.”
And unfortunately, the urge to spend even when you can’t afford to can be a symptom of a manic episode.
Todd added that oftentimes Fisher didn’t even buy things for herself. She loved to give gifts to other people. “She had the most uncanny knack of noticing what someone liked… and buying it for them if she ran across it, no matter where in the world she was or how many years had passed since she last saw that person,” he wrote.
4. Jenny Craig
Fisher was not one to mindlessly comply with Hollywood’s expectation that she stay very thin her whole life, hence the Coca-Cola rebellion. In fact, during an interview with Good Housekeeping magazine, she explained that she wanted to resist fitting into the mold.
The actress shared:
When I do lose the weight, I don’t like that it makes me feel good about myself. It’s not who I am.
However, in 2010, Fisher decided to adjust her eating habits. And as luck would have it, meal plan company Jenny Craig approached her with the offer to become their spokeswoman.
Fisher credited the program with holding her accountable and helping her reach a goal weight.
Her favorite foods were the Jenny Craig popcorn and cookies. The money didn’t hurt either. In Shockaholic, she noted:
In any event, this is a f*ckin’ awesome confluence of debt reduction and cutting my swollen self down to social life size. Craig is great, Craig is good. Thank you for this portion-appropriate food. A-men!
5. Exercise
She also exercised to get healthy. And although Fisher found this easier than staying away from the foods she craved, working out wasn’t her favorite thing in the world. In an interview about her perfect Saturday, she at first said she wouldn’t exercise at all.
She added on to that comment, though.
Fisher later said that a perfect day involves feeling like you challenged yourself and accomplished something. In fact, she claimed, “For me, that means doing the elliptical or getting writing done.” She had a typically Fisher way of getting through the exercise.
The star read while doing it.
“I’ll just get on the elliptical machine first thing in the morning and get it over with,” she told People. “I’m up to about an hour now. If I read books, I don’t look as much at the time.”
And that’s certainly not the worst advice.
Should you find yourself heading for the elliptical, take Carrie Fisher with you. Her three memoirs have many more stories to remind you why she’ll always be our perfectly imperfect princess.
And we’re not mad at the Carrie Fisher diet either.
Her lifestyle makes her more relatable than even we realized.
