When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.
With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars.
Non-Fiction Book Reviews Blog: The Princess Diarist
Once upon a time, I don’t think a long, long time ago – not from when I am writing this, at least, our beloved late Princess Leia or, as she was usually known by her alias, Carrie Fisher (or is it the other way around) found, or rediscovered, journals she kept during the making of Star Wars. In said journals are poems and, as one would imagine, personal diatribes and musings of a teenage girl of which Fisher was at the time during the production of my beloved, Star Wars. This book, along with her other works of non-fiction (Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic) were on my books to be read list. Since the order of sequence does not matter, at least I don’t think they do, I opted to start with The Princess Diarist. The idea was to read them long before there were any indications or, obviously, with any foresight of her passing two days after Christmas on December 27, 2016. Even thinking about it now brings a shudder to my heart.
My first impression of the book was that it would feature amusing, fun, and enticing anecdotes of what transpired behind the scenes amongst the cast and crew of the beginnings of the now super popular space saga. And yes, there was some of that from Fisher talking about her rehearsal interview with both directors George Lucas and Brian DePalma who was, at the time, looking for his ‘Carrie’ which eventually went to Sissy Spacek. There was talk of Leia’s infamous hair buns and how difficult and frustrating they were to produce and keep maintained. Talk of how scripted scenes with Princess Leia and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) had to be cut from the script because of the difficulty in the action that was called for in said scene due to his (Mayhew) having Marfan Syndrome which is a connective tissue disorder that made the actor so tall, making it difficult for him to accomplish certain maneuvers.
But, there was another side to the shenanigans, a “dark side”, so to speak. That is how I read it at least. Fisher speaks about a “surprise” birthday party for director, George Lucas in which a 19-year-old Carrie is introduced to alcohol. She says so herself when she says, “…no, really, I can’t drink. I’ve tried, I really have given it my best shot. But really, I’m allergic to booze. It makes me stupid, sick, and unconscious really fast. So I’ve never really been drunk – just senseless and inert.” This is a disaster in the making, I thought. She went on to say that two of the crewmembers took note of their “princess, without her buns” and proceeded to get her to drink with the intentional purpose of getting her drunk. I raised an eyebrow as this did not look (sound) good. She was surrounded by denim and plaid-wearing men, no doubt drunk, all pushing for her to continue drinking. Fisher describes this as playful banter as if what happened once upon a time is something she can reflect on and laugh about. I didn’t see it this way. I began to, for lack of a better word, worry because I did not like where this seemed to be going. Needless to say, my nerves were eased and it didn’t go there. Still, what followed was still, rather disturbing and it brought new light on how I viewed one of my “heroes”.
Fisher divulges, at length, an affair she had with a married man and how her feelings for said man grew all the while she was shut out, emotionally. I truly was reading the diary entries of a broken-hearted teenager who was on the cusp of collapse, yearning for an unwarranted and “forbidden” love. Frankly, it truly was heartbreaking and my heart poured out for Carrie. It was hard to decipher if she was being strong for the sake of being strong for herself but, reading between the lines, she did not seem to completely be over an affair that seemed to have such a profound impact on her being. Why do I say that? Well, the fact that The Princess Diarist was published in the first place may have something to do with that. There was a rather large portion of the book dedicated to the affair including Fisher’s thoughts on the subject as she wrote the book as well as excerpts from her diary whose words can be construed as excruciating, emotional, and even pathetic to some. This is not the Leia I “knew”. The tough, kick-ass first, take names later space princess that I grew to love. No, it wasn’t because these were the words of a true human being, the late Carrie Fisher. This is who she was, beyond the hair buns and the gold-clad slave bikini that pleased the eyes of Jabba the Hutt and millions of teenaged boys, and middle-aged men alike.
After her reflections on the affair, Fisher then went on to talk about Star Wars conventions and the “art” of the autograph. For me, it was a welcomed departure from that “dark side” as I was able to reconvene with the lighter side of Princess Leia, a side I was accustomed to. The Princess Diarist was a pleasant read, albeit the drama that plagued Fisher. Again, I did not know what to expect from the book so I was taken aback by some of the content but, again, being a fan of Star Wars and Carrie Fisher, my first crush, I read on with anticipation, and by its conclusion I was left with mixed emotions. The book read like a long, intimate chapter of Fisher’s life equipped with a beginning, middle, and an end with no conclusion on her life as the princess that, for whatever reasons, she wanted to share with the public. It is an open book that allowed fans and admirers of Carrie Fisher to get a glimpse of what many would consider being personal and secret, despite her public reputation and for her usual honesty, engaging writing, and courage, I appreciated The Princess Diarist.