My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie

By Todd Fisher.

At this point I"m waiting for Billie Lourd to write something because almost all the other Fisher/Reynolds family members (uh, other than Tricia Fisher, I think?) has written a book by now, right? Anyway, I finally got Todd's book while on sale, so here we got. It's a loving tribute to his lost family, which he said he'd been writing off and on for years but became more motivated about after his sister Carrie and mom Debbie died.  I'm very amused that he starts out the book with his mom's own words about how he was conceived--she wanted a brother for Carrie and pretty much figured on this one night in a villa after being entertained by the Todds, this might be her last shot to get Eddie to have sex with her, and sure 'nuff.... 

I gotta say: even though I love Carrie, Todd is the best writer in this family so far. Damn, he's got STORIES. 

Dear lord, I feel so sorry for Debbie Reynolds. Poor lady keeps plugging along, but all her exes are trash, and the last two are scammy ripoff cheating trash. She is like Ulysses S Grant when it comes to trusting people she shouldn't. Todd goes through his own shit here and there but it ain't nothing on his relatives. 

Memorable moments: 

• The kids realizing that the handwriting on the "Santa" and "Eddie" tags on the Christmas presents were the same as Mom's. "It was too horrible to contemplate that the three of them might be the same person. Eddie? Whatever. But Santa?" The Santa bit is the part that upsets the kids, so they confront Mom, and she immediately hires a friend of hers to play Santa. "We never questioned Santa Claus's exissence again until we finally got over him on our own."
• At a Thalians fundraiser, one of the officers actually literally dropped dead of a heart attack during the party and nobody noticed. Todd was pretty disturbed that nobody noticed and made a promise to stay vigilant in life. Given the health issues of his loved ones, this makes sense. 
• During a party, Todd once walked in on Bette Davis on his toilet. She proceeded to make small talk with him through the door and called him a doll when she was done. 
• At another party, Elizabeth Taylor (having long since made up with Debbie by then) got into a screaming bitch-slapping fight with Richard Burton and Debbie made them go upstairs, where they.... suddenly went into makeup sex and were fine twenty minutes later. Apparently they were much quieter in the moment. Todd mentions Elizabeth coming to a party of Carrie's in adulthood and how she went on to him about how Mike Todd was the love of her life. 
• On his first stepdad, Harry Karl: "Mr. Karl," he said, a little apprehensive, "uh, you know this, uh, driver's license expired twenty-six years ago." I swear I tried to stifle my laughter. Harry didn't so much as flinch. "Yeah," he replied, "I've been meaning to take care of that." Later they played in a father-son baseball game and Harry showed up in his fancy duds and they of course got messed up during the game. "At least he tried." 
• Todd had a pet alligator named Stanley as a kid, which he kept in his bathtub and took showers with. "My friends and I took him on regular swims to make sure he got plenty of exercise." Alas, after Carrie tried to hand-feed him (you're supposed to toss the food from a distance!), his mom had the security guard take away the alligator...which he apparently dropped off at the LA Country Club, where the alligator hung out, eating all the golf balls. Stanley eventually was moved to the zoo. 
• Sweet wittle Debbie punched three men in the face. 
• Todd wanted to make films as a kid, and after his mom bought up tons of MGM stuff, he could put on whole movies at his house. One time while they were filming a gunfight on the lawn, a tourist bus drove by, everyone was terrified, and then once they realized what was going on, broke out their cameras and applauded. The bus driver introduced them and they all took bows. After that, they started checking the tour bus schedules and putting on shows for them for the next month. 
• Todd started playing golf at age seven and was very good at it, so Harry would take him out golfing and make bets on his playing. After Todd sinks him a putt that made him $25k in bets, Harry takes him to the Army Surplus store and says he can get whatever he wants for the war movie Todd wants to film. ... "You bought him a tank? Who buys their child a tank?" his mother says later. "I honestly thought this might calm her down. "Mom, don't worry about that. It wasn't our money."  Naturally this leads into Mom saying no tank and then chewing Harry out for those gambling rumors she's been hearing about. Todd goes back to his room and prays to God to let him keep the tank--Mom walks in and is all "you're praying for a tank?" After Todd explains he needs it for his movie making and creativity, his mom gets it--and he's also allowed to have the camera he wants too, plus the tank. 
• At one point Eddie invites Todd and his best friend over and gifts them with (a) an exotic dancer doing her thing in front of a camera, and then (b) gives Todd the camera. Todd goes home to play with the camera and it turns out the tape in it has the same dancer in it, only naked. The boys have a very good time watching it until Eddie's driver comes over in a panic looking for it. The guys pretend they have no idea what's on it. 
• Todd later decides to use the camera to "solve the mystery of why Harry had started having so many more manicures since Mom and Carrie left town." "We couldn't figure out what she was doing, except that it had nothing to do with Harry's nails" and also, I guess, answered the question of why Harry perpetually wandered around with no pants. Todd later finds out for himself when a "manicurist" drops by when he's the only one home. Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. 
• Harry shows Todd all these tabloids saying that Debbie is leaving him. Todd is just all "asshole reports made up stories about it" and ignores the whole thing. 
• Todd later ends up with a teacup attack poodle that he names Killer. 
• Tony Curtis, the family's neighbor in New York, offered to be Todd's personal drug dealer. Consider it done! 
• Todd accidentally shot himself in the leg one night while not practicing proper gun safety even though he knew better. Somehow Debbie got arrested for it! Carrie told the media that "Todd wouldn't brush his teeth, so Mom shot him."  Seventeen years later Todd ends up in a cab with the same cabbie that took him to the hospital and the cabbie saved the tourniquet Debbie had made for the occasion.  He had it in the glove compartment. Todd signed it.
• The second time Debbie is mentioned as punching someone, Todd sees a very small check Debbie got saying what their cut of the programs sold this week was. Todd was keeping track and shows her the tallies he was keeping (she got a cut of 1,425 programs and Todd alone was selling more than that, and they were averaging 4k/week), and when she confronts Todd's boss and he says Todd is lying...BOOM. Suffice it to say that Todd gets his boss's job and Debbie is no longer stiffed. 
• Todd was unfazed at the time Debbie was twirling around without panties on at Carrie's 17th birthday party. Carrie NEVER FORGOT. 
• For his first car, Todd wanted an RV, pointing out that under the financially screwed circumstances, at least he'd have a place to sleep and keep his camera equipment. He drove it to school and took his post-gym showers in it.  He still has it. Carrie crashed into a parked car a week after getting her license and Todd always insisted on driving. 
• Bianca Jagger decided to show off for the paparazzi by making out with Todd and then inviting him and the rest of the family party to Mick's birthday party. Mick warned Debbie to keep the kids to the ground floor. 
• Todd's first official girlfriend was 27 and he was 16. "In England at that time age was a nonissue," and both his mother and her parents were fine with it. Daaaaaaaaaaamn. The grandparents, on the other hand...
• "There's nothing quite like sitting beside your new girlfriend at a large family gathering and having your grandmother pointedly announce, as her contribution to a lighthearted, facetious conversation, that "Todd likes hookers." Grandpaw got a kick out of the whole thing." 
• Debbie allowed Carrie to make the movie Shampoo as long as Warren Beatty promised to leave Carrie alone sexually. And said she would take a hit out on him if he did. "He believed her." 
• Todd was young and oblivious about a lot of things in this. I am amused at this quote: "Through all the drama between my mother and my sister, my loyalty never wavered--I chose me." 
• Todd and his older girlfriend essentially broke up because she hated going on an RV trip. "I ultimately came to believe that all relationships can be forecast in a motorhome in a matter of days--either they'll go down in flames or they have potential." 
• "It occurs to me that it was the beginning of my tendency to compare the significant women in my life to my mother." I'll bet. 
• "Miguel and I loved playing golf, and we were both, let's say, open-minded when it came to having a good time. Oh, why sugarcoat it? We were wild as deer." 
• "Neither I nor anyone who saw it happen will ever forget the sight of that full-size, feather-covered coffin exploding all over Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood." 
• After Todd gets himself a second, much speedier vehicle: "After six speeding tickets in six months, a judge told me he'd dismiss the charges against me if I sold that car, and I took him up on it." 
• Todd on not seeing the signs that his family did about his first wife: "I was in what I was young, crass, and indelicate enough to call a "pussy trance," where all logic flies out the window, your IQ drops to double digits, and you don't have the sense God gave a gnat." 
• Todd's responses to seeing Star Wars: "This is no B movie," and "First thing in the morning I'm buying stock in 20th Century Fox." 
• Todd becomes a born-again Christian and the TV evangelists the Crouches have him on their show and ask him why people his age aren't interested. Todd is all, "Are you sure you want an honest answer to that on live TV?" They do, so he gives it, pointing out their 1950's wardrobes and "the set looks like the lobby of a Ramada Inn," and generally they make Christianity sound dull and like all they want is money. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH. So they give him a contract to create a special for a younger audience. He basically wrote a sketch show satirizing traditional televangelist shows. DAMN. He does five specials with his celebrity friends and family, but when he figures out that he's only getting a fraction of the money raised to make more episodes, "the Crouches and I parted ways." 
• Todd and his new assistant pastor friend decide to start their own church(!) featuring the opposite of what they found off-putting about religion, called "The Hiding Place." He ends up quitting the church later when it turns into yet another "always asking people for money" organization.  Todd does not approve of screwing over people for money. 
• About his second major relationship: "I embraced the role of stepfather to her children, although in spite of my upbringing, I skipped the usual stepfather traditions of manicurists, J&B and soda, and gambling us into a financial abyss." 
• Todd originally got a publishing deal, but Carrie lost her shit about it because he was going into her territory and Debbie didn't think it was worth upsetting Carrie over, so Todd canceled the deal. (Over their dead bodies later, I guess. Sigh.) 
• "And that, boys and girls, is the story of why Debbie Reynolds, after her third divorce, looked back on Eddie Fisher as the best of her three husbands." 
• So Debbie's third shithead husband caused all sorts of crap when they were staring the Debbie Reynolds Hotel. Todd, with no experience, becomes CEO because at least he won't try to rip her off, and then finds out that apparently freaking everybody working there is stealing shit. "When the dust settled and my first couple of months as CEO had passed, I'd fired about two hundred employees." 
• "Richard Hamlett blamed me for the destruction of his marriage to my mother. I'd love to take a deep, proud bow for that, but I can't help but wonder--isn't Richard's position a little like blaming a speeding ticket on a cop who busted you?" 
• Roger Mayer, treasurer of the Academy, said "We don't see the relevance of costumes to a Hollywood museum." WTF?
• Oh, page 298 of my Kindle read: "The more we talked, the more we kept coming back to the fact that it seemed almost absurd to keep putting her in rehabs. There was nothing they could tell her that she hadn't already heard a million times, and no treatment plan they could come up with that she hadn't already tried. She was such an expert at rehab by then that she could have opened one of her own and taught there, but it still wouldn't have changed the bottom line. She was never going to stop, not completely. She was going to keep right on self-medicating and trying to stabilize herself, she'd just do it quietly and privately and do her damndest to say "sober enough" that not even the supportive friends at her AA meetings would notice she was still using--in small quantities, but using is using. Mom and I had a long, painful talk that night about that bottom line. It was hard for both of us to resolve the distinction between giving up on rehab and giving up on Carrie. Of course, neither of us would ever give up on Carrie, not in this lifetime, not on this planet. But there was no answer to the question "How many rehabs can she go to?" There was no argument against doing the timeworn definition of insanity--doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Finally, sadly, Mom resigned herself to the same conclusion I'd come to with Carrie that afternoon and agreed that whatever ride Carrie signed up for, we'd be there to take it with her, but it was time to just let her be." That explains a lot.
• After decades of drama about Debbie trying to start a Hollywood museum and it failing every single time to the point where she was forced to auction off the collection: "I lost count of the number of times Mom was asked some version of "Why didn't you have someone in Hollywood create a museum for your collection?" I know, there was no way for them to know what we'd been through for all these years, but honestly, it was all Mom and I could do not to shoot back with a sarcastic "Gee, why didn't we think of that?" 
• Todd's current wife Cat has an "emotional therapy chicken" named Nugget that they brought along in the RV on a trip. 
• After Debbie has had a ton of strokes and doesn't know who she is that day, Cat says, "Boy, do I have good news for you!" and tells her that she's Debbie Reynolds and loved all over the world, etc., and then they throw a Debbie Reynolds film festival for her until she remember who she was. 
• Carrie and Cat did not get on, and when Debbie was living with Carrie, Cat would only visit when Carrie wasn't in. When Debbie noticed this, Cat explained that she didn't feel comfortable visiting when Carrie was in, but it wasn't her problem and she'd talk to Carrie about it one of these days. Debbie told her not to, so Cat didn't. But apparently Debbie did because Carrie--a notoriously good gift giver--sent Cat a huge glass rooster in honor of Nugget, and then they had some apology e-mails going on. Carrie continued to get her rooster gifts. 
• Debbie had psychic dreams and apparently had some bad one about Carrie's last trip to London and tried to talk her out of going to Belgium afterwards, that her plane would go down on the way to LA...yikes. 
• Debbie insisted that they have Christmas dinner as usual while Carrie was in the hospital, even wearing moose antlers at the table.
• Debbie's brother Bill nearly died on New Year's after Debbie and Carrie died and as I read that I was all NOT ANOTHER ONE...so far he's okay though. 

Anyway. I downloaded this hours ago and devoured it and drained the battery on my phone so I had to wait to finish reading it again. I was riveted. It was amazeballs. It makes me sad they're gone and happy that they happened. I'm not having the world's most emotionally awesome New Year's Day here, but reading this (while making Star Wars crochet characters--finishing Princess Leia's at the end) really cheered it up. Four and a half stars.