I wish I could have done this.
"And what a house it is. Huge neon arrows and signs hang from trees in the driveway. It wasn’t Christmas, but a fully lit tree was the centrepiece of her living room (it was there year-round). A giant moose head with a fez hung above the fireplace; snow globes depicting macabre murder scenes decorated the shelves and, outside in the garden, next to a life-size Leia stepping out of a British telephone box, was the back end of a lion attached to the wall, its raised tail revealing giant cat balls.
Debbie Reynolds, whose house is on the same grounds: a big “Debbie” made of light-bulbs pointed the way to her property in their shared driveway.
I had been expecting maybe an hour of her time, but somehow we ended up spending the entire day together: I was pressed to drink bottles of wine she had picked for their rude or amusing names (she didn’t drink – saying she couldn’t trust her addictive personality).
Minutes later she was in high spirits, plotting to tweet an old photo she had unearthed from the first set of Star Wars in which she was cupping C-3PO’s balls. “This is going to get me in trouble with the people at Disney,” she said, while I held the pic steady and she snapped, “but I don’t care.”
She thrust presents on her staff and insisted we went shopping to find gifts for her mum, daughter and others. (When we eventually got around to talking about the column she asked to be paid in fun presents rather than money – an idea her agent sadly nixed when it was up and running.)
I was gone so long that my husband texted to see if I was OK, in response to which she sent a video of herself riffing about how she was going to do bad things to me and make me vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming election.
In every store we went into she was a hurricane of energy and charisma and foul language – and she was instantly loved. She swore loudly at the shop assistants that didn’t have the particular light she sought in stock and laughed hysterically at a bed we saw that was priced at over $100,000 – then made me pose comic-seductively across it while she took photos. The staff all took it in their stride.
Since Fisher’s death, emails for her have continued to pour in at the Guardian address. “Hi Carrie,” one reads. “I know you’re dead. But that shouldn’t stop you from continuing to respond to those who are sick and suffering, because come on, you were super-human in life – and in death you’ve become even more powerful.”