Not Your Average Princess | Madison Hogardt

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My biography of Carrie Fisher, titled Not Your Average Princess,
would cover her life from birth to death. It would start with her
childhood, being born into fame, and go into depth regarding her re-
lationship with her famous mother Debbie Reynolds, as well as touch
on her lack of a fatherly figure throughout Fisher’s early years as her
mother went in and out of relationships. After landing her breakout
role in Star Wars as Princess Leia, the biography would transition to
her life post-fame as she continued to film the Star Wars franchise,
as well as acted in other roles. A topic that would be touched upon
during these years is the secret affair Fisher had with her co-star
Harrison Ford. The biography would also touch on some darker topics
like Fisher’s struggle with bipolar disorder and substance abuse, her
stints of sobriety and relapses, as well as the topic of being sexu-
alized as a woman in Hollywood at a young age. Fisher was also a
well-known author, writing not just a memoir, but other books and
plays based on her life that would be brought into the biography for
the parts focused on the later years of her life. This specific chapter
focuses on the affair mentioned earlier and would be placed towards
the beginning of the book, post-childhood, and family life growing
up, but before full adulthood. Previous to this chapter, Fisher has
auditioned and landed the role in Star Wars: A New Hope, directed by
George Lucas, and details on this would have been explained.

Chapter 4: An Affair to Remember
Fisher had done it. She had landed the role in a big block-
buster film, one that would define her career for years to come, yet
she found herself wondering, why me? Why had she, this naïve and
insecure girl, won the role of the brave and witty princess? What did
they see in her? All Fisher saw in herself was a 19-year-old girl with
a baby face, never having outgrown her young appearance, filled with
self-loathing1. And maybe it was this sense of teenage insecurity and
angst that led to Carrie’s mindset of going into Star Wars with the goal
of having an affair.
The word “affair” for Fisher was a triggering one, as she lost
her own father to a woman she refers to as an “adulteress”2. This
“adulteress” was none other than the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor. At
only eighteen months Fisher and her two-month-old brother lost
their father to the “good friend” of their mother’s. Eddie Fisher and
Debbie Reynolds, the couple that was once referred to as “America’s
Sweethearts”, were no more, leaving Reynolds to take care of her two
young children on her own. Carrie knew the background around why
she grew up fatherless which is why when she went into Hollywood
looking to have a love affair, she knew she was not “going to include
married guys”. The last thing Fisher wanted was for another woman
to go through what she and her mother had gone through being on the
“clueless end of infidelity” (Fisher, 78). Yet how Fisher was going to
achieve this goal she did not know since when it came to the oppo-
site sex, Fisher described herself as “extremely insecure, especially
around men” (Hattenstone, Fisher on Harrison Ford). The answer was
found in her negative mindset. Ever since she was a young girl, fifteen
or sixteen, Carrie had decided that she was not going to find success
when it came to relationships with men, so why not embrace it? She
looked to her mother’s own trouble when it came to her father and
past stepfathers, none of which stuck. Fisher felt she knew the future
had been set for her and it was up to her to now fulfill the prophecy.
So, she faked it until she made it. She went into Hollywood with this
aura of confidence, describing herself as a “nonchalant citizen of the
weary part of the world” (Fisher, 74). Even though this world was
new to her, the almost adult acted like she had been there, done that,
not only when it came to the acting world, but also the relationship
world. In reality, Carrie was as inexperienced as the common 19-year-
old, if not more. However, this facade of confidence might just be the
reason she ended up grabbing the attention of her much older, and
married co-star.
At the time of filming in 1977, Harrison Ford was on the up
and up. At thirty-three years of age, he had already done some minor
film roles and was semi-known in the film industry. He was married
to his college sweetheart, Mary Marquardt, a chef who heavily sup-
ported her husband in his pursuit of stardom. The couple shared two
young boys together, Benjamin and Willard3. Carrie found herself
drawn to her handsome co-star but never dared to think about pursu-
ing him. Not only was he married, but he was also almost fifteen years
her senior. When writing about Ford in her diaries at the time, she
remembers him as “far too old [for her]” and that there were plenty of
unmarried, and younger, men she could pick from (Fisher, 78). During
an NPR interview back in 2016 Fisher said that she “didn’t even
have the nerve to have a crush on [Ford]”4. She found him incredibly
“intimidating” (Fisher, 79) and wrote in her memoir that “One of the
things I knew when Harrison and I met was that nothing of a roman-
tic nature would happen” (Fisher, 78). Or so Fisher thought. Until
one fateful night, when things turned for the better, or for the worse,
depending on how one chose to look at it.
On one of the first Fridays of filming, nineteen-year-old Carrie
finds herself lost in a sea of crew and co-stars at the director, George
Lucas’, birthday party. Not only did she feel so out of place because
she believed she didn’t deserve the role, but because she was one of
the only women in attendance. As one of the only female characters
in the movie, this was to be expected, but it still came as quite a shock
to the insecure teenager. She remembers drifting through the party, as
she “tried to look as unconcerned…adding a smile to the mix in order
to make it easier for the people there to like [her] and not wonder why
[she], of all people, had been cast in the role of the rather daunting
princess” (Fisher, 84). She proceeded to come across crew, pretending
to remember the name of these older men who certainly knew who
she was, as she nursed her warm coke. While others might have found
an alcoholic beverage their saving grace in an awkward situation like
this, Carrie hated the way alcohol made her feel, hence the warm
coke she sipped on throughout forced conversations. As more and
more crew filed in, it wasn’t long before the sea became an ocean and
Carrie was a lone fish surrounded by sharks. Suddenly predator found
prey as two of the assistant directors started teasing Fisher, announc-
ing to the rest of the crew that they had found their “little princess
without her buns” (Fisher, 87). As they continued to tease her, trying
to convince her to grab a drink from the bar, while simultaneously
hitting on her, Fisher eventually gave into their little game of what
she now refers to as “get Leia legless” (Fisher, 87). As she started to
drink, fighting past the disgusting taste of what she could only assume
was wine, Carrie found herself fitting in. Suddenly everything she said
was funny to these burly, sweaty men, and the talking came so natu-
rally. Her fake confidence had almost become real. However, this in-
nocent game took a turn for the worse when suddenly the men started
to usher Fisher out of the party claiming she needed “to get some air”
(Fisher, 91). Luckily for Fisher, or unluckily the way it is spun, her
on-screen love interest came to her rescue in true cinemaesque fash-
ion. Ford intercepted the men as they tried to drag a wine-drunk Car-
rie out to what she could only describe as “wherever movie crews take
young actresses when they want to establish that the actress belongs
to them” (Fisher, 90). After a quick scuffle between the men over the
young actress, Fisher found herself in the back of Ford’s studio car
on her way to London. It was in this backseat that the nineteen-year-
old began an affair with her married, and significantly older co-star.
She remembers that Harrison made the first move, starting the make-
out session, something Carrie would have never dreamed of doing.
Yet, suddenly there she was, doing exactly what she had sworn she
wouldn’t do, getting involved with a married man (Fisher, 97). During
an interview with the Today show, Carrie recalls the incident saying,
“I didn’t make the first move, no. ... I was tipsy and I was surprised”
This brings up the question, while Ford may have rescued her from
the crew, how much saving can he truly be accredited with?
The best way to describe what ensured is, as Carrie herself
put it, “a three-month one- night stand”. What many fans of the Star
Wars franchise might have believed to be a dream pairing, was in
reality, unrequited love. “It was Han and Leia during the week, and
Carrie and Harrison during the weekend”, she says (Dawn, I was so
Insecure). When thinking back on the scandal forty years later, Fisher
considers the whole ordeal as “unreciprocated love” (Hattenstone,
Fisher on Harrison Ford). The young star was “infatuated” with Ford
and believes she eventually fell in love with him, but claims that on
Ford’s list of priorities, she was no higher than number fifteen, while
she had always placed him as her number one6. She describes her
mindset during the whole experience as “obsessive, and self-obsessed,
and confused” as she tried to come to terms with becoming famous
while concurrently hiding an affair with her equally famous co-star.
This one-sided relationship only furthered a sense of insecurity in the
young actress. She acknowledges that the whole situation and know-
ing “that Ford did not really care for her” did not help her insecurity
issues. In her diary, she wrote “We have no feeling for one another.
We lie buried together during the night and hunt each other by day…
How can a thing that doesn’t seem to be happening come to an end?”
(Gross, On Set Affair), hinting that she knew this fantasy was not as
perfect as it may have seemed on the surface. In her mind, she said
the affair “didn’t make [her] feel that much better about [herself]” like
she might have thought, yet “in a way it did…Because he’d chosen
me” (Hattenstone, Fisher on Harrison Ford). In the same way that
Carrie had questioned why she had been chosen for the acclaimed role
as princess, she found herself wondering why Ford had chosen her to
kiss. She was full of “self-doubt”7 and could not believe that someone
as handsome and mature as Ford had picked her. Carrie claims she
was “shocked by the fact that he fancied [her] (Hattenstone, Fish-
er on Harrison Ford) and often questioned herself wondering how
“such a shining specimen of a man [could] be satisfied with the likes
of me?” (Beck, Three- Month One-Night Stand). These feelings of
doubt and self-hatred only worsened as the affair continued and the
guilt weighed on the shoulders of young Carrie. She was acting as the
“adulteress” that had stolen her dad, preventing her from the chance
of having a picture- perfect family, and she was not raised to do the
same (Dawn, I Was so Insecure). Carrie was alone in a new and scary
world, the world of Hollywood. She had no one to confide in, no
friends to share her secret with and ask for their opinions on. Since
Ford was married, Fisher could not bring it up to any other co-stars,
so she sat alone in silence using her diaries as an outlet for her secrets
(Gross, On Set Affair). And here they would remain, locked up tight,
until forty years later when Fisher was finally ready to tell the world.
As the filming of the movie came to an end, so did the two
co-stars’ affair. While the secret relationship carried on throughout
filming, it became clear that it was never going to be Carrie and Harri-
son, only Leia and Han. Their characters would be the only ones who
got the happy ending a young Carrie had once fantasized about. When
looking back on this moment, Fisher recalls how mentally unwell she
was, a young girl, yet to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, trying to
hide immense insecurity by being someone she was not (Hattenstone,
Fisher on Harrison Ford). She never found love through this experi-
ence, “only obsession”. While Fisher may have regretted the original
choice of enlisting in an affair with a married man, her diaries allude
to not blaming Harrison for the actions and consequences that came
out of this decision. As the affair dwindled down, she wrote within
the only object that knew of her secret desires and truths, as if she was
speaking the written words to Harrison himself: “Thanks for the good
times. Thank you for being so generous with what you have withheld.
Thank you for being the snake in my grass, the thorn in my side, the
pain in my ass, the knife in my back…My Achilles’ heart” (Fisher,
152).