Been There, Done That is a book about Eddie Fisher written by Eddie Fisher and Dick Fisher. And with that relatively simple sentence I start off confused. A book about a person written by that person and someone else. So is it a biography? An autobiography? I hate making that sort of decision.
Regardless, I enjoyed reading it. Eddie Fisher comes across as total slime, a sliminess only surpassed by that of Richard Burton. But then, since the book is sort of written by Eddie Fisher, his ranking Burton as worse than himself should not be a surprise. I think my first awareness of Eddie's sliminess came when I looked at his selected pictures. There are pictures from his childhood, pictures of him and Frank Sinatra, pictures of Liz, pictures of him and Liz, and one picture of him with an unidentified woman, Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon. Anyone notice who all is missing from that list? The mothers of his children perhaps? Right-o. Collect your ten points and move right along.
Actually the best moments of the book were sentences that for some reason or another made me gasp or laugh out loud. So:
1) On Debbie Reynolds as the girl next door: "… only if you lived next door to a self-centered, totally driven, insecure, untruthful phony." (page 70) And that makes her different from most people in your business, how?
2) Once, out on a drive with Liz soon after Mike Todd has died, Eddie claims the following dialogue took place: EDDIE: "I'm going to marry you." LIZ: "When?" EDDIE: "Soon. As soon as possible." Eddie then comments that "if they had written dialogue like this for Bundle of Joy , that picture would have been a success." (page 141) Ah, Eddie, I wouldn't take any bets on that. Or: don't give up your day job.
3) "America was waiting for Eddie Fisher to get married? Fidel Castro had overthrown Batista in Cuba, the Chinese Communists were invading Tibet, and America was waiting for me to get married." (page 159) Gee, the times, they aren't a-changing.
4) At one point the producers of Cleopatra wanted to change directors. Liz was dead set against it. Eddie remarks, "She was tremendously loyal to anyone to whom she wasn't married." (page 179) Meow. But funny.
5) About John Kennedy, Fisher says, "…he was more interested in gossip than Russian missiles. Most people are, I've found. The only people who aren't are called Republicans." (page 239) Another good one.
6) Regarding the time when he was kicking drugs, Eddie says, "I was willing to try anything; I just didn't want it to be too inconvenient." (page 304) There's a bit of that in all of us, I imagine.
7) Toward the end of the book Eddie acknowledges he's been a bad parent and says, "I can't explain why. There were no obvious reasons. Maybe I was too self-involved, too selfish." (page 316) Ya think?
Anyway, it was a fun book to read. But you don't have to 'cause I've told you the best parts.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 06/27/07 08:23 PM.
