business. The bigger trick would’ve been to stay out of it. I was IN
and I wanted out, but there were no other options.”
“Talk about a high-class problem. But it’s all I was
ever exposed to,” she says, her bare feet curled under her as she
perches on a leather couch in a hotel room here.
Fisher, known for her iconic role as
“It made me always feel like an outsider, she says
clasping the back of the couch, “You think of show business like this
elite, little club. Now I’m an outsider on the inside. Why am I in
here? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have a gift that put me in this
situation that earned me these privileges. I just am a by-product of
people with gifts,” she says, shifting to the corner of the couch.
“I knew I didn’t look like my mom. The whole thing
didn’t make sense to me. It was like we were play acting or something
because my mother and my father both had been very poor. We lived in
this really nice house and there was a butler in a coat and it was like
going to be this idea of a way that celebrities would act. And my
mother was taught that way. She speaks that way. She dresses just so.
And I just knew I couldn’t do it. I felt clumsy beside her and dark and
way too introspective for the whole business. I never have fit in the
community, I still don’t and I never will.”
Fisher, 54, was 11 when her mother plopped her on
Reynolds’ TV special. She was 13 when her mother made her part of her
nightclub act. “And I dropped out of school, and that’s what I did. I
did it because it was what my family did — like other people go on a
picnic, we go to Vegas. I did one movie as a goof. It was one day on
‘Shampoo.’ My mother made me go to drama college in
which I’m glad about, ’cause that was a fun thing to do even though
acting has never been a passion of mine. I’m not that good at it. I’m
OK. I’m one of those people that my personality comes through and I’m
very relaxed about my personality.”
Where she really excels is writing. She’s written
several novels, including “Postcards from the Edge” and her memoir,
“Wishful Drinking,” which is the basis of her one-woman show that
premieres Sunday on HBO. She’s also known as a coveted script doctor
who rejuvenates moribund scripts with her edgy wit and keen
intelligence.
“I think I have a way with words and I enjoy it and I always have, but I can’t really take credit for it, in a way,” she says.
“It’s not like I studied and became articulate, but
I always was a very voracious reader and from an early age writing was
like therapy for me. There was a percussive, particularly with
alliteration; it was very soothing for me.
“Reading was my first drug and writing almost became
an extension to that because I would read it and it would put all the
words of the book inside me. Then it would come out another way,
organized by me. When I would read books I would underline lines I
thought were great or words I didn’t know. I’m an autodidact.”
Though she never really rebelled against her
parents, she defied herself. She became addicted to painkillers,
suffered from bi-polar disease and spent time in a mental institution.
She discovered the father of her daughter was gay, and he left her for
another man. Her best friend, a high-stakes international campaign
negotiator, died in her bed from sleep apnea and an overdose.
She’s learned from these experiences, she says.
“What it does, it’s like, OK, once you can clear it — which takes a
while — you’re stronger from having endured all this stuff. The one
thing I do know now, I can do anything.”
She can do anything, but be famous. “Why people want
(fame) is they confuse this with approval and acceptance. But what it
is, is attention. It is kind of mass approval, but you personalize that
somehow. I did not want to be an actress because I knew the moment I
became a celebrity, inadvertently that it was an end. So all I did,
once I became famous, I just watched my watch, watched the clock. I
knew. So I couldn’t really full-on enjoy it because I had no illusions
about it. And it’s a world of illusions.”
———
McCarthy, who got her start as a Playmate, says she
was always proper. “I was a good little girl. I was a Catholic
schoolgirl, my whole life in a uniform. The only plays I knew how to do
were from church because it was the only thing I knew by heart. I never
got in trouble in school — until the cops came for bad checks (by then
she was in college). I was scared of the nuns. And in Catholicism, I
was so fearful of the devil and going to hell that I never wanted to
act up.”
———
The character
“Her real name is
In fact, they had made her sign a release saying she wouldn’t sue Fox.
Pretty hilarious, but she is a med student. She’s very much like this
character. I’m not saying anything out of turn or mean about her, but
she’s incredibly brilliant, but sometimes she can be very socially
awkward.”
———
and they called and said, ‘You’re the guy.’ And I was thrilled. You
know, this script was the best pilot script I had read in a long time
and the best of the year as far as I’m concerned. It had more levels.
It had more colors. And it had a reason to live. It was captivating and
a page-turner. You know it was a slam-dunk, and I’m just tired of
wearing General outfits so I’m going to go back to the suit. I figure
it’s just a natural progression for me — captain to the general then
the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then vice president and then, who knows?”
———
(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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