Carrie Fisher was planning sequel to her one-woman show Wishful Drinking before fatal cardiac arrest
Before her death at 60 years old, Carrie Fisher was cobbling together a sequel to her one-woman show Wishful Drinking, according to Indiewire.
Commissioned by the Geffen Playhouse last Thursday, it would've been called Wishful Drinking Strikes Back: From Star Wars To, Uh, Star Wars!.
On Friday, the actress and writer suffered a cardiac arrest on a plane into Los Angeles from London. She was pronounced dead on Tuesday.
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In the pipeline: Before her death at 60 years old, Carrie Fisher was cobbling together a sequel to her one-woman show Wishful Drinking, Indiewire have reported
In 2008, the Geffen had played host to Wishful Drinking, which then opened at Studio 54 on Broadway in 2009 and was filmed for HBO in 2010.
Joshua Ravetch, Fisher's co-writer on the show, would've assumed the same job on the sequel, which he was also slated to direct.
The Geffen had, in fact, ordered the play only last Thursday, and a meeting between Ravetch and Fisher had been slated for the day she ultimately died.
Wishful Drinking was a blisteringly funny and open account of such turbulent experiences as her Star Wars fame, drug addiction, bipolar disorder, marriage to Paul Simon and celebrity parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
Wide-ranging: Commissioned by the Geffen Playhouse on Thursday, it would've been called Wishful Drinking Strikes Back: From Star Wars To, Uh, Star Wars!
Reynolds and her first husband had been married from 1955 until 1959, when he deserted her and their two children for her friend Elizabeth Taylor.
Pointing to a photo-strewn blackboard onstage, Fisher explained: 'For those of you that are younger, try to think of it this way. Think of Eddie as Brad Pitt, Debbie as Jennifer Aniston and Elizabeth as Angelina Jolie. Does that help?'
As Ravetch reminisced to Indiewire: 'We were working on the complexity of the Fisher family tree and we’re trying to come up with a way to make it instantly accessible to the audience.'
At which point, 'Without missing a beat Carrie said: "What if we did it on a blackboard like in school and I can teach Hollywood 101?" That blackboard moment is the moment people always mention from her show.'
'A show where one woman reconciles herself to being Carrie Fisher': In 2008, the Geffen had played host to Wishful Drinking, which then opened at Studio 54 on Broadway in 2009 and was filmed for HBO in 2010
He described writing with her: 'Her mind was the most original I’ve ever encountered. Brilliant insights would pop effortlessly like popcorn, and I was lucky enough to be there to catch the kernels.'
As he remembered, 'She loved being able to speak live to an audience and fell in love with the form which we came to call "Live Autobiography" - and the immediacy of the instant audience reaction which she found so gratifying.'
'In fact,' Ravetch shared, 'one of her best and favourite phrases was, "Instant gratification - takes too long!"' which appears in her 1987 roman à clef Postcards From The Edge, as well as its film adaptation.
As she described her worldview onstage during Wishful Drinking: 'If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true, and that is completely unacceptable.'
Looking back: The blisteringly honest show described her celebrity parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who were married from 1955 until 1959, when he deserted Reynolds and their two children for her friend Elizabeth Taylor
At another point in the show, she vamped about the fact 'people are still asking me if I knew Star Wars was gonna be that big of a hit. Yes! I knew! We all knew.'
She quipped: 'The only one who didn't know was George Lucas. We kept it from him, 'cause we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression.'
In 2008, she adapted the show - which she'd performed barefoot - into the first of what turned out to be three memoirs she'd write over the course of her lifetime.
Shockaholic followed three years later, and though its title suggests the book would focus principally on her experience with ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), it covers a wide range of subject matter.
'Hollywood 101': Pointing to a photo-strewn blackboard onstage, Fisher explained: 'For those of you that are younger, try to think of it this way. Think of Eddie as Brad Pitt, Debbie as Jennifer Aniston and Elizabeth as Angelina Jolie. Does that help?'
Anecdotes relate, for instance, her relationship with her father during his final years, the Christmas she had with Michael Jackson during what turned out to be the winter before his death and her blind date with US Senator Chris Dodd.
This year, The Princess Diarist aired out the journal she'd kept whilst filming the first Star Wars film in 1976, flanked by tracts of new text written especially for the book.
Famously, the most dishy revelation is of the affair she had with co-star Harrison Ford, who was not only 14 years her senior but also married to Mary Marquardt.
The book describes the dalliance as a 'three-month one-night stand,' but expounds at length about her insecurity and her keening desire to impress him at the time.
'Cold coffee eyes': Wishful Drinking also took the audience through her tempestuous marriage to and divorce from Paul Simon
Before the memoirs, she'd written four semi-autobiographical novels. Postcards From The Edge, her literary debut, follows an actress called Suzanne Vale who emerges from rehab and struggles to reassemble her life and career.
Fisher adapted the novel into a screenplay for a 1990 Mike Nichols film of the same name, in which Suzanne's played by Meryl Streep and her Debbie Reynolds-modelled mother Doris Mann's played by Shirley MacLaine.
The next romans à clef were 1990's Surrender The Pink, 1993's Delusions Of Grandma and 2004's Postcards From The Edge sequel The Best Awful.
Dearly departed: On Friday, the actress and writer had a heart attack whilst flying into Los Angeles from London, and she was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Centre on Tuesday
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