• • •
My love for my dad was always more like longing, and it retains that quality, only now it can never be relieved. But in the end, finally, it doesn’t have to be, because before it was too late, he was mine at last.
Edwin Jack “Puff Daddy” Fisher passed away on September 22, 2010.
There hadn’t been a note he couldn’t hit, a girl he couldn’t hit on, an audience he couldn’t charm or bring to their feet cheering. He’d done everything, and whatever he’d done he’d done to excess. Emptied that glass, drank the last dregs of the best wines, brandy, Champagne. He’d lavished his women with jewels—there was talk of a diamond and emerald necklace worth some impossible sum that he’d given to Elizabeth Taylor, who didn’t just love but required gifts, and preferably, if not exclusively, jewels.
I see the scene: Elizabeth is seated in front of her three-way mirror so she can be seen full face and from either side. There are lights around the mirror. Glowing, they line the top, dropping off straight down both sides. She is framed in illumination. Her shining dark hair is held up off her pale neck with a few well-placed bobby pins, as she gazes at her reflection, chin up, those extraordinarily colored eyes of hers sparkling with the curiosity of a recently arrived guest. She holds a soft pink puff shimmering with the almost invisible glitter of powder, a powder that hangs over her, a devoted, loyal cloud.
We see Eddie appear—her interim spouse, the mate that would escort her from her first great love to her last. My father kept Elizabeth Taylor warm and entertained and bejeweled between Mike Todd and Richard Burton. The later loves that dotted the rest of the spectacle that was her life were in some ways inconsequential.
There he is . . . see him? He appears over her shoulder, brandishing that black velvet box, holding it out to her, his eyes shy and hopeful. She puts one of her perfectly manicured hands to her throat, a diamond blazes from the third finger of her pale left hand. Her so-called violet eyes sparkling, she bites her bottom lip, her head tilting to one side. “What have you done, you big silly man?” she says, smiling.
Eddie shrugs helplessly, placing the mysterious dark box into the small swell of her tentatively outstretched hand. “Open it,” he suggests warily. The thrilling proximity of treasure is implied. Her right hand—the one temporarily unadorned by jewels—stretches toward her almost unexpected (but always somehow deserved) prize. Eddie is important now, as he opens the top of the box, and the bright flash of diamonds is revealed. Bright gems interspersed with deep green ones—the diamonds making the emeralds just that much darker, the emeralds making it that much easier for the diamonds to claim the light. Elizabeth’s eyes study this offering, almost as if recognizing it from somewhere else. That place where all jewels begin making their smooth otherwise uncharted way straight to her. Jewels arriving in her hands, having found the shortcut to get to her, a cut sharply forged by desire.
In my father’s case, perhaps a feeling that he didn’t really deserve to lie by her side—that this time with her was only temporary. Soon the bubble would burst, the clock would strike midnight, the footmen would return to being mice, and her real mate would arrive to claim her. So there in the charmed meantime, Eddie would keep the area around her littered with jewels, with furs, with any and all things a queen both requires and deserves. It is her due. Allowing him access to her beauty—this is the price paid to travel that distance beyond looking to touching. He hurries quickly, his pockets filled with offerings, to fill the suddenly empty place his now deceased best friend has left for him to occupy. Recognizing his duty to keep her warm and shining with jewels until the arrival of the male who was more actually fit to be her partner, her equal, her mate—a king for Her Highness.
So Eddie takes the time, whatever time he is allotted. Remember this moment, he tells himself as he drapes the jewels shadowing past her face. Glowing with satisfaction at her glowing, he closes the circle of jewels around her proud neck, her consort till King Richard arrives to claim her. Somewhere he must’ve known that she’d converted to Judaism not for him but as a belated tribute to his predecessor, the mighty Michael Todd. And maybe that was all somehow as it should be. But, whatever and whichever way it was, this was his time.
My father’s time to stand in the light with her, with Elizabeth. So still, and yet he could swear they were dancing.
• • •
In 1967, when William Manchester was about to publish his book The Death of a President, the author balked at making certain changes that Jackie Kennedy requested—changes which actually altered the truth. She tried to stop its publication and, counseled that such an action could make her look bad in the public eye, she famously retorted: “The only thing that could make me look bad would be if I ran off with Eddie Fisher,” who, among other things had a few years prior been publicly humiliated when Elizabeth Taylor left him for Richard Burton.
Having waited the appropriately respectful month following my father’s (timely) death, I hesitated only briefly before Googling him—the post-modern form of grieving electronically in the twenty-first century. PDDD. I was surprised to discover that he had only been dead—an awful word when actually applicable—a little more than a month. It seemed like he’d been gone so much longer, and really gone this time. This was final, there was no getting around that this time he was undeniably, permanently, and conspicuously out of reach, except for those cell phone messages he’d left me, now embedded like a rare insect in digital amber. Somehow I’d known it might come in handy to save them, I just didn’t realize how soon.
His voice. His voice had been his most characteristic feature. It was the gift he’d been born with that had, among other things, ultimately purchased his celebrity for him. And when you combined that gift with his charm and boyish good looks, a trifecta of appeal emerged—erotic and otherwise—that made him, for a short but intense period of time, irresistible to essentially any woman. Well, okay, perhaps not any woman, but he had had that reputation—certainly during the ’50s and ’60s—of being able to bed a hearty selection of some of the most beautiful women in the world and doing this not only during his prime but also theirs.
Sure, he was still having sex with his (and a few other men’s) share of very attractive women in the ’70s and ’80s, but their quality—if not their quantity—may have gone ever so slightly down a notch. Let’s face it, his allure for the opposite sex had taken the standard beating that all of us endure over time—not only for the opposite sex, but the same sex and everything in between. My father not only had to contend with his somewhat diminishing physical attractions, but in addition he’d developed something of an awkward reputation over time when it came to women. Though many of them were still drawn to him as a result of the gravitational pull of his original appeal and abilities, perhaps more often now, though, a woman might be drawn to him so that she might have something in common with Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor—considered by oh so many to be one of the most beautiful women of her/their/all time—who had married my father.
It had been early on in my conspicuous existence that I’d developed a habit—some might even suggest a defensive one—of mocking my family’s tendency to generate public scandal and its attendant absurd behavior. This mocking, though it originally began in what might laughingly be referred to as my “private life,” eventually spilled over into the much more public arena. Over time I had begun to be known as someone who could be counted on to be amusing when presenting an award, giving a speech, or hosting the odd event. These speeches quite frequently included references to my infamous family. And as it turned out, one of these events—an AIDS-related fund-raiser in Los Angeles chaired by my onetime stepmother, Elizabeth—happened to be an event that I’d agreed to host.
I’d spent quite a bit of my public life fielding questions about Elizabeth and how I felt about her now. Did I know her at all? Did I forgive her? And perhaps even more to the point, did my mother forgive her? For that matter, did anyone forgive my father?
M
agazine featuring story providing details on how to live life to the fullest, and various recipes for veal.
The truth was, up until that point I didn’t really know Elizabeth at all. I think that I may have met her once at the Beverly Hills Hotel while she was still technically however briefly my stepmother, and then we crossed paths many years later in London, when she was once again married to Richard Burton. This meeting had taken place because my childhood friend Gavin de Becker was in their employ in some security-related capacity. Needless to say this reunion was more of the uneventful variety than our awkward overlap during my infancy, although it was not entirely devoid of discomfort. Following that, I don’t recall our crossing paths in any significant way until this AIDS fund-raiser.
On the day of the event, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to me at my home. This beautiful and quite enormous arrangement turned out to be from Elizabeth, and it even included a personal note signed by her, though it had quite clearly been dictated and sent to anyone and everyone connected to the imminent evening. It was nonetheless a very nice thank-you note, which I quite heartlessly used as part of my speech that night.
Yes, there I was at the podium, facing a sea of gleefully Western-clad gay men and friends and fans of gay men. (It was, inexplicably, a cowboy-themed evening.)
So, assuming the air of incredibly quiet dignity that was made possible by my not being decked out in cowboy gear, I strode up to the microphone and introduced myself to what might as well been the cast of Oklahoma! before launching into my ironic familial tale.
“Today a beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived at my doorstep—flowers that actually turned out to be from my onetime stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor. Upon seeing Ms. Taylor’s signature at the bottom, I read the attendant card with some excitement. I knew that it was more than likely the long-awaited apology for having stolen my father from me all those years ago, and so, clutching the little blue card in my hand, I ran back to my bedroom and, closing the door, I sat on the edge of my bed near my phone, lest it become necessary for me to call my psychiatrist after having absorbed Elizabeth’s emotional and contrite communiqué. So, I carefully opened the little envelope and, my heart pounding excitedly, I began to read. ‘Dear Carrie,’ the note began, ‘thank you so much for your participation in tonight’s important event and for joining me in this extraordinarily important fight against AIDS. Yours sincerely, Elizabeth.’ Okay, perhaps the note hadn’t directly addressed the long-ago theft of my dad, but I could read an apology between the lines if I wanted to.” Well, as I hope you can imagine, my remarks caused the audience of gay cowboys to enthusiastically cry and laugh. Many later observed that most everyone in the room was laughing hysterically—everyone that is, with the exception of Elizabeth. But then, that might in part have been because she wasn’t there.
It was mid-morning on the following day that Elizabeth’s assistant Tim phoned to invite me to her house that Sunday for her annual Easter Party. “There’ll be an egg hunt and brunch and swimming for the kids,” he informed me gaily. “Oh, so then I can bring my daughter?” I asked him. Billie was about to turn six at the time. “Of course!” he cheered.
I spent the ensuing six days assembling the perfect Elizabeth egg hunt outfit.
So the following Sunday, I found myself poolside at Elizabeth’s elegant ranch home, tucked humbly into a hillside crowded with trees in the area of town referred to as the Beverly Hills. I sat in a chair near the pool and watched while Billie splashed around with the assortment of other favored children in attendance. After about half an hour or so, Elizabeth appeared in the open sliding-glass doorway wearing a colorful, age-defying dress draping over her somewhat ample iconic form. Looking every inch the aging movie star that she was—hair arranged perfectly and makeup just so—she paused, drawing any and all eyes to her as she made her way to one of the chairs situated under the umbrella near the shallow end of the pool that Billie frolicked in.
Naturally, her hair dresser José made his way confidently toward her, handing her a plate full of canapés, his cowboy hat poised atop the head that was known by many for the golden braid that made its way down to his ornate belt and belt buckle.
I stood at the pool’s edge clad in my usual black attire—worn for the rumored magically flattering effect it had on the chubbier body. (Though I was much thinner at this stage, I nonetheless imagined I was the portly person I eventually became.) Sitting in the shade drinking chilled glasses of iced tea, Elizabeth squinted through the sunshine, studying me.
“I hear there’s something we need to discuss,” she ventured, tilting her head to one side. I shrugged and approached her, nervously smiling a smile that I hoped appeared more confident than I felt.
“Not really,” I assured her, pushing my hair away from my eyes. “It just . . . well, I heard at some point that you had said something not all that great about my mom at a dinner party recently and I didn’t think that that was . . . ” I searched almost my entire head for the right word, finally coming up with “polite.” As she blinked, looking past me toward the lawn opposite, I continued. “Someone told me you called my mother a Goody Two-shoes at this dinner party recently. And . . . And, I, uh . . . I just didn’t think it was all that appropriate. I mean, among other things it’s not accurate, you know? I mean, there had been a point where she might have shied away from swearing, but for many years now she’s been cursing like a sailor.”
Elizabeth frowned at this, gazing stonily at me. “I don’t remember saying that,” she said definitively, looking remarkably to me as though she actually did remember saying it. It also crossed my mildly ill-mannered mind that my father’s former wife maybe wasn’t all that accustomed to being spoken to about the possible inappropriateness of her behavior. Not that what she’d said had been that big of a deal. I just thought, you know, maybe it was time to revisit the nature of how Elizabeth viewed and/or discussed my mother in our ultimately not all that private of a life.
Elizabeth rose, her head held high, and imperiously disappeared back into the house, only to reappear a short time later. She made her way back over to the pool, where I’d returned to watch Billie and/or avoid Elizabeth.
“I’m going to push you in the pool,” she informed me. Not in a threatening way, but more as if catching me up on the afternoon’s upcoming events. I studied her. Was this a threat or a . . . threat?
“Do it,” I challenged her, causing her to tilt her head to one side, suspiciously, her eyes narrowing.
“No, you’ll just pull me in after you.” I shook my head, removing my non-waterproof watch and setting it on a nearby glass table. We studied one another in the hot sun.
“No, I won’t,” I assured her, in part because I’d recalled hearing that she’d had her hip replaced a while back, and I wasn’t anxious to rust any potential titanium additions she might now be sporting. So, with my watch now safely resting on the poolside table, I did my best to maintain my friendly—albeit respectfully challenging—expression. We continued holding each other’s gaze for the briefest amount of time, until, finally, she pushed me gleefully into her pool, causing the warm water to spray high into the air, wetting any guests who might have had the anecdotal luck to be in range. Then, with both my knees bent, I pushed my bare feet off the bottom of the pool, catapulting me back up through the water’s once-smooth surface. And, catching the fastball of my breath, I drew whatever amount of the available sunlight into my lungs and, gasping, broke free and was finally able to begin the friendship with my former stepmother. “Liz!”
I started laughing. I felt like an Olympic runner who breaks that white tape with her chest with everyone cheering wildly from the sidelines.
Elizabeth Taylor, about to do what she said she would do to Carrie Fisher.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth stood there, clapping her bejeweled hands. Somehow this entire semi-event-ish moment made perfect sense, you know? For whatever totally weird and insane reason, maybe everything in our tragically well-documented relationship had been le
ading up to this moment, like we’d sort of had this date from the beginning. Elizabeth was still standing at the edge of her pool watching me while I splashed around, no doubt incredibly relieved to have fulfilled our destiny. Our team—Elizabeth’s and mine—had won whatever race or game it turned out we were playing! It was all over except for the sobbing. Elizabeth, who was now kneeling down, extended her arm to help me out of the pool and back into a world where we could now have a relationship that, though born out of an ultimate tabloid phenomenon, was so lifelike it almost had a genuine quality of love.
“Get her one of my robes!” E.T. called out to Tim. “Either the violet or the yellow, whichever. Oh, and a towel!” Tim nodded as he returned to the house to do her bidding while I, having hauled my wet black ass out of the pool, now stood bent over beside Elizabeth, laughing and gasping for air. When I stood up, we slung our arms over each other’s shoulders, laughing riotously—she largely dry, and me soaked to the skin. By then, people had begun to gather around us, cheering. Around us! Elizabeth Taylor and me. Us!
Deed done.
All pool photos taken by someone who was actually there that day prior to his death.
Soon after, a towel was magically produced and enclosed me in its white wings, while from stage left, a Coca-Cola materialized. Eventually Tim returned with Elizabeth’s yellow muu-muu, which made me look like a tent with a head. Soon after, the ever-present hairdresser José stood poised to one side, ready in case I needed a quick blow out.
Ever since then, she loved me and I her. Simple as that. This was how we neutralized anything that might have otherwise been toxic to our situation.
A few months after that, she invited me and my mom to lunch, and to round out the table, two-blonds-and-two-brunettes-wise, I brought Meg Ryan. So it was me, my mom, Meg and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was giving Meg some romantic advice because Meg was with Russell Crowe at the time, and for whatever reason—maybe the hard-drinking-movie-star-with-a-British-Empire-accent aspect of him—Elizabeth equated Russell with Richard Burton. So we all went over to Elizabeth’s and it was—well, it was great. By then she and my mom had returned to that long-ago time in their lives when they got along really well—only my mother was now using words of the four-letter variety. We got together fairly frequently after that. Then presenting her with awards became a regular thing with us. For one of them I even thanked her for getting Eddie out of our house. Big joke, right?
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