The Truth About & Mom Carrie

Sister of Carrie Fisher and son of Debbie Reynolds, 60-year-old Todd Fisher speaks of the impossible sadness of losing both “his girls” within a day of each other, and the decision his niece Billie had to make to turn off her mum’s life support.

- Todd Fisher

On September 26, 1955, 23-year-old movie star Debbie Reynolds married 27-year-old teen-idol crooner Eddie Fisher. The couple instantly became America’s Sweethearts, mobbed by the press and hordes of screaming, swooning, adoring fans wherever they went. The birth of their daughter, Carrie Frances Fisher, on October 21, 1956, made headlines around the world.

In the late spring of 1957, Eddie gave a concert at the Palladium in London. It speaks volumes about the state of their marriage by then that Debbie brought along her best friend from childhood, Jeanette Johnson, so she’d have someone to talk to. From London, Eddie, Debbie and Jeanette headed on to Europe to meet producer Mike Todd and his impossibly gorgeous movie-star bride Elizabeth Taylor. Mike was Eddie’s closest friend. Eddie was Mike’s best man at their wedding. Debbie was Elizabeth’s matron of honour.

Nine months later, Debbie Reynolds gave birth to me. They named me Todd Emmanuel – Todd for Mike Todd.

On March 22, 1958, when I wasn’t quite four weeks old, Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash in New Mexico. About a month later, my father left my mother for his best friend’s widow, Elizabeth Taylor. Debbie was devastated. It was one of Hollywood’s biggest, most notorious scandals. Carrie and I were too young to remember the insane tabloid feeding frenzy. But I do have one flash of a visual and emotional memory in the aftermath of our parents’ break-up. Carrie, age four, was standing on the couch, staring out the window at the street, watching for our father, who was supposed to pick us up for a visitation. He never came.

My mom was funny and playful and smart and beautiful.