Eddie Fisher

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by David Lonergan

Throughout 1956 Fisher experienced a career decline. Coca Cola cancelled his program, his records were not selling well, and rock and roll was erupting into the popular music scene. Almost from the outset, Fisher's marriage was in trouble too. The media once again made much of this celebrity couple, chronicling the supposed ups and downs of the marriage, casting Fisher as the thoughtless villain and Reynolds, whose film career as a sweet young thing was at its height, as the put-upon wife. There was a lot of truth in what the reporters wrote. Fisher was a dope addict, an irresponsible husband and father, and a compulsive gambler. He still made a huge income, but he was virtually spending it all.

After the death of one of Fisher's closest friends, the producer Mike Todd, Fisher's marriage disintegrated completely, and he began dating Todd's widow, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The media responded predictably to this famous romantic triangle, casting Taylor as the evil "other woman." Eddie and Debbie were divorced in February 1959. (Their daughter, Carrie, would go on to become famous as Star Wars' Princess Leia and as a bestselling author.) Three months later, Eddie married Liz. Fisher's career had slipped so badly by that point that he has never been able to make an effective comeback.

Fisher had hoped to parlay his singing success into a movie career, and in 1956 he had starred with then-wife Reynolds in Bundle of Joy. It was no more successful than his performance opposite Taylor in Butterfield 8 in 1960; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, but Fisher was never again invited to act in a major film. A year later on another film set, the epic Cleopatra, Taylor switched allegiances once more, this time to co-star Richard Burton. Fisher was the media's innocent, sympathetic character this time, in an orgy of gossip reporting that outdid all earlier efforts.

The next several decades followed a sad pattern for Eddie Fisher--high profile romantic involvements, attempts to get off drugs, failed comebacks, and tax troubles. Even a former celebrity can earn a lot of money in America, but Fisher could never get ahead. His drug habit and erratic behavior kept him from building a strong second career from the wreckage of the first. He was the last of the old-style crooners, and the least capable of recovering from changes in American popular music.