Carrie Fisher - Shockaholic

At the time I had become less discriminating than I might have been about the projects I subjected myself—as well as a potentially agonized audience—to. Not quite thirty, my filmography included not just Shampoo, Hannah and Her Sisters , and the Star Wars trilogy, but also such seminal classics as Hollywood Vice Squad (I played a policewoman out to take down a child pornographer) and Under the Rainbow , considered to be the Gone With the Wind for the under-four-foot-six set. (One review described it as “a ‘what-if?’ comedy that poses the question: ‘What if 150 people auditioning to play the Munchkins in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz were staying in the same hotel as some Nazis and a group of spies?’”) If you look it up on the Rotten Tomatoes website, you’ll find this prominently displayed excerpt from that review: “A peculiar career choice for Fisher.”

Liberty , though, had some class. I mean, it was written by Pete Hamill, which was nothing to sneeze at, right? (And where does this phrase “nothing to sneeze at” come from, and why is it such a negative? I often consider sneezing at things as a tribute of sorts.) So, having recently graduated completely healed and normal from my first stint in a rehab, and appearing in an almost perfectly respectable piece of work, I found myself driving from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., to have dinner with Chris Dodd, this senator who I knew virtually nothing about.

Nor did Senator Dodd—like most people, then, now and always—have any idea who I was in the wide, wide world beyond this cute little actress who’d played Princess Leia. And, what did it matter? That is who I was. Maybe not to myself, but then I won’t be consulted on that future day when my death is reported and a picture of Princess Leia will appear on television with two dates under my absurdly bewigged face.

The senator was not a handsome man, but he was far from unattractive. Probably in his early fifties, he had, as I recall, the reddest of cheeks, the whitest of hair, and the bluest of eyes—an American face!—and there was a merry sort of force that twinkled out of these eyes. Merry, alert, and intensely engaged in making the most of this world, for himself and even others, be they his Connecticut constituents or girls from the west, newly sober and inclined to adventures outside the norm, whatever that might be.

So there I was, being driven around the iconic sights of our capital by an actual bona fide senator, and what I was noticing was that Senator Dodd’s skin began pale and smooth at his brow and flowed serenely past his cheekbones, with his chin continuing unhindered by jawline through to his neck and beyond, smoothly, to the rest of him.

But while he may not have been a gorgeous man, this was a powerful man—a man used to getting and making his own way—and powerful men of any sort don’t have to be movie star handsome as long as they remain powerful. And it was clear that Chris Dodd was in for the long run.

I sat beside him in his unassuming car, enjoying the ride as the senator drove me around the capital, proudly providing me with a brief history of each formidable site we passed in the gathering twilight. We took in the Supreme Court, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and even the U.S. Mint. So much to see! So much to learn! Especially if you didn’t know all that much to begin with. Now, I freely admit to having rather large gaps in various areas of knowledge. Hopefully less now than then, but most of my life I’ve found myself tumbling over one area or another along the way that I felt I perhaps should—but didn’t—know about, and at this point in my life government was one of them. And, as you will now see, it was a decidedly cavernous gap.

As we made our way from our tour of the monuments to our assignation at a nearby Georgetown restaurant, I turned to the senator, who I was now being encouraged to address as “Chris” (rather than, say, “ball sack” or “RuthAnn”) and said, “So, Chris, I was wondering, how many senators are there, actually?” It was probably only his intention to sleep with me that kept him from laughing mercilessly. (When I phoned my mother later that night and told her what I’d asked him, she was appropriately horrified. “Oh dear, how could you? Everyone knows there’s one per state!”)

Anyway, after having been reacquainted with what it meant to be a free American by a genuine hoping-to-get-reelected (and, in the shorter term, laid) senator, it was time to meet our fellow dinner companions—two other couples, half of one of which was also a senator. And not just any old senator, but one considered by many—and certainly by those who had no idea how many senators there even were—to be the senator. Yes, that’s right. Ted Kennedy.

Also with us—and by “us” I mean “them”—was Ted’s girlfriend of the moment, a very pretty blond girl, appropriately demure and/or well-bred, named Lacey Neuhaus. I don’t remember Senator “Call me Chris” Dodd’s having alerted me to the impressive identity of our pending dinner companion, but I have to assume that he did, as he had only just met me and so couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t be struck dumb by the close proximity of someone of Senator Kennedy’s mien.

Completing the round six-seat table, nestled in a dimly lit private room on the second floor of this very exclusive restaurant in the virulently charming neighborhood of Georgetown, was a lovely married couple about whom all I knew at the time was that they lived next door to Ethel Kennedy’s Hickory Hill estate. Given the exclusive area of town they called home, and given the ease with which they conducted themselves in the current American royal company, I had to assume that they were extremely wealthy, intelligent, and well-connected people. I do recall that they were also charming, and not just because they appeared to find me so. (Their names have escaped the often-unlocked cage of my memory.)

Though the lines between show business celebrity and political prominence have frequently blurred, the chasm between the skill set required to distinguish oneself in Hollywood as opposed to Washington is fairly vast. Despite this, all too often the two disparate worlds of the well-known not only overlap but have been known to actually fuse, resulting in hybrids that have provided us with mutations along the lines of President Reagan and Governor Schwarzenegger.

This mutual attraction between our political leaders and our entertainers has led to numerous instances of what might be described as crossbreeding. President Kennedy’s White House dalliances with Marilyn Monroe. Elizabeth Taylor’s marriage to Virginia senator John Warner. Jane Fonda’s marriage to Tom Hayden. Debra Winger’s relationship with Nebraska governor Bob Kerrey. Linda Ronstadt’s “seeing” (and presumably hearing, speaking to and even feeling) California governor Jerry Brown. And now it was my turn to contribute to this overlap, however briefly and insignificantly.

Chris and Senator Kennedy, I quickly learned, could be snatched from us at any moment, summoned back to the Senate floor for a vote, so we were united in this limbo between food and drink and the potential pressing call to attend to the running of our country. I was impressed. So with the shadow of “the floor” looming over our little gathering, the two senators held forth, fifth, sixth, and beyond, while sipping red wine and consuming appetizers.

Senator Kennedy was particularly eloquent. I don’t recall his subject matter, but I do remember it was of a topical, political nature. Shocking, I know. It occurs to me that Nicaragua had something to do with it—that was the country Americans argued about at the time—but I can’t be certain. (Of pretty much anything lately, when it comes to memory. But there’s the swap: out goes the depression, propelled by friendly electricity, and with it go all manner of recollections that at one time might have stayed put.) But I do remember marveling at him, if that’s an appropriate expression.