My dad dumped my mum Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor. But as a man, I can understand it..
. when she locked those violet eyes on you, it was mesmerising By Interview By Lina Das Published: 02:11 BST, 9 August 2024 | Updated: 02:11 BST, 9 August 2024 e-mail View comments Children of divorce understandably often harbour bitter feelings towards the parent who leaves, especially if the break-up is the result of an affair. But when you're treated to elephant rides at home for your second birthday, smoked joints with Tony Curtis aged 15 and smooched Bianca Jagger at 16, maybe your view of life is somewhat different.
Because Todd Fisher is remarkably sympathetic towards his father, who abandoned his mother when he was a few months old and his sister was just two. Todd is the son of Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, star of Singin' In The Rain, and popular 1950s singer Eddie Fisher. Todd Fisher talks to Lina Das about his father (pictured) and Elizabeth Taylor's affair His elder sister? Carrie Fisher , the late writer and actress who found fame as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies.
Eddie infamously walked out on his young family for Elizabeth Taylor , after her third husband Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958. The two couples had been great friends, so Debbie looked after Elizabeth's children while Eddie went to comfort her. Or as Carrie later pithily put it: 'Consoled her with his penis.
' So it would be excusable if Todd never forgave his father – or Elizabeth. But he has a different perspective. 'Early in my life I didn't really know Elizabeth Taylor,' he says, 'but we became very friendly later on.
If you watch some of the footage of my father when the divorce was taking place, he was really flippant about it, saying: 'I just want out!' 'But on the other hand, I've had decades to think about this and nowadays when people ask me about it, I show them a picture of Elizabeth at that time and say: 'As a man, I can sort of understand what happened to my father.' 'She was pretty amazing looking and her personality was amazing, too.' Todd is the son of Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, star of Singin' In The Rain, and popular 1950s singer Eddie Fisher His elder sister was Carrie Fisher, bottom left, an actress who found fame as Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies Todd says that he doesn't condone what happened.
'Maybe my father should have taken the high road, but I can tell you, when you were talking to Elizabeth and she would lock on with those violet eyes, it was mesmerising.' The affair – which scandalised Hollywood – is a topic discussed at length in a new documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. Featuring 70 hours of unearthed audio recordings of Elizabeth in conversation with her friend, the late journalist Richard Meryman, she explains that she 'never loved Eddie' and describes their five-year marriage, rather coldly, as 'one big, friggin' awful mistake'.
Todd may have been just a baby when the scandal unfolded, but as he puts it: 'I guess you could say I have a unique perspective on the story.' Affable and witty, the 66-year-old filmmaker is chatting about his unconventional childhood prior to unveiling an exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California of costumes that his late sister wore in the Star Wars movies. 'Carrie and I were asked a lot about what it was like growing up in that Hollywood environment but we didn't know that anything was weird,' he says.
'I mean, my father was going down the Nile with Liz Taylor.' He laughs. 'I didn't know what normal was!' Debbie and Eddie and Liz and Mike had been so close that when Todd was born, he was named in honour of Mike Todd – a charismatic, brash producer who was, according to his namesake, 'apparently the only man able to wrangle Elizabeth Taylor and really fulfil and satisfy her'.
Debbie Reynolds with her children, Todd and Carrie He adds: 'Many years later, Elizabeth insisted on explaining everything to me and wouldn't let up. The long and short of it was that Mike Todd was the love of her life and she was blown out of the water when he died.' Todd doesn't think his father rushed to her side intending to sleep with Elizabeth Taylor.
'I think my dad was trying to rescue her in a very real way. But Elizabeth was so depressed..
. what she needed was a psychiatrist or somebody who could help her with her deep depression. And my dad was certainly not a qualified mental physician.
' In the tapes, over what she calls 'Scotchy sodas', Elizabeth tells Meryman that the only thing she had in common with Eddie was Mike. 'I was still in love with the memory of Mike. I was keeping Mike alive by talking about him.
' Though she says that she 'never loved Eddie', Todd begs to differ. 'I have some things written by Elizabeth to my father and they're very beautiful,' he says. 'She did love my father and she told me that, but she loved him as a brother, as Mike Todd's best friend.
My father was what she needed at that moment, but he definitely loved her more than she loved him. She outgrew him very quickly and he was never going to satisfy her long-term.' In the recordings, which started in 1964, Elizabeth complains of Eddie: 'We never went out.
.. it was like being locked up.
' Eddie infamously walked out on his young family for the British-born actress after her third husband Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958 Todd explains: 'Initially, they were pretty much love bugs, but when Elizabeth grew out of that and wanted to do things and have more friends around, there was an element of him wanting to control her. It was a classic rebound relationship for her. 'But for my dad, unfortunately, it was the real deal.
' This was highlighted vividly when, in 1960, filming began on the epic movie Cleopatra, with Elizabeth in the lead role. Playing her love interest Mark Antony was handsome Welsh actor Richard Burton. 'My father was a very charming man, a lot of fun and an unbelievable singer,' says Todd, 'but he was not well-read.
'As a conversationalist, he was probably rather limited, so I think he and Elizabeth ran out of things to talk about quite soon. 'Then along came Richard Burton, who was not only very well-read but also one of the great actors of all time. My dad became very jealous, especially when he was trying to compete with Richard Burton, which was hopeless.
' Todd sighs. 'He ate my dad alive.' The attraction between the co-stars was undeniable and, despite Burton also being married, they began an affair.
Moreover, they did little to hide it. At a party being thrown by Elizabeth and Eddie at their rented villa near Rome, an intoxicated Burton showed up uninvited and proceeded to kiss Elizabeth on the lips as Eddie watched, humiliated. 'Any man worth his salt would have felt insulted,' says Todd.
Todd and his mother Debbie, who died on December 28, 2016 aged 84, one day after her daughter Carrie's death Eddie wasn't the only one appalled by their affair. The Vatican issued a statement condemning Elizabeth, while the FBI had to be called in when bomb threats were issued against her. Even her own father, she claims in the documentary, called her 'a whore'.
Eddie's despair was palpable. As Elizabeth recounted on tape: 'Eddie at night time would sit up..
. and he had a gun. Every time I nearly nodded off he would stroke my arm and say, 'I'm not going to kill you.
I wouldn't shoot you. You are much too pretty.' ' Eventually, she ran from the house, terrified.
'I don't know about the gun,' admits Todd, 'but I knew he was desperate to keep her. 'He became addicted to drugs during his relationship with my mother, but part of his excuse for getting further into drugs was being dumped by Elizabeth. If you're looking for a scapegoat for your problems, Elizabeth Taylor is a pretty good one to have.
' Elizabeth divorced Eddie in 1964 and married Richard Burton ten days later, although the famously volatile couple were to eventually divorce, remarry and divorce again . Perhaps the most surprising part of the documentary is Elizabeth's dismissiveness towards Todd's mother. She rather cuttingly remarks that Debbie Reynolds 'put on such an act' when she expressed her initial shock at her then husband's desire for a divorce.
'But Elizabeth was right,' says Todd, 'in the respect that my mother already knew her marriage was on the rocks [before Eddie left].' In fact, so aware was Debbie that, keen for a sibling for Carrie, she 'chased my father down to Europe, gave him a couple of beers, slept with him one time and declared she was pregnant. 'And she was pregnant.
.. with me! So yes, it sounded cruel, but it was true.
My mother, being an eternal optimist, would have stayed in the marriage no matter how bad it was because she wanted a father for her children.' Todd says that as a man, he 'can sort of understand what happened to my father' After Eddie left home, says Todd, 'my mother went back to work, picked up the pieces and raised Carrie and me in a seamless and very dignified fashion. And she never said a bad word about Elizabeth or Eddie.
' Indeed, Debbie and Elizabeth eventually patched things up, and when Debbie later invited Elizabeth and Burton to a party at her home, it provided Todd with one of the more colourful episodes of his childhood. 'There were about 100 people at this party,' he says, 'but Elizabeth and Richard were in the middle of them all having a literal fist fight. 'She was smacking the s*** out of him and he was initially deflecting the blows until he started hitting her, too.
'So, my mother stepped in and escorted them upstairs to her bedroom and said: 'If you're going to do this, do it here.' Todd and sister Carrie's curiosity was piqued, 'so we followed them upstairs to see what was going to happen and ten minutes later, they both came out dishevelled and pulling on [trousers], belts, whatever.' He laughs.
'Years later we realised we had just observed the aftermath of make-up sex.' Carrie went on to write the 2001 comedy film, These Old Broads, for her mother and Elizabeth. Read More Elizabeth Taylor's father branded her a w***e when her affair with Richard Burton was exposed 'There's a line in it where Elizabeth's character tells my mum's character: 'You really should be happy that I took Freddie off your hands.
' And the truth is, Elizabeth really did do my mother a favour. My father,' says Todd, fondly, 'was a train wreck.' Unfortunately, Debbie's luck with men wasn't to improve.
A year after her divorce from Eddie, she married businessman Harry Karl, an inveterate gambler who lost most of her money, while she accused her third husband, real estate developer Richard Hamlett, of losing the rest. 'Harry did not do anything maliciously,' explains Todd, 'but Richard was a scoundrel of scoundrels.' Not only did he steal Debbie's hard-earned fortune but, Todd adds: 'The entire time he was with my mother, he also had a baby with another woman.
' Hamlett always denied the accusations. But her marital knockbacks prompted Debbie to remark to her daughter: 'You know dear, Eddie's starting to look like the good husband.' The bond between Debbie, Carrie and Todd only seemed to grow stronger as undeserving men crossed their threshold, though it was shaken when mother and daughter went through a near ten-year period of estrangement when Carrie was in her early 20s.
She had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, in addition to dealing with her own issues of drug abuse and also felt in perpetual competition with her mother. Debbie was also drinking more heavily because of the stress of her second marriage. Carrie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor at an event in Los Angeles in 2015 'I tried everything to get them to talk,' says Todd, 'but instead I became their answering service and they would leave messages for each other through me.
There was no way to fix anything until Carrie could get a different perspective on things because my mother was unchanging the whole time, but when they did [start talking again], my reaction was, 'Well, it's about damn time!' The pair were ultimately so close that when Carrie suffered a heart attack and died eight years ago aged 60 (the autopsy uncovered traces in her system of heroin and cocaine), her 84-year-old mother, weakened by a stroke, died the following day. Todd has always maintained that his mother didn't die of a broken heart, rather that she 'willed herself right off this planet to personally see to it that Carrie would never be alone. 'She spent a long time talking to me that day and one of the things she said was: 'I really hope you're going to be OK when I'm gone.
' 'I was saying: 'Of course I'll be OK', not thinking that she meant she'd be going in an hour. 'In effect she was asking my permission to leave. So, while I was devastated by the loss, what really softened that loss was our conversation.
And we're people of faith, so I really do believe we'll all be together again.' A passionate keeper of their flames, he occasionally still refers to both Carrie and Debbie in the present tense and in 2018 published a poignant tribute to them both, entitled My Girls. Unfortunately, the book didn't sit well with Carrie's daughter Billie Lourd, 32, also an actress, who criticised her uncle for writing the book 'with my mom and my grandmother's deaths as the subject' and for giving interviews after they died.
It led to Todd not being invited to the unveiling of Carrie's Hollywood Walk of Fame star last year. 'It did hurt,' admits Todd, who has been married to Catherine Hickland, a stage hypnotist, for 12 years. 'She obviously hadn't read the book because it was written with love and it's a book about the relationship between the three of us.
Ironically, my reason for writing the book was because I wanted to set the record straight.' It's a fascinating read – even more so given the unique relationship the trio shared. 'But I don't think our relationship was that unusual in some respects,' insists Todd.
He's right. Once you get past the flings with Elizabeth Taylor and the Hollywood glitz 'the love and the loyalty between us,' says Todd, 'is really very normal'. Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes will air on Sky Documentaries this Saturday.
Also see toddfisher.com. Elizabeth Taylor Share or comment on this article: My dad dumped my mum Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor.
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