[Dixielandjazz] Eddie Fisher RIP

[Robert Ringwald]

Eddie Fisher (Washington Post)

Eddie Fisher Dies at 82
by Matt Schudel
Washington Post, September 25, 2010

Eddie Fisher, a pop-singing sensation of the 1950s who was at the center of one of
Hollywood's most notorious romantic scandals when he divorced actress Debbie Reynolds
to marry Elizabeth Taylor, died Sept. 22 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 82
and had complications from recent hip surgery.
Mr. Fisher vaulted to fame in the early 1950s, selling tens of millions of records
and charting dozens of Top 10 hits, including "Tell Me Why," "I'm Walking Behind
You" and "Oh, My Pa-Pa." His beckoning tenor voice made him America's favorite teen
idol in the years just before rock-and-roll made his stiff, heavily orchestrated
music obsolete.
His stardom was soon overshadowed by the lurid drama surrounding his all-too-public
love life. In 1955, he married the pert and popular Reynolds, and they were soon
dubbed "America's favorite couple." They starred in the movie "Bundle of Joy" in
1956 and soon had two children of their own, including actress Carrie Fisher, who
later played Princess Leia in "Star Wars."
The Fishers were close friends with Taylor and her husband at the time, Hollywood
producer Mike Todd. After Todd was killed in an airplane crash in March 1958, Mr.
Fisher consoled the grieving Taylor, and a romance soon bloomed. The public turned
against Mr. Fisher when he divorced Reynolds in 1959 and married Taylor.
The glamorous couple had homes in Italy and Switzerland and were constant fodder
for the gossip mill. In later years, Mr. Fisher said he tried in vain to get Taylor
to limit her heavy drinking and pleaded with the servants to cut her off after five
cocktails.
Taylor said she found Mr. Fisher equally unstable. According to her memoirs, she
awoke one night in their Italian villa to find him pointing a gun at her head.
"Don't worry, Elizabeth," he said, in the words of the memoir. "I'm not going to
kill you. You're too beautiful."
Mr. Fisher had a role in the 1960 drama "Butterfield 8," for which Taylor won an
Oscar as best actress, but by then he was already fading from fame. But when Taylor
went to Rome a year later to film "Cleopatra," she fell into the arms of her co-star
Richard Burton.
Awkwardly hoping for a reconciliation, Mr. Fisher became the most famous cuckold
in the world and was the butt of comedy routines and salacious scandal sheets. When
he called Taylor at one of their homes, Burton answered the phone and explained in
crudely graphic terms exactly why he was there with Taylor.
In his 1999 memoir "Been There, Done That," Mr. Fisher wrote with some bewilderment:
"I was Eddie Fisher -- women loved me, they didn't cheat on me."
He finally agreed to a divorce in 1964.
"At some point after working with Burton," Mr. Fisher wrote in a 1981 memoir, "I
think she began to see me as a jailer. I was spoiling her fun."
Taylor, who married and divorced Burton twice on her way to eight marriages, casually
dismissed Mr. Fisher as "the busboy."
"I couldn't stop loving her, and needing her," he wrote in his 1999 autobiography.
"I missed her more than I had ever missed anyone in my life."
Edwin Jack Fisher was born Aug. 10, 1928, in Philadelphia and grew up as one of seven
children. His father, a Jewish immigrant from Russia, was a struggling grocer in
South Philadelphia.
Young Eddie won talent shows and was singing on the radio by the time he was 15.
He moved to New York at 17 to join bands led by Buddy Morrow and Charlie Ventura.
While worked at hotels in the Borscht Belt of New York's Catskill Mountains, he was
discovered by comedian Eddie Cantor, who hired Mr. Fisher for a national tour.
"In one year," Cantor predicted in 1949, "this boy will be America's most important
new singer of popular songs."
Mr. Fisher's first hit came in 1950 with "Thinking of You." He quickly followed that
with "Any Time," "Lady of Spain" and "(You Gotta Have) Heart" from the musical "Damn
Yankees." He hit No. 1 with "Wish You Were Here" and "I'm Walking Behind You" (both
in 1952), "Oh, My Pa-Pa" (1953) and "I Need You Now" (1954).
When Mr. Fisher was drafted into the Army in 1951, he was sent on tours to entertain
troops in Korea. He had radio and TV shows on NBC from 1953 to 1959. By 1953, he
was taking home $1 million a year.
A decade later, after his romantic debacle with Reynolds and Taylor, his fame and
its accouterments were almost gone. He married actress Connie Stevens in 1967 and
had two more children; they were divorced in 1969.
A year later, Mr. Fisher declared bankruptcy. He attempted occasional comebacks,
but the last 40 years of his career were spent in sporadic engagements in Las Vegas
and in second-tier concert halls.
In some ways, Mr. Fisher became better known as a one-time star fallen low than for
his actual achievements. He lamented that Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett had built
solid careers while he could never escape his past.
In two memoirs, Mr. Fisher revealed that he had been addicted to amphetamines and
cocaine for more than 30 years and had spent $20 million on drugs and gambling during
his life.
He also named many of his more celebrated romantic conquests, ticking off a seemingly
endless list that included Marlene Dietrich, Ann-Margret, Judy Garland, Mia Farrow,
Kim Novak, Angie Dickinson, Dinah Shore and Juliet Prowse.
When his tell-all 1999 autobiography came out, Carrie Fisher threatened to change
her last name to Reynolds, adding: "That's it. I'm having my DNA fumigated."
Other survivors include a son with Reynolds, Todd Fisher; and two daughters with
Stevens, actresses Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher.
In 1975, Mr. Fisher married 21-year-old beauty queen Terry Richard, but they were
divorced in less than a year. His fifth wife was businesswoman Betty Young Lin, whom
he married in 1993. She died in 2001.
Asked to explain his peculiar appeal, as a faded pop star who romanced some of the
most glamorous women in the world, Mr. Fisher said in 1999, "I wasn't the handsomest
of men but I was adorable."