"Bright Lights" The Debbie-Carrie HBO Documentary

[+ WilliamM]

I was never a fan, but I saw Debbie in person once...in the audience of a Liza Minnelli musical about Hollywood musicals ("Minnelli on Minnelli"). Reynolds had to wait outside the theater for her ride back to the hotel, somehow staying out of sight, not to distract from Liza.

 

The documentary is just okay. There is a very sad scene with Carrie and her dad, Eddie Fisher. Eddie did not possess Reynolds's determination to please an audience no matter how tired and ill she was privately.

[Chuckball]

I can't believe the timing of this documentary. Did HBO have it in the can before the sad events of mother-daughter demise came about. If put together in the past week it is fantastic.

[+ deej]

I can't believe the timing of this documentary. Did HBO have it in the can before the sad events of mother-daughter demise came about. If put together in the past week it is fantastic.

 

It was planned to air about six months from now. They moved it up.

[Boink]

In my whole life I have never heard the name Eddie Fisher in any other context than as the man who deserted his family for Elizabeth Taylor. It's hard to believe he was ever a star on his own. His looks and singing voice were routine at best and I doubt his name would be known today at all if it weren't for that scandal involving far more famous and talented women.

[Chuckball]

It says on the documentary that Eddie Fisher had more back to back hits than Presley or the Beatles combined. Go figure.

[Tonyko]

WHEN YOU WATCH THIS:

A) You want it to be ten hours longer.

B) You want them both to still be here.

C) You understand how one being here without the other seems impossible.

*My unc knows the director producer (who still acts too), he told me about this well over a year ago while it was being finished I only remember because my unc innacurately described it to me as the "real" behind the scenes "Postcards" which is one of my fave movies, so it stuck with me.

[MikeBiDude]

I liked the show...

[Epigonos]

I was never a Debbie Reynolds fan but many years ago I got roped into attending one of her solo Vegas shows. The truth is the woman put on one hell of a show. She was on stage for a full two hours, minus costume changes and her energy level was absolutely amazing. In retrospect I am extremely happy that I was forced to go. It turned out to be one of my great theatre experiences.

[MikeBiDude]

I was never a Debbie Reynolds fan but many years ago I got roped into attending one of her solo Vegas shows. The truth is the woman put on one hell of a show. She was on stage for a full two hours, minus costume changes and her energy level was absolutely amazing. In retrospect I am extremely happy that I was forced to go. It turned out to be one of my great theatre experiences.

Ditto, friends were comped into a Vegas hotel for room/food/shows and they invited me. This was a long time ago, she put on an act that kept my attention nonstop. My favorite part was how she introduced herself "I'm Princess Leia's mother..."

[+ WilliamM]

 

Eddie Fisher had a decent career for a whole after the scandal. His appearance here is from 1964. A few years earlier Fisher played the Winter Garden in New York for several weeks. It was a Broadway theater, which helped him regain some of the best parts of his career.

 

What I remember is Fisher remaining in Rome far too long after it was clear to everyone but Eddie Fisher that Elizabeth Taylor was now with Burton.

 

He was the punch lines of jokes, especially by Sinatra

[Boink]

It says on the documentary that Eddie Fisher had more back to back hits than Presley or the Beatles combined. Go figure.

 

I wouldn't be able to name one song of his.

[+ sniper]

He was most famous for "Oh my Papa" - but I learned that from watching "Wishful Drinking." His other songs(which I looked up) I couldn't name. But is was interesting and a little sad to see what a wonderful singer Carrie Fisher was, and she didn't really do much of it professionally, calling it her rebellion against her mother.

[+ WilliamM]

 

By the early 1960s, Al Jolson's songs, especially "Rockabye Your Baby with A Dixie Melody" were now "owned" by Judy Garland, not Eddie Fisher.

 

Garland sang the song in every concert, on TV specials and her own 1963-1964 prime-time CBS variety slow.

 

Eddie Fisher did well with single song hits, but he was never able to move beyond that 1950s stage in his career.

[Tonyko]

Liz tried to make an actor out of him when they were married (he plays her ExBF/Best friend in Butterfield 8 etc) but he wasn't very good. The guy DID have a fantastic voice no question, but he didn't have a "voice", no personality under it like a Sinatra or Bobby Darin, no "little somethin' extra".