• March 27, 1991

Rappin' with Penny & Carrie

The Fastest Gums in the West Wax Wise and Wild on Their Crazy Business—and Lives

When other friendships have been forgot, ours will still he hot," Cole Porter once wrote. "Friendship," his 1939 ditty, would make an apt theme song for Penny Marshall and Carrie Fisher. Best buddies, they met in 1979 in the lobby of the Manhattan apartment building where, co-incidentally, both were staying. Despite contrasting backgrounds—Fisher is a Hollywood legacy and Marshall a scrapper from the Bronx—they stuck like Velcro, outlasting their various romantic alliances. Both dramatically catapulted themselves out of (admittedly lucrative) career ruts. Fisher, 34, once best-known as the cherubic Princess Leia of Star Wars, has become a best-selling novelist and scenarist with Postcards from the Edge and Surrender the Pink. Marshall, 47, once the loud Laverne of Laverne and Shirley, has migrated behind the camera to direct Big and the current Oscar nominee Awakenings, starring Robert De Niro. Busy as they are, they still love to flop on Marshall's bed in her Hollywood Hills home for raucous girl talk—exactly what they did late one recent night, with correspondent Todd Gold on hand to get it on tape. [P] PENNY: So, nu? What did you do today? [P] CARRIE: Let's see. I went and helped Spielberg write a speech. I had some Reese's Pieces. I met Meryl [LB]Streep[RB] at Maxfields for the 99th time. She bought a sweater and a very amusing dress to accommodate her pregnancy. And I went to my psychiatrist. That was enlightening. After 17 years, I think I'm almost done. [P] PENNY: And you came here. [P] CARRIE: A typical day. I'm doing revisions on five different projects now. I'm not used to doing this much work. I'm at the point where I want someone to write me a note. [P] PENNY: I know. "Penny can't direct today. She has a cold." I'll go and go like crazy. And then I'll have to lay in bed for a day. [P] CARRIE: I burst into tears last night because I've been working so much. I like that expression—burst into tears. Like, boom! "Did you hear that? Carrie must've burst into tears again." [P] PENNY: We should get away somewhere. [P] CARRIE: But not to an island, because there's no shopping. [P] PENNY: It's when everything's going well that I have the most trouble. If things are terrible, I'm solid as a rock. [P] CARRIE: Right. If there's a crisis, I can rise to the occasion. But if things are going smoothly, I feel an eerie calm—like, 'Uh-oh, something's going to blow.' [P] PENNY: That's when you make up all the neurotic s—-, the insecure stuff. [P] CARRIE: Yeah. Everything was going nicely, so guess what? I've become phobic about flying. And I have to fly almost every week. [P] PENNY: I'm afraid of heights. [P] CARRIE: Sometimes you don't feel as if you deserve your success. But if you put yourself through great difficulty, you can almost let yourself feel you deserve the great rewards. [P] PENNY: The business does that to you too. They like you, then they take potshots at you for a while. Then you do something, and they like you again. Happens over and over. [P] CARRIE: There's no free ride. The more successful I get as a writer, the more I have to work all the time. Perfect karma for a high school dropout—homework for the rest of my life. It's like the fairy tale where the princess has to spin a pile of hay into gold. But the pile never gets any lower. [P] PENNY: You're the princess. [P] CARRIE: I was the princess. Now I'm the pile of hay. People say, "What a great year! You must be so happy." It's embarrassing, but you're not really so happy because you're tired and your boyfriend is nagging you and you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap." At best you have moments when you feel sort of competent. [P] PENNY: I watch my movies, and I only see what's wrong with them. [P] CARRIE: You're too close to stuff. [P] PENNY: That feeling never goes away. Jim Brooks [LB]producer ol Big[ called me the other day and said they sold Big to ABC. There's two curse words and a bare breast in it. He says, "We'll fight for the breast and one curse word." If they say we can't have that, I'll have to go back and reedit. And it depends if they'll let it run its full length. But as I said to Jim, "I've got stuff I wouldn't mind trimming." I'm still working on Big, and how long ago did that come out? [P] CARRIE: [Nodding.[RB] As soon as I finish whatever draft I'm on, I have to do another one. [P] PENNY: If you're lucky enough to have a hit movie, then you're allowed four failures. [P] CARRIE: Are you really? [P] PENNY: Yeah, that's what they say. But I don't know if that applies to women. And I don't wish to find out. On Awakenings the buzz was good. This word I just learned—the buzz. But I didn't want to hear any buzz. I mean, the first movie I directed, I came on 10 days into shooting. I had no preparation. I just dropped into it to learn. Now people refer to it as "her failure." Hey, hey, lay back! I got something up on the screen. I finished the movie. [P] CARRIE: What was the failure? [P] PENNY: Jumpin' Jack Flash. I thought it was okay, considering there was no script. The pages just came flying. And it earned more than it cost to make. Hey, Big made a lot of money. I haven't seen a dime from it. So they both grossed the same amount as far as I'm concerned. Now people say jumpin' Jack Flash was dismal. Wait a second. Whoopi was cute in it. She was warmer than in the next six films she did. But I'm a failure. Thank God I didn't know it at the time. [P] CARRIE: You have to keep on doing what you do. You better make the most of the opportunities while they're there. [P] PENNY: [LB]Inaudible.[RB] [P] CARRIE: [LB]Laughing.[RB] What did you say, you bitch? [P] PENNY: I said, "Because then you get old and nobody will want you anymore." [P] CARRIE: Right. You want to beat the clock before your breasts fall. [P] PENNY: My breasts fell. [P] CARRIE: Oh, that was the noise. I burst into tears, and your breasts fell. Maybe I burst into tears because your breasts fell. [P] PENNY: I've said this before. Both of us were successful as actresses in parts that most of our friends felt were... [P] CARRIE: Demeaning. [P] PENNY: Embarrassing. I didn't know mine was embarrassing until they told me it was. [P] CARRIE: I wasn't ashamed of being Princess Leia. I mean, people knew who Princess Leia was, but they didn't know who I was. [P] PENNY: The characters were more famous than some of our friends, and that pissed everyone off. [P] CARRIE: Last October we had our birthday cake inscribed LAVERNE AND LEIA GO TO WAR. It seemed fun at the time. [P] PENNY: It was 10 years ago we began having joint birthday parties. [LB]Marshall's is Oct. 15, Fisher's Oct. 21.[RB] Being Libras, we can never decide who not to invite. So we invite everybody. [P] CARRIE: We've never gone in for themes much. [P] PENNY: One year it was Chinese. [P] CARRIE: And I got to write the fortune cookies. I was fantastic, took it very seriously. That's when you knew I was really going to write. [P] PENNY: The first party was at my house, in 1980. We've only missed three. Twice I was doing a movie, one year you got married. [P] CARRIE: Yeah. I said, "Penny, instead of the birthday party this year, I think I'm going to get married. Just for a change." [P] PENNY: I said, "Oh, okay. But I'm coming on the honeymoon." I mean, we had been double-dating for like five years—you and Paul [LB]Simon[RB], Art Garfunkel and me. [P] CARRIE: And then you were suicidally depressed the whole honeymoon. [P] PENNY: Yeah, going up the Nile, sick as a camel. [P] CARRIE: 'Cause God forbid we should have gone alone. That was like a prophecy for my marriage. You could see the hieroglyphics on the wall. [LB]Fisher and Simon were divorced in 1984.[RB] [P] PENNY: And on these sailboats people started yelling, "Laverne! Laverne!" Same thing happened to me white-water rafting on the Colorado. In the middle of the Grand Canyon, I hear echoing off the walls, "Laverne!" [P] CARRIE: Remember, after we first met, I did an episode of Laverne and Shirley and sang "My Guy" and we played Playboy bunnies? But it was like [CELEBRITY_LINK "Madonna"]—we chose to do it. We chose to put socks in our bras. [P] PENNY: As my daughter [LB]Tracy, by her first marriage[RB] was going off to college. Waving goodbye to her in a bunny suit. "Okay, honey, study hard, and you can be as successful as Mom!" [P] CARRIE: Credibility. [P] PENNY: The first year after I broke up with Rob [LB]Reiner[RB], remember, we went to Europe with Tracy and some friends. To Switzerland. [P] CARRIE: And a guy exposed himself to me. In front of a church after I'd had my version of a religious experience. I felt very connected to everything. And I get out of church and this guy says, "Tu vu?" And I say, "Pardon?" And he opens up his trench coat and there's this tiny, tiny penis, because it was very cold. That's what you get for having your sex organs all on the outside. [P] PENNY: Men are the weaker sex. [P] CARRIE: My shrink says men just want tit. [P] PENNY: Conversation and tit. I tried that with Rob. It just made him nervous. [P] CARRIE: When you're successful, the thing that attracts men to you as a date is exactly what drives them away as a mate. Maybe we should date Japanese men. [P] PENNY: They own me now. [LB]Columbia, which released Awakenings, is now a subsidiary of Sony.[RB] [P] CARRIE: It takes a very secure male to feel that he doesn't have to compete. He looks at his friends who have wives or girlfriends who perhaps don't devote as many hours to work, and he begins to feel neglected. It's not traditionally female to be a worker. There's the breadwinner, and then there's the bread baker. [P] PENNY: Only, we burned the bread. But it sure was funny. A lot of people come out to L.A. to meet someone, to get a boyfriend. I did. I was divorced, I had a kid, and I temped as a secretary. You took acting classes so you could get laid, basically. We were the misfits who joined together and got to be part of a club. To stay in you've got to maintain a certain level of success—or be married to success. [P] CARRIE: That's the lazy way. [P] PENNY: I thought I had it locked when I married Rob. Then I didn't have to be successful, because he was doing so well. Through him, during the '70s, I was part of a club—this comedy club. There were a lot of guys in it. Very few girls. Louise Lasser came drifting in briefly. They were hysterical, and I was married to one of them. I had entertainment at my house every night. It was the greatest. They all thought I was nice and funny, and they were encouraging. Then I went to work, and it got a little weird. In spurts they've become more supportive. Then they get a little threatened again. By now I've worked with most of them. Jim Brooks gave me a chance. [LB]Producer[RB] Larry Gordon gave me a chance. [P] CARRIE: You work too much to pay a lot of attention to the nonsense. [P] PENNY: Men want you to be funny. But then when you are, you aren't paying enough attention to them. They get a little hurt. Sometimes I think maybe I was happier back then. I don't know. [P] CARRIE: Everybody needs a wife. It can't be all flowers and no gardener. My mother [LB]Debbie Reynolds[RB] always worked, but between both my parents [LB]her father is Eddie Fisher[RB], they were married seven times. I don't have a strong role model for relationships. I know how to get the job done, but I'm not a nurturing person. I'm stimulating, but not soothing. [P] PENNY: You're soothing, honey. [P] CARRIE: No, I'm not. [P] PENNY: Yes, you are. Listen, I was in show business too, only I didn't know it. My mother was a dancing-school teacher, and I performed all my life. Tap dancing at USO shows. On TV. My father was an industrial filmmaker. They didn't like each other. So the lesson I absorbed was that you meet someone, be nice to them, marry them, then complain to your friends about them. [P] CARRIE: That's what my mother did. [P] PENNY: Then get divorced... [P] CARRIE: And cry to your friends. [P] PENNY: That's what we're here for. [P] CARRIE: To console one another... [P] PENNY: Oh, yeah! Let me tell you, your advice about men really works! [P] CARRIE: The trouble is, if a successful guy finds a beautiful unknown woman, it's the Cinderella story. But it doesn't work in reverse. If I do the same thing, I'm screwing the cabana boy. There's that story about Cher when she first saw Rob Camilletti: "Have him washed and brought to my tent." I don't know if that's what she really said, but that's what was heard. [P] PENNY: Get out of here. Why don't I hear this stuff? [P] CARRIE: You're always working. I call you and ask if you want to do something... [P] PENNY: And I say, "I'm looping [LB]recording dialogue[RB] with Robert De Niro." [P] CARRIE: I'll say, "Meryl and I are going shopping." [P] PENNY: Meryl, Meryl, Meryl. That's all I hear is Meryl. You like her more than me. [P] CARRIE: Let me ask you, Pen. Seriously. Do you like Robert De Niro more than me? Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. I mean, be honest. Does he wear blue face mask like I do? You can tell me. I can handle it. [P] PENNY: Oh, stop. [LB]Marshall's assistant brings a midnight supper, two pieces of broiled, flattened chicken.[RB] [P] CARRIE: See? Dinner with the stars. You want sauce, Pen? [P] PENNY: No, I'm too tired. How long is tomorrow? [P] CARRIE: Twenty-four hours. [P] PENNY: That long. Are you sure? [P]