No Tears For Carrie

By Dave Levine

I wish I could say I’m sorry to hear about Carrie Fisher’s untimely death but I’m not. If you’ve followed my show and/or my columns, you’d know I have no sympathy for druggies (drug addicts) killing themselves with drug abuse especially those who use illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine, meth and other illegal drugs.

In Ms. Fisher’s case, she went to great lengths and for long periods of time to talk about her drug abuse via the media. Some would call that “cries for help/intervention”. But whatever the “intervention”, it didn’t work and she continued abusing and talking about it in the media. Not a very good role model for others!

Perhaps her drug abuse stemmed from her famous parents’ (Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds) divorce. Whatever the reason, she never “went clean and stayed clean”. Had she done so, she’d have likely been a heroine to many Americans but she didn’t.

One wonders why an uber-rich, privileged Hollywood movie icon would not take advantage of her being able to afford quality care and intervention. Sounds to me that she had “a death wish”, that she was on “a suicide mission”. So many stars can’t handle success. So many die young and often by their own hands.

I didn’t know Carrie Fisher or her mother but I met her father. I liked Star Wars, so much that I went back to see it 8 times.

Thru my adult life (which included working as a waiter on the Chasen’s banquet crew back in the late 1970s), I met countless movie stars. I also worked for some stars as a private party pianist at estates and hotels in Montecito, CA. Most of these actors held drinks (alcohol) in their hands at their parties. Some of them–perhaps many of them and their spouses–had alcohol abuse issues.

At the last private party I performed at as pianist in Montecito in 1985 before moving back to the Bay Area, I entered the estate of a party client and saw the wife of a famous star passed out on a bed down the hallway surrounded by guests. Her movie star-husband didn’t seem to be concerned, drinking a double scotch out on the terrace while his wife lay unconscious in a guest’s bedroom. Talk about “surreal”!

It’s hard to feel sorry for people who can’t control their drinking and drug addictions. They’re living what many of us would give anything to live–privileged lives–but they can’t handle success. They are the worst abusers of drugs and alcohol yet so many Americans “revere” them. I don’t. I’ve seen some of these people as they really are. And, by the way, illicit drug use as well as purchase and sale of same is still against the law.

I cannot shed any tears for the now-late Carrie Fisher or for anyone who drinks or drugs themselves to death. I shed tears for pets–innocent animals who are dependent on us for their nourishment and shelter–who are abused, tortured and killed by evil human beings

It’s all about “personal responsibility”. It would be nice if more people had it.