Artwork by DAVID DARING
FRESH AIR: Carrie Fisher was an insecure 19-year-old when she appeared as Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie, a role that would come to define her career. She tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that despite becoming romantically involved with her older, married co-star, Harrison Ford, she often felt isolated on set. “I didn’t have anyone to confide in,” she says. “I had no friends, and I couldn’t talk about [the affair with Ford] because he was married.” Instead, Fisher began recording her thoughts and experiences in a journal. After the film wrapped, she put the diary away and forgot about it. Decades later, the diary resurfaced during a remodeling project. Now Fisher has turned that diary into a memoir called The Princess Diarist. The book revisits the making of the first Star Wars film, and includes excerpts from the journal she wrote at the time. The actress says she was determined to share her
experiences with others, even if parts of the journal feel very personal.”I think I do overshare,” Fisher says. “It’s my way of trying to understand myself. … It creates community when you talk about private things.” On telling Harrison Ford she was going to go public with the affair: “I said, ‘I found the journals that I kept during the first movie and I’m probably going to publish them.’ And he just sort of raised his finger and said, ‘Lawyer!’ And then I said, ‘No, I won’t write anything that you don’t want. I mean, I’ll show it to you before and you can take anything out that you want taken out. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,’ which I, of course, have. Unduly uncomfortable…I sent it to him … [and] I never heard back, so I can’t imagine that he was comfortable with everything that was in it. But it’s not like it’s negative about him — it’s just a personal story that’s been a secret for a long time.” MORE
__________
“Folsom Prison Blues” by JON LANGFORD
FRESH AIR: Today, we take a look back at the Man in Black, who spoke with Terry Gross in 1997.Cash began recording albums and performing in the 1950s. His long romance with wife June Carter Cash, celebrated in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, spanned five decades — from their early touring days to their rise as one of America’s most popular country-music couples. Cash recorded over 1,500 songs in his career, including such classic hits as “I Walk the Line,” “Ring of Fire” and “A Boy Named Sue.” He played several of his most popular songs, including “Folsom Prison Blues,” at that maximum security facility in 1968. The album based on that performance hit the top slot on the country-music charts and revitalized Cash’s career.In the 1990s, Cash worked with rock producer Rick Rubin. The two collaborated on several critically acclaimed Grammy-winning albums — two of which have been released since Cash’s death in 2003. MORE