Final goodbye to Debbie & Carrie,
Todd Fisher’s tribute comes with tears, laughs and R2-D2
Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher graced the stage together one more time for a joyous memorial service Saturday at Forest Lawn cemetery in front of family, fans, friends, a dog, a parrot and even Star Wars droid R2-D2.
Todd Fisher, Reynolds’ son and Fisher’s brother, organized and hosted the two-hour event, making sure to put plenty of show business and laughs into the festivities to honor the mother and daughter who died within 24 hours of each other in December. Fisher, who was 60, and Reynolds, 84, are buried side by side in Forest Lawn.
“I am calling it a show because my mother didn’t like memorials, she liked shows,” Todd Fisher said from the stage.
“This show was designed to be like in our living room, as if we were all a big family having a memorial for two amazing people,” he said.
Reynolds’ dog Dwight was front and center, along with Fisher’s parrot. Dan Aykroyd, who was once engaged to Fisher, gave a moving speech, along with Fisher’s childhood friends security expert Gavin de Becker and producer Griffin Dunne.
The 1,200-seat theater was filled with well-wishers, and overflow seats were needed. Fisher’s daughter, Scream
Queens actress Billie Lourd, was scheduled to attend but didn’t. She was featured in a moving clip that showed Reynolds’ final show in Las Vegas in 2014.
After the service, Fisher told USA TODAY he hadn’t heard from Lourd directly but understood her decision.
“This is emotional. It can tear your heart out,” he said. “We’re all feeling it. And try being 24 and feeling it.”
In an emotional moment, R2-D2 rolled onto the stage and gave plaintive droid whistles near an empty spotlighted director’s chair bearing the name of the
Star Wars actress, who was known and beloved around the world as Princess Leia.
Aykroyd talked lovingly about the “electric and enchanting ” Fisher.
Dunne remembered his conversations with Fisher as she was filming 1977’s Star Wars.
“She’d go, ‘Oh, my God! This movie is so stupid. There’s no set, it’s this green screen and this big ape chases me around,’ ” Dunne recalled.
But after seeing the film’s world premiere, he said, Fisher was blown away. “She knew that movies were never going to be the same, and we just knew Carrie’s life was never going to be the same,” Dunne said.
Co-stars Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill weren’t present, except in clips shown from the movies. But Hamill made it clear he was there in spirit, revealing on Twitter that she once threatened to “heckle his funeral” if he died before her and said he knew “she would also want us all to laugh today.”
Fisher’s friend James Blunt wasn’t present. But his hit song
You’re Beautiful was played on a video screen alongside images of Fisher. The song was written on a piano in Fisher’s bathroom.
Blunt also unveiled a new tune written for Fisher, Courtney’s
Song, with the lyrics, “When you left without saying goodbye, I’m here to let you know, I’m here to let you go.”