Posted on 12/27/2016 2:52:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s time for another TMS video history lesson, this time about Carrie Fisher’s unsung skills as one of Hollywood’s most notable script doctors! The video above details Fisher’s career history working as a punch-up writer on some of the greatest films of the 90s—as well as a few unsalvageable stinkers. Read the transcript for our video below.
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Carrie Fisher is still best known for her role as Princess Leia, in spite of the fact that her legacy in Hollywood—both on-screen and behind the scenes—stretches way beyond her Star Wars debut decades ago. Fisher deserves to be remembered, but not necessarily as the gold bikini-wearing sex symbol that will likely pervade her search engine results for decades to come, in spite of her own wish that she’d fought against that outfit. In that spirit, let’s give Carrie Fisher a little more recognition for a very different and very significant role that she took on in the world of film, over and over again: script doctor.
Script doctoring, or script consulting, is a skill that often goes uncredited and unacknowledged in Hollywood. Writers will get hired to polish up an existing screenplay; just like doctors, they diagnose problems and suggest solutions. In the case of script doctoring, that means anything from adding in a few new jokes, to implementing massive structural changes or reworking entire characters and scenes.
Carrie Fisher’s career as a script doctor became the stuff of legend in the 1990s. Fisher was responsible for fixing up Hook in 1991, Sister Act in 1992, Lethal Weapon 3 in 1992 and The Wedding Singer in 1998. In 1992, Entertainment Weekly called Carrie Fisher “one of the most sought after doctors in town”—high praise, and one of the only accolades that Fisher would ever receive in printed form, given that she was not credited by name as a writer for any of the films in which she had a hand.
There are some projects to which Fisher might not have wanted her name attached, however. Fisher has been said to be one of the script doctors on board to fix all three of the Star Wars prequel scripts. Even Fisher’s writing skills and Star Wars savvy must not have been enough to save those projects! Not all patients can be cured, as every doctor knows.
In 2008, Fisher told Newsweek that she hadn’t done script doctoring for a few years, but that it had once been a very lucrative career for her. Nowadays, she says, the process is very different: in order to be considered for script consulting gigs, you have to submit your notes and ideas ahead of time. But then they can keep those notes and not hire you, Fisher points out. She calls it “free work”—“that’s what I always call life-wasting events.”
Take it from Carrie Fisher, young writers: don’t let other people take advantage of you. Own your worth; fight on your own behalf; be your own best advocate. That should be the Carrie Fisher legacy.
Michael Jackson? Lady Diana? In terms of media coverage, those two might be the biggest I can remember in last 20 years.
Prince? Michael Jackson?
I suspect, though, that if Star Wars hadn't come out with new movies in recent months, Carrie's passing might not have attracted so much attention.
If she was grounded, she got to it via manic depression & cocaine... /half joking
Lest we forget how Greta Van Sustern et al drug on and on over Anna Nicole Smith ?
“I don’t remember the death of a celebrity taking up so much airtime as Carrie’s - may she Rest in Peace.”
Elvis. His death at age 42 smacked a lot of people in the face with their own mortality.
Carrie Fisher starred in movies that literally almost everyone in the First- and Second-World have seen over the last 40 years. And I won’t even go into the slave-girl costume.
RIP.
Sister Act wasn’t that bad. Cheesy, perhaps, but not terrible.
Skip the cheap shots.
Laz is very sad about Fisher’s passing but he does have two life-size cardboard images of her in the gold bikini. One for each eye.
I was unaware of Fisher’s prowess as a “script doctor.” To me, that’s a claim to fame that exceeds her Star Wars role. It reminds me of a prolific screen writer of yesteryear, Ben Hecht, who was also a script doctor of renown. He could re-work an entire script in a few days. Anyone remember him?
LOL, that works.
He was referenced on an episode of Gilligan’s Island, as I recall.
Of all places!
Dan Akroyd believes aliens have visited Earth, and that our government is covering it up.
http://www.inquisitr.com/1590272/dan-aykroyd-aliens-think-humans-are-depraved-and-disgusting/
The Producer (1966)
Phil Silvers as Harold Hecuba
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0588103/?ref_=ttep_ep4
He’s not exactly alone.
True, there are numerous crazy people in this world.
Who would know better than Beldar?
Laz is very sad about Fisher’s passing but he does have two life-size cardboard images of her in the gold bikini. One for each eye.
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F this! And you wonder why women have issues with comments such as these.
F’n ANIMAL
I was shocked at michaels net worth..I figured he drugged it all away. Some godchildren are about to become rich.
Someone is taking your name in vain re: Slave Leia, but then I’d ... well you know.
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