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.
Laz is a strange animal, and FR fixture. But in his own weird way he has respect for the ladies here.
“Wedding Singer”
I LOVE that movie, one of the few I’m happy to watch over and over. Just watched it with hubby a couple of weeks ago, in fact.
“Sister Act wasn’t that bad.”
I liked that movie too, the concept was rather clever. And it was not disrespectful of religious faith, well I didn’t think it was anyway. Better than a lot of other stuff out there to be sure, silly as it was.
“Anyone remember [Ben Hect]?”
Sure, the name is familiar. Didn’t he write “The Front Page” (co-wrote I think actually) and wasn’t that the basis for “Chicago”?
I have heard he has and does demand special treatment
http://meanstars.com/profile.php?cid=223
She just passed away today. My reading of her status in the world of celbritydom is she wasn’t an A lister in general but in the world of geekdom she was. Her non Star Wars acting career was um quirky. She was also an author and script doctor and a typical hollyweird leftist moonbat. I am sorry for her death but I doubt you will be hearing much about her soon given our current endless news cycles.
Somebody named Hyawatha Taught doesn’t like what I said about your two cardboard Princess Leia’s. No sense of humor in this one.
Now, I lived about 2-1/2 blocks away from Eddie Fisher’s sister (who I waved to once in a while). Does that make me a 7 degrees of Carrie Fisher candidate?
And Al Kaline, once of the Orioles and later Detroit, visited his aunt and uncle who lived next door to me, when he played in Baltimore. Never saw him unfortunately as I had his 1957 Topps card, the one with the beautiful orange-red background which I would have loved to have signed. Does that make me a 7 degrees of Al Kaline player?
Once saw Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neill in the LA Airport but I rarely talk about that. She gave me the brush off when I looked at her. In fact, she gave the whole airport the brush-off when she came strutting by.
Oh Babs, you broke my heart. No, not really. Great voice. Great lack of humility.
Just rambling. Letting the brain do its thang for the holiday period.
We celebrate that old Navy holiday and say “Have a Happy Quonset Hut”. Naval Air Station guys will know what I mean.
Have a Happy New Year. Maybe you can get a cardboard Christina Applegate to ease your sorry over Carrie. Both are beautiful women and nice people.
I’m burning my Helen Thomas cutout. It killed all the roaches in the basement so I won’t need it any more.
Chao!
Robin Williams, Robin Williams, Robin Williams.
#38> Hypatia Taught:
As the great philosopher John Riggins once said to Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, “Lighten up Sandy baby”.
We all loved Carrie Fisher. She was a good actress and her one-woman show was awesome.
Plus, any woman who can handle a shoulder-fired rocket as she did in “The Blues Brothers” is okay by me.
PS: I gave my granddaughter a 1990’s 12” Princess Leia doll for her birthday. She loved it. We are Star Wars trekkies to the max.
“You Will listen to every Word I have to Say!”
LOVE STINKS,,,,Funny stuff!
Ok, well, I know Mark Stein, singer for Vanilla Fudge, and Yankee legend Whitey Ford lives right upstairs from him. I interviewed Leslie Mandoki, who was friends with Mikhail Gorbachev. Richard Boone (”Paladin”) once rented my dad’s farm to stage a fistfight for the show in it.
Yes, he (Ben Hecht) co-wrote Front Page. He was a newspaperman in Chi before he became a screen writer.
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