The grass isn't any greener

If you want to ruin a career in the public eye as a singer or whatever, just be sure to marry America's Sweetheart and then dump her for her best friend when that friend's husband dies in a plane crash.

That pretty much did it for Eddie Fisher, father of Carrie, first husband of Debbie Reynolds, who decamped late one night to run off and become the fourth husband of Elizabeth Taylor. His string of hit records (including "Any Time," "Wish You Were Here," "Lady of Spain," "I'm Walking Behind You," "Dungaree Doll," and "On The Street Where You Live") ended like the Roadrunner flying off a cliff, and he was relegated to "Remember Him?" status until his death in 2010.

I had a boss once who grew up in Philadelphia with "Edwin" Fisher, as he was known them. The boss said that Eddie had nothing but girls on his mind even in junior high school. 

So did I, but I could not sing.

As we know, Carrie died a few days ago, and her mother went the next day, and we have read and heard so much about their lives, it's almost as if we knew them.  I'm thinking that it's too easy to knock the rich and famous Stars of Tinseltown.  Sure, their problems might seem much lighter than those faced by people trying to feed 8 kids on a salary built for 2, but they are still problems.  Consider this quote from Carrie: 

When I was born, my mother was given an anesthetic because they didn't have epidurals in those days. Consequently, she was unconscious.
Now, my mother is a beautiful woman—she’s beautiful today in her 70s, so at 24 she looked like a Christmas morning. All the doctors [in the delivery room] were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: ‘Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep—how pretty.’
And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: ‘Oh look, there’s Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let's go look at him.’
So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.

Another statement from Carrie, this one concerning her father, shows how it feels to have a famous dad:

“There hadn’t been a note he couldn’t hit, a girl he couldn’t hit on, an audience he couldn’t charm or bring to its feet cheering.”

Eddie, Debbie and Carrie.  He was not such a good
man, but I wish I had that sports jacket.

Not so much about whether there were kids to whom he paid insufficient attention.  

As for her mother, Debbie, Carrie said that several times, dear old Mom suggested that Carrie have a child with Debbie's third and final husband, a man named Richard Hamlett, because the offspring off such a congress "would have nice eyes. It hadn't occurred to her this might be odd. I think she just thought, you know, my womb was free and we're family."

Please keep all this in mind, next time you're paging through The Enquirer and feeling envious. I mean, really.