Carrie Fisher’s Mother, Debbie Reynolds, Threatened Producers; ‘If You Touch Her, I Will Take Out a Hit on You’

Famous Star Wars actor and writer Carrie Fisher grew up in the spotlight because of her equally famous mother, Debbie Reynolds. However, when she began acting, Fisher wanted to forge her own identity separate from being Reynolds’ daughter. That did not stop the actor from threatening producers and actors that tried to romance Fisher on set. 

Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds didn’t speak for 10 years

Although the pair were close later in life, Fisher and Reynolds were estranged for 10 years. The late Star Wars actor explained the problematic relationship to Oprah Winfrey in a 2011 interview. 

“We had a fairly volatile relationship earlier on in my 20s,” Fisher told Winfrey. “I didn’t want to be around her. I did not want to be Debbie Reynolds’ daughter.”

After the success of the 1977 Star Wars: A New Hope and its sequels, Fisher struggled to get out of her mother’s spotlight. She wanted to create her own public persona that was separate from the famous Reynolds.  

“We talked really badly,” Fisher continued. “We didn’t get along. We had the extra, larger-than-life relationship. This is a very powerful person, but in order to have my own identity, I have to forge some kind of character out of nothing.”

During the 10 years, Fisher was diagnosed with bipolar, and her drug use became out of control. In 1985, the young actor went to rehab for the first time. When she emerged from rehab, the two began reconciling their relationship.

Debbie Reynolds threatened Carrie Fisher’s producer and co-star

In 1973, Fisher left school to appear in the chorus of Reynolds’ Broadway revival. Two years later, in 1975, the young woman was cast in Warren Beatty’s 1975 film, Shampoo. Although Fisher was 18, her mother threatened Beatty to ensure a romance did not develop between him and her daughter.  

“If you touch her, I will take out a hit on you,” Todd Fisher told The Times of what Reynolds said to Beatty.

Fisher was cast as one of Beatty’s lovers in the film, so Reynolds wanted to clarify that they would not become lovers off-screen.

Despite Reynolds’ threats, Fisher had an affair with Harrison Ford while filming ‘Star Wars’

While filming the first Star Wars film, Fisher had a three-month-long affair with Harrison Ford. The late actor kept the romance a secret until her 2017 memoir came out, The Princess Diarist. The experience occurred only a few years after Reynolds threatened anyone who touched Fisher; however, Fisher was trying hard to get out of her mother’s spotlight at that time. 

In her memoir, the actor describes how infatuated she was with Ford. However as a young woman, she might have also been trying to defy her mother’s wishes at the time for her not to have a relationship with a co-star.