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I recognized only one princess when I was growing up, and it was Princess Leia. I didn’t care for Princess Diana, and Princess Grace died before I saw her Hitchcock movies. As far as I was concerned, there was one real princess, and it was Leia of Alderaan with the ensaymada hairstyle. Of course I wore that hairstyle to school. Lucky for your optic nerves, there are no pictures.

Here’s an excerpt from Carrie Fisher’s autobiography, Wishful Drinking. (In case you don’t know your Hollywood history, Carrie Fisher is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds (Singin’ In The Rain) and Eddie Fisher. Eddie famously dumped Debbie to run off with Elizabeth Taylor.)

“My parents had this incredibly vital relationship with an audience, like muscle with blood. This was the main competition I had for my parents’ attention, an audience.

“Mom and Dad were great friends with Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. Mike died in a plane crash in 1958, when I was two, and my dad flew to Elizabeth’s side, making his way slowly to her front. He first dried her eyes with his handkerchief, then he consoled her with flowers, and he ultimately consoled her with his penis.

“This made marriage to my mother awkward, so he was gone within the week. If Mom and Dad were Jennifer and Brad, then Elizabeth Taylor was Angelina Jolie. I saw more of Dad on television than in real life.

“He later wrote his autobiography, Been There, Done That – well, he called it an autobiography, but I thought of it more as a novel. I like to call it Been There, Done Them, because it really was just about the women he’d slept with and how the sex was and what their bodies were like (so it is a feelgood read). But after I read it, I wanted to get my DNA fumigated.”

George Lucas’ explanation of why Carrie as Leia could not wear underwear under her white dress: “You go into space and you become weightless. Then your body expands but your bra doesn’t, so you get strangled by your own underwear.” 

The part of Star Wars I found most traumatic, not counting the three prequels in their entirety: When Obi-Wan allows Darth Vader to kill him. I replayed it in my head for weeks.