Here's What Happened Between Carrie Fisher And Harrison Ford
There's a new hope for the Star Wars cast shippers of the world. After decades of speculation, actress Carrie Fisher has finally confirmed that Leia Organa and Han Solo were indeed an item both on screen and while the actors portraying them were in their own little galaxy far, far away from the cameras.
In her tell-all autobiography, The Princess Diarist (due on shelves Nov. 22, 2017) the Star Wars icon details the long-rumored real life romance she shared with Harrison Ford during production of the 1977 space saga starter, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Ahead of the book's release, Fisher previewed some juicy new morsels about their fling that are even more delicious than the prop potatoes that subbed in as asteroids for the film. Here's what happened been Fisher and Ford, according to the actress herself.
First, the clues
The long-standing rumors surrounding a real-life hook-up between Fisher and Ford didn't come out of nowhere. Fisher has consistently fueled suspicions that she and her then-married co-star might have been more than just colleagues during production on the original pic. In 2008, she hinted as much by reportedly telling a British television show that she, who was 19 at the time of the shoot, came into the set with the intention of engaging in an affair with someone on the movie. "I went into the film saying, 'I'm going to have an affair,'" she said at the time (via Celebuzz). "Like it was a kiwi, an exotic fruit, because I'd never had one."
During preparations for 2015's Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens she also dropped a tongue-in-cheek teaser that there was more to the story of those two than just the space soap drama that unfolded in widescreen format. On The Chat (via The Guardian), she snarkily said, "I like the idea of being Mrs. Solo, and we've just fought and fought and I killed him—but I'm sorry. I probably had an affair with some general." Do those words smell a little like sour grapes to anyone else?
There was some documented debauchery on set
Fisher admitted previously that she and Ford carried on together in suspicious ways outside of the studio, including one wild night of ruckus that left them both feeling pretty silly once the cameras started rolling.
In 2015, she admitted to The Daily Beast that a rumored night of wildness with The Rolling Stones and the cast of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) was 100 percent true. Fisher explained that while they were filming in Tunisia, actor Eric Idle and the rest of the cast were in town to shoot Monty Python nearby, and that's when things got crazy.
"They had a drink that they would give to the extras to make them more 'compliant,'" she explained. "They called it 'The Tunisian Death Drink.' We had an early call, and Eric called down and said, 'The Rolling Stones are here!' And I came down and it was all of them. I called Harrison and said, 'Get over here. This is ridiculous!' I wonder how he remembers it. I remember that we never went to sleep, so we weren't hungover—we were still drunk when we arrived in Cloud City the next day. We don't really smile a lot in the movie, but there we're smiling." We now have good reason to believes those grins were about much more than just the sauce.
The non-confirmation confirmation
Before Fisher unleashed the full details of her on-set romance with Ford in explicit detail, she played it coy, while at the same time essentially confirming that there was some definite heat between them back in the day. In 2015, she told The Jonathan Ross Show (via Hello Magazine) that her attraction to Ford was instantaneous. "When I went on the film...I saw him and he looked like a movie star. I met him in LA and read with him and stuff and was too nervous to see him, so when we got on the set and I saw him and he was sitting in the Millennium Falcon I thought he looked like one of those movie stars—it wasn't like you get a crush on that person."
Fisher added that she had kept a diary at the time and documented the swoon factor that surrounded Ford in her mind. That journal probably served as superb resource material for her tell-all book.
Their steamy affair
Fisher revealed to People magazine, as a part of her book promotion, that she and Ford engaged in a whirlwind romance while becoming space lovers for the film. "It was so intense," she said. Ford was 33 at the time and still married to his first wife, Mary Marquardt, with whom he shares two sons, Benjamin and Willard. "It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend," said Fisher, adding that she's finally comfortable sharing the truth about their tryst because "it's been 40 years."
Among the provocative details revealed by Fisher in her new book is a story about how much Ford's star status intimidated her during their first night together—which reportedly occurred after director George Lucas' birthday party. She wrote, "I looked over at Harrison. A hero's face—a few strands of hair fell over his noble, slightly furrowed brow. How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?" She added that while the relationship fizzled after the fun of filming died down, "I was so inexperienced, but I trusted something about him. He was kind."
Ford and his first wife divorced in 1979, shortly after the film's release.