The Inside Story on Fisher’s Life, Music . . . and, of Course, Romances

Almost everybody knows how he divorced Debbie Reynolds (a.k.a. “America’s Sweetheart”) to marry glamour queen Elizabeth Taylor, only to lose Liz to Richard Burton. But not many people remember very much about the rest of his career. Perhaps that is why Eddie Fisher takes such pains to inform us that he had “more consecutive hit records than the Beatles or Elvis Presley”--not to mention “65,000 fan clubs and the most widely broadcast program on television and radio.”

The “golden sound” that happened to emanate from the vocal cords of this poor Jewish boy took him, as he puts it, “from the streets of Philadelphia to the White House; Harry Truman loved me, Ike loved me, Jack Kennedy and I shared drugs and women . . .”

No false modesty here! Yet, perhaps Fisher does well to make his point, however crudely. For the period in which he attained his stardom as a singer--the early 1950s, after the crest of the 1940s big band sound and before the hegemony of rock music--does not occupy a very prominent place in the pop music pantheon these days.

Born in 1928, the fourth of seven children, Fisher was a shy little boy with a remarkably big voice. Without any formal training in music, he still managed to attract the attention of all who heard him sing. As a teenager, he was already appearing on a local radio show, not long thereafter sang at Grossinger’s in the Catskills and got his break appearing on the Eddie Cantor TV show.

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These were the days of the bobby-soxers, and Fisher relished the moment when, as he tells us, squealing girls actually rushed past the original bobby-soxer heartthrob, Frank Sinatra, to catch a glimpse of him. Teenage girls of the 1950s, as he reminds us, were an extremely potent market force. They, not their boyfriends, were the ones who decided where to go on a date. (Nowadays, it seems, soi-disant “liberated” girls are so desperate, they allow their boyfriends to schlep them to blood-and-guts action movies!)

Although Fisher had a wonderful baritone voice, he failed, by his own admission, to develop much as an artist: “I was too busy making hit records to be concerned about the music.” He notes how Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Perry Como and others cared about creating a legacy of “songs that meant something. . . . I didn’t.”

Soon enough, Fisher was to become better known for the women he “romanced” than for the songs he sang. Quite often, as he tells it, it was they who “romanced” him: “Beautiful, famous women pursued me.” When not running, Fisher was happy to follow wherever his “very big libido” might lead: “Beauty made me crazy. I spent my life in pursuit of perfection. And I was fortunate enough to find the one perfect woman--many times.”

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If Fisher often sounds a tad boastful, he’s also good at making fun of himself. Nor is he shy when it comes to giving his opinion of everyone he’s known, whether it’s Debbie Reynolds, whom he claims he never really wanted to marry; Elizabeth Taylor, portrayed here as the great albeit destructive love of his life; Elizabeth’s husband and his own great friend, the dynamic producer Mike Todd; or Fisher’s rival, Richard Burton.

When it comes to describing the intricacies of close personal relationships, Fisher is no match for British actor Simon Callow, whose memoir of his “passionate friendship” with theatrical agent Peggy Ramsey, “Love Is Where It Falls,” proves that an unconsummated passion can be more fascinating to read about than any number of love affairs relayed with less insight and intensity. But if you like gossip, juicy stories, an insider’s look at show business and celebrity, there’s no denying that “Been There, Done That” might be just the ticket.