She led us into other galaxies and magical worlds on screen. He made sure all the
ghouls and goblins of other dimensions stayed at bay. Together they were a supernatural couple!
Carrie Fisher and Dan Aykroyd would go from being in love to forming a lifelong friendship.
Not only did they have a soft spot for one another, but Dan also saved Carrie’s life
once… and then he proposed 10 minutes later! It was 1978 when Carrie Fisher and Dan Aykroyd’s
lives collided behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live. Dan was a regular on the show and
the actress was the guest host for the show’s episode. But this isn’t when their love story
began. Carrie became fast friends with the actor’s cast mate, John Belushi.
“I met Carrie at Saturday Night Live. She and John Belushi became instant pals. I remember how much
she made him laugh,” The Ghostbusters actor said. Belushi actually tried to set the pair up,
the timing just wasn’t right. "John wanted me to date Danny, so he invited me to his house
with Danny there, and then John passed out. That was his idea of a blind date," Carrie said.
It wasn’t until 2 years later that the pair reunited on the set of the film, Blue Brothers.
Fisher had an unforgettable cameo and they not only fell in love during filming but also
moved in together. “While filming Blues Brothers, Carrie and I fell in love, and during the shoot,
she moved in with me into a penthouse suite in the futuristic, aluminum-clad Astro Tower,
which I knew to apologize for. Carrie had the most refined eye for art and design,” he said.
From there, they became one of the quirkiest couples to ever grace Hollywood… and they owned
it! The actress would call him "tuna neck," and the comedian referred to her as his "showboat."
Their relationship was a wild ride from start to finish,
but perhaps one of the crazier things they did was take LSD together just before Christmas.
"Having obtained some original Owsley from our friend Tom Davis, we flew up to Reno,
rented a wagon, and checked in for three days of full-on weeping to Christmas classics.
Certainly, one of the planet's greatest occasions where LSD was a factor," Dan said.
Dan and Carrie’s relationship was as though they were soaring on laugh-filled exhilaration and
a vibrant, wholly satisfying physical intimacy… well, at least that’s how the actor describes it.
The deeply emotional and fast-moving romance didn’t slow down after they moved in together.
Talk of marriage came up very quickly for the pair and they went to a doctor to
obtain blood tests for genetic compatibility. Although Aykroyd never spoke of the results,
they were obviously satisfying enough for him to propose.
“Contemplating marriage, I gave Carrie a sapphire ring, and subsequently in the romance she gave me
a Donald Roller Wilson oil painting of a monkey in a blue dress next to a tiny floating pencil,
which I kept for years until it began to frighten my children,” Dan wrote.
While they were still filming Blues Brothers, the couple got engaged.
Surely, it happened after things took a serious turn — Dan had to
save Carrie’s life after she began choking on a brussels sprout at dinner one night.
"He was forcing me to eat because I was very thin in those days. We were in my trailer on
the set of Blues Brothers, I inhaled a brussels sprout, and I started choking.
He thought I was laughing, and when he saw that I was dying, he did the Heimlich maneuver.
Then 10 minutes later he asked me to marry him, and I thought,
'I better marry him. What if that happens again?' We had rings, we got blood tests, the whole shot,"
she said recalling the fond memory of the hero that the actor was that night.
But unfortunately, there would never be a wedding because Fisher's heart belonged to someone else.
The actress had an on-again-off-again relationship with Paul Simon and was attempting to reconcile
with him during her relationship with Aykroyd. Their romance ended after they left Chicago
for their home in Martha’s Vineyard which they had never seen until they bought it.
It was a mid-century fixer-upper and Dan knew Carrie hated it. "The next morning,
she asked me to drive her to the airport and she flew to New York. Architectural reservations
notwithstanding, Carrie wasn't shallow, we had a great time. She was also in love with Paul Simon.
She married him but I hope she kept my ring,” the Ghostbusters actor said.
Though Fisher left Aykroyd to go back to Simon, the Trading Places star had no
hard feelings. The actor even witnessed several discussions between his fiancé and the musician.
“She had long conversations on the phone in my presence with Paul Simon,
with whom she was attempting to reconcile at the time of my relationship with her.
Here I found myself in love with a woman who was returning to a former intimate, and might I say
a much better choice. But a woman who confided deeply in me and who valued my counsel,” he said
Both Dan and Carrie treasured their friendship and continued to consider
the other an important part of their lives. “Throughout the process of her decision to
not marry me and wed another. The reward for my unwavering support in whatever decision she wanted
to make was the time I had with her as a trusted friend and fellow night hawk,” the actor said.
Four years after his and Fisher's breakup, Aykroyd married Donna Dixon and they share three
daughters. However, following nearly 40 years of marriage, the pair announced they were separating.
They remain co-parents, co-workers, business partners, and legally married!
Carrie went on to marry Paul in 1983, and divorce him less than a year later.
They began dating again before splitting up again in 1991. Their on-again, then off-again
relationship lasted 12 years. “Good wedding, bad marriage. We had great fights,” she said.
The actress then met talent agent Bryan Lourd and the two welcomed a daughter, Billie, in 1992.
Sadly, the relationship didn't last.
They went their separate ways two years after Billie was born.
Two days before Christmas in 2016, the world lost an icon. Carrie Fisher suffered a massive heart
attack while on an 11-hour flight from London to Los Angeles only 15 minutes before the flight was
due to land. Paramedics removed the 60-year-old star from the flight and rushed her to a Los
Angeles hospital. She passed away 4 days later. Carrie’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, died the very
next day after suffering a stroke. Many believe she passed from a broken heart.
The actress’s family held a joint funeral and buried them alongside one another.
Fisher’s relationship with her father, Eddie Fisher, was extremely distant when
she was growing up. Eddie had left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor and as Carrie described it,
“He basically fled the scene of the accident,” abandoning her and her mother.
The father and daughter reconciled before his death in 2010 but it didn’t heal all
the wounds Carrie had. “I saw him more on TV than on the planet,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Star Wars actress’s relationship with Reynolds was very close. “She has been more
than a mother to me. She’s been an unsolicited stylist, interior decorator, and marriage
counselor,” she said. How sweet is that? Carrie certainly had a lot of internal
struggles during her life. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 14 years old.
She managed her illness with medication and electroconvulsive therapy for many years.
“Having had this illness my entire life, I accommodated it by developing a very
big personality. Over the years, writing about having bipolar disorder did help me to be able
to talk about my illness in the abstract, to make light of it. That’s my way of surviving,
to abstract it into something that’s funny and not dangerous,” she said. How difficult is that?
Carrie also began self-medicating with drugs and was introduced to marijuana when she was 13.
From there, she moved on to cocaine, LSD, and painkillers.
“I couldn’t stop or stay stopped. It was never my fantasy to have a drug problem.
I’d say, ‘Oh, fuck it, I haven’t done anything for a couple of months,
why not? Let’s celebrate not doing them by doing them.’ I got into trouble each
time. I hated myself. I just beat myself up. It was very painful,” she said.
She was already heavily involved with drugs when she first was introduced to Simon while
filming Star Wars. “Drugs was one of the hands — one of the baby hands — that pulled
us down into the mess. We went through a lot to be together. We didn’t make it.”
Through all her struggles, Dan still wanted to be with her and be there for her.
When Carrie passed away, the Ghostbusters actor was the first to write her a tribute.
He recounted every moment of their relationship and their lifelong friendship that were important
to him and depicted the person Carrie was. He remembered the humor and the intimacy they shared.
“I grew up as a simple Catholic kid from a government family in Hull, Quebec , so you can
imagine how much of a privilege and honor it was for me to have known this one-off, broke-the-mold
woman as a great friend,” he said. Despite the fact that Carrie and Dan didn’t
romantically work out, the two built a friendship for the ages and loved each other deeply. They
supported one another through difficult times. Even though the actress left the actor for another
man, there were truly no hard feelings. Right until the very end, she never hesitated to speak
about Dan proudly as her friend. We hope that Carrie’s family have found peace after her loss.
We also hope that Dan finds healing after his separation and the loss of his friend. What was
your favorite memory of Carrie Fisher? Let us know in the comments below. Until next time.