The 1976 Carrison Affair

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Carrie Fisher's cashing-in revelation that she (then 19) and Harrison Ford (then 33 and married with 2 kids) had an affair during the filming of Star Wars poses an interesting question: did the Carrison Affair have an impact on the development of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Think about it: the Indy/Marion backstory is complex for any film, let along a PG action romp from 1981. If Lucas knew about the Carrison Affair, doesn't that shed a whole new light on the Indy/Marion dynamic?

In true Howard Baker fashion, I respectfully ask: what did Lucas know and when did he know it?

And if he did know about the Carrison Affair, isn't this a classic example of the late, great Nora Ephron's classic line: that everything is copy?

Postscript #1:
Yes, I know that Lucas didn't want Ford for Indy -- but I'd submit that Ford's aversion makes even more sense if he had been inspired by the Carrison Affair.

Postscript #2:
I confess to certain laziness here and I'm not researching any of the Raider's 'making of' interviews -- so for all I know Kasden or Spielberg take credit for the Indy/Marion backstory. But who is to say Lucas didn't contribute some elements during their initial brainstorming sessions?

Postscript #3:
BTW, I acknowledge that I was not the first to post the news of the affair on this forum. A bit hat tip to Z Dweller over in the New Hope Thread. I respectfully submit to the management here that a second thread is warranted: (1) if for no other reason to have a thread with a cool title, and (2) I, as true Raiders fan, have more than a general disdain for posting anything in a Star Wars Thread. So please be kind.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
A March-May relationship is one of Lucas's rarely discussed themes, seen in American Graffiti with the teenybopper Carol and John. In Phantom Menace he switched the genders and it didn't work, no thanks to Jake Lloyd. (Had to look up his name, read he's in a psychiatric facility for schizophrenia resisting the dark side.)
 

Joe Brody

Well-known member
Good observation on American Graffiti. I'm overdue for a re-watch.

[One day you wake up and realize its been 30 or so years since you've last seen a film.]
 

Major West

Member
Joe Brody said:
did the Carrison Affair have an impact on the development of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Nope, because nobody apart from the two of them knew about it.

Even if other people did know about it (at the time), it really isn't unsual in Hollywood and certainly wouldn't have influenced a movie plot. Happened a million times already before Carrison.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
Carrison is also similar to Indy's scripted affairs with students, Susan (Raiders), Betsy (Monkey King) and Hillary (Crusade). I have a theory Indy got in trouble and left for Barnett (Fate of Atlantis and Crusade), then had enough clout after the war to return to Marshall.
 

Moedred

Administrator
Staff member
From this exhaustive 2011 history of the 1983 song Lapti Nek. Michele Gruska recorded the album version, but Lucasfilm sound engineer Annie Arbogast was in the movie. Why?
“My version was definitely going in the scene,” remembers Gruska. “But unfortunately at the time the rumor was Anne was keeping company with George Lucas. Oh well.” Scandalous, if true! Perhaps that explains why the Arbogast master tapes were mysteriously “lost” and why George later digitally scrubbed “Lapti Nek” out of every post-1997 Jedi release. Maybe the affair ended badly.

The tales of Carrie Fisher partying all night with Harrison Ford and big handfuls of yay on the set of Empire Strikes Back are admittedly leagues more interesting than any canoodling that went on between the Supreme Beard and one of his underlings.
Then in 1999, the first on screen appearance of Senator Lott Dod. The real Senator Dodd's connection to Star Wars:
The time she dated then- Senator Chris Dodd, he took her to the Kennedy compound in Massachusetts for the weekend, and the Kennedy’s ridiculed her mercilessly (referring her to a floozy, in essence). Well, anyone who’s met Carrie knows that you take her on at your own peril. In the middle of a church, after one Kennedy had made one floozy joke too far, she responded, loudly, with a joke about Chappaquiddick. Oh my god, I said, what did they do? She responded, the entire room erupted into laughter.
And of course, it's a coincidence screenwriter Carrie Fisher was assigned the deflowering of Young Indiana Jones to the Mata Hari.
 
Top