Reliable sources tell me that Eddie Fisher has died. He was 82. [UPDATE: His daughter, Tricia Leigh Fisher of Los Angeles, told the AP that he died Wednesday night at his Berkeley home of complications from hip surgery.] The singer and entertainer and TV star of his own show and co-star of films Bundle Of Joy and Butterfield 8 had his heyday in the 1950s. In 1953 Fisher was given his own 15-minute TV show called Coke Time, sponsored by the Coca-Cola company; it was so popular that Coke then offered Eddie an unprecedented $1 million contract to be their national spokesperson. But Fisher is best known for having been married to Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, and Connie Stevens and for fathering multitalent Carrie Fisher and TV actress Joely Fisher. He created quite the worldwide scandal when he dumped his first wife, America’s sweetheart Reynolds, to marry his best friend’s widow, America’s sex symbol Taylor, who then dumped him for Richard Burton. Fisher became reviled and his career never recovered. (The two women later mocked Fisher in a thinly veiled TV movie about their relationship.) Fisher wrote two autobiographies which prompted Carrie to declare: ”That’s it. I’m having my DNA fumigated.”

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