Eddie Fisher in Old Time Radio

Eddie Fisher
(1928 – 2010)

 The last thing radio needed was another heart-throb crooner, especially one who would attract scandal as his career progressed. One of the great things about the entertainment industry is that there is always plenty of glamour and plenty of notoriety to go around.

Eddie Fisher was born Edwin John Tisch to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia during the summer of 1928. The name Tisch was anglicized by the time of the 1940 census. Eddie began showing vocal talent early on, entering and winning a number of amateur talent shows. His big break came on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. After becoming a local star, he dropped out of his senior year of high school.

Eddie found some success crooning with big bands on the "Borscht Belt" circuit. Cantor was in the audience one night at Grossinger's Resort, and soon Fisher gained nationwide attention on Cantor's radio show.

Show Biz should have taken a break when Eddie was drafted in 1951. After basic training in Texas, Fisher spent a year in Korea before being assigned as the official soloist with the United States Army Band Chorus. Stationed in Washington D.C., Eddie appeared as a guest on several TV programs as "PFC Eddie Fisher". After his discharge, Eddie gained popularity on the nightclub circuit and had his own TV variety show.

A popular singer of the pre-Rock and Roll era, it was a natural when he fell in love with MGM starlet Debbie Reynolds, star of Singin' In The Rain (1952). The all-American couple began supporting each other's Hollywood careers and had two children. Then Eddie left Debbie for her friend Elizabeth Taylor.

Liz and Debbie had been good friends while young starlets on the MGM lot and Fisher was a close friend of Taylor's third husband, producer Mike Todd. When Todd was killed in an airplane crash in 1958, Debbie sent her husband to console her friend. Eddie never came home.

Fisher and Taylor were married in 1959, and Eddie put his own career on hold to help with Liz's. He was essentially a house-husband at their villa in Rome while Cleopatra was being filmed. Eddie refused to believe there was anything going on between Liz and her co-star, Richard Burton. When the evidence became overwhelming, Eddie still believed the affair was just an on-set romance that would pass. Later he bought a gun and said that he had seriously considered killing Burton.

Eddie claimed he would never fall in love again. However, he did manage to have several affairs and three more marriages before passing away in 2010, just six months before Liz.

Volume 1 and 2 are Fisher's musical program, Coke Time. The third volume of the collection is Eddie Fisher's radio guest appearances includes an appearance on The Big Show just before going into the Army, a guest spot on the Dinah Shore Chevrolet Show, the 1955 Academy Awards Program and more!