Carrie Fisher made a wildly entertaining show about her story of growing up the child of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher: Wishful Drinking also became a popular HBO film. A casualty of her parents' divorce with a sharply bracing sense of humor, Carrie Fisher now stars with her mother in a new documentary, aptly named Bright Lights. This week, the movie, to air on HBO, premiered at the New York Film Festival. Now 84 and living in Beverly Hills in a house next to Carrie's, Debbie Reynolds missed this swell night. But she announced on the phone for the Alice Tully Hall audience: "I adore my children, and I'm not going to give up acting." And then, because she loves to, she sang "I've Got You Under My Skin."

Fans of Debbie as Tammy or her hoofing it in Singin' in the Rain, or Carrie as Star Wars' Princess Leia, or those eager for details of Eddie Fisher's leaving sweet Debbie for flamboyant Elizabeth Taylor when her husband Mike Todd was killed in a crash, will be dazzled by the intimate access of this film, even though the ironies of life as performance are always present. Carrie had not yet seen the final cut till the premiere, and was most moved to see her largely absentee dad, a hugely handsome and successful singer in his day, in his dotage before his death. Amazing too is the décor of their homes, more so than their life choices which in the end seem almost normal. Well, almost, for Hollywood.