As news of Carrie Fisher’s death spread across social media Tuesday afternoon, many shared their own personal stories of meeting and interacting with the legendary actress and writer. Erik Scott, frontman of one-time Boston band Jack Burton Vs. David Lo Pan, relayed his own story about the time Fisher rolled into the Newbury Comics store in Faneuil Hall and proceeded to clean it out of Princess Leia merchandise.
Which, if you’ve ever been to a Newbury Comics you are well aware, is one impressive feat.
The impromptu shopping spree took place in 2008, and Scott was the store’s lead keyholder at the time. It’s just one of the many stories that paint Fisher — who passed away today, days after suffering a heart attack on a Friday flight from London to Los Angeles — as not only one BAMF, but also a very down-to-earth and humbled celebrity who never arrogantly tossed around her fame.
Scott first shared his memory on Facebook, but you can read it in full below, reprinted with his permission.
I’ve shared this story before but it seems appropriate to share it again now: Right around Halloween, the first year the Newbury Comics Faneuil Hall store was open, a woman walked in right before we closed at 7 on a Sunday who looked remarkably like Carrie Fisher.
She mentioned she knew we were closing soon but wanted to look around a bit if it was okay, and it took about 15 seconds to realize this was indeed Carrie Fisher and replied that “of course it was okay.”
It became clear that the two people with her were her assistants, and anything they picked up she said to them, “Do you like that? Throw it in the basket.” She walked around the store and bought ANYTHING and EVERYTHING Princess Leia related in the store, in some cases multiple pieces of things.
To understand how crazy we were with Star Wars costumes at the time understand this was a lot of stuff. The whole time she walked around she wasn’t anything but the sweetest person ever, constantly commenting on “what a cool store you have here” and apologizing for keeping us open later (to which I replied take all the time you want).
She ended up cleaning us out of all of our Princess Leia Star Wars-related stuff, half of our other Star Wars merchandise (both Halloween related and not) as well as most anything her assistants seemed to pick up and look at. She was smiling and laughing with us and the staff and it truly ended up being one of the great encounters I’ve had with a celebrity but with anybody in my life.
She was not only funny and pleasant and kind, but carried herself in a way that didn’t speak to herself as an actress or celebrity or person of more importance, but as a person who was comfortable where she was in her life and just wanted to share that happiness and comfort with others.
As she left, I thanked her so much for coming in and welcomed her back anytime to which she replied that she’d be back for sure. We found out later that she was in town to do her one woman show at BU, which I later watched on HBO and could see, through her interactions with us at the store and in her show that she was a woman who had been through many battles but had come out the other side happy to be alive and live her life on her own terms.
#RIP