THE ROVING EYE.
(Carrie Fisher auctions Paul Simon guitar -2001)
(Brief Article)
Los Angeles Business Journal, Sept 24, 2001,
SOMETIMES alimony has a strange way of living beyond its intention.
When actress Carrie Fisher and singer/songwriter Paul Simon split under less than amicable terms in 1986, Simon left an acoustic guitar behind.
Perhaps as a joke -- and perhaps not --
Fisher said that "as far as I know it was the only alimony I received."
Now you, too, can share in the largesse.
Fisher, daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, gave the instrument to her younger brother Todd Fisher, now 43.
Todd Fisher recently decided to auction it on the Web site fineartsbrokerage.com to help raise money for his mother's Hollywood Motion Picture Museum. The collection of movieland memorabilia is being opened by Reynolds at the colossal Hollywood & Highland retail and entertainment complex.
The minimum bid for the black guitar with mother of pearl inlay is $3,000. The auction ends on Sept. 29.
"She was about to give the guitar away," recalled Todd, a film producer and actor. "I said, 'Wait a minute. That's Paul's guitar. That's a nice guitar.'"
He used the Ovation acoustic guitar, which Simon played in the famous 1982 Simon & Garfunkel concert in New York's Central Park, off and on for years.
Although Paul Simon hasn't been officially notified that the guitar is going on sale, no one is too worried he'll step forward to reclaim it.
"I would be very surprised because he hasn't had the guitar for such a long time," Todd said, noting that Carrie and Paul are now on friendly terms. "But if he did come back to claim it, it'd be worth about a million dollars in free publicity for the museum."
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