I shouldn’t tell this story, but what the hell. I was staying in Eric Idle’s town house in St. John’s Wood—that’s near St. John’s Wort, only more depressing—and Eric had just come home from filming “Life of Brian” in Tunisia. He brought this drink that he said they gave the extras so they’d work longer. I called it Tunisian Table Cleaner. As a rule I’m allergic to alcohol, and Harrison doesn’t really drink either. But that night, there was a makeshift party. The Rolling Stones were there. They were recording two blocks away. We stayed up all night and drank the table cleaner and never went to sleep. When we arrived at the set the next morning, we weren’t hung over—we were, like the extras in Tunisia, more than willing to work. That morning we shot our arrival at Cloud City, where we meet Billy Dee Williams. And it’s one of the very few times in the series both Harrison and I smile. To this day, Eric is proud as a papa of his impact on the trilogy.
One of the greatest Star Wars stories ever, from a Rolling Stone article Carrie Fisher wrote in 1999.
