Warren Beatty and Carrie Fisher, Then 17, Take a Break During Filming of the Movie “Shampoo” (1975)

Shampoo is a 1975 American comedy film directed by Hal Ashby and starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant, Jack Warden, Tony Bill, and Carrie Fisher. Co-written by Beatty and Robert Towne, the film follows a promiscuous Los Angeles hairdresser on Election Day 1968, as he juggles his relationships with several women.

At the time of filming, Fisher was just 17 years old, making her film debut as Lorna Karpf, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy couple entangled in the film’s web of infidelities. Beatty, who co-wrote and produced Shampoo, played George Roundy, a charismatic Beverly Hills hairdresser whose charm and romantic entanglements mirror the cultural and political turbulence of the late 1960s.

Behind the scenes, Beatty was already one of Hollywood’s biggest stars and power players, fresh off Bonnie and Clyde and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Fisher, meanwhile, was the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, still carving out her own identity before her Star Wars fame just two years later.

Todd Fisher, Fisher’s younger brother, told The Times in 2018 that Reynolds was extremely protective of Fisher when she was filming Shampoo. So much so, she threatened Beatty about hitting on her. “If you touch her, I will take out a hit on you,” Todd recalled his mother saying.

It seems that Beatty, who was 19 years Fisher’s senior, didn’t head that warning.

In a 1991 interview with Madonna for Rolling Stone, Fisher revealed more of Beatty’s inappropriate behavior. Madonna dated Beatty in the early 1990s after they co-starred in Dick Tracy.

“Let me ask you something: Did you f*ck Warren?” Madonna asked Fisher.

“No,” she replied.

“You didn’t?” the singer asked.

“I’m one of the few. I could have,” Fisher said.

“OK, but we both made a movie with him, so we both could have f*cked him,” the “Vogue” singer said. And that’s when Fisher revealed Beatty’s propositions.

“At the time, I was 17 and making Shampoo,” Fisher explained. “He offered to relieve me of the huge burden of my virginity. Four times. That was the big offer. I decided against it. I decided for reality over anecdote.”