Yesterday the actress Carrie Fisher (Photo ©Riccardo Ghilardi photographer) passed away. On December 23, during a flight from London to Los Angeles she suffered a heart attack. CPR performed on-site allowed to take her to the hospital, where her condition was stabilized. Unfortunately, after four days she passed away.
Carrie Frances Fisher was born on October 21, 1956, in Beverly Hills, California, USA, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her parents divorced when she was only two years old and both of them remarried not long after.
Carrie Fisher was still a teenager when her first appearances in movies and television started. For this reason, she couldn’t complete her formal education but being a bookworker she was self-taught. Everything changed for her when she was cast as Princess Leia in “Star Wars”, later called “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope”, by George Lucas. Only recently, she revealed that during the filming of the movie she had an affair with Harrison Ford.
In subsequent years, Carrie Fisher had many other roles in television and cinema but her name became linked to the Star Wars saga, even more so thanks to its sequels “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983).
Unfortunately for Carrie Fisher happiness didn’t come with success, on the contrary came problems with alcohol and drugs. Her role in another cult movie, “The Blues Brothers” (1980), was at risk because of her condition, which made it difficult for her to work.
In the early ’80s Carrie Fisher was diagnosed with bipolar disorder but for a long time, she didn’t accept that diagnosis. Another problem was her long and very complicated relationship with singer Paul Simon. An overdose and a nervous breakdown forced her to try seriously to solve her problems.
In 1987 Carrie Fisher published her first novel “Postcards from the Edge”, which contains many autobiographical elements and won the Los Angeles Pen Award for Best First Novel. The novel was adapted into a 1990 movie with a script written by herself. It was the beginning of a new career as a script doctor, an expression indicating authors who intervene more or less heavily on scripts written by others and in need of improvement or even rewrites.
In the ’90s Carrie Fisher had a relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd that led to the birth of their daughter Billie Catherine Lourd.
Despite everything she has done as an actress, screenwriter, and writer, Carrie Fisher remained strongly linked to her role in Star Wars. Her works as a script doctor aren’t officially credited but unofficially she also worked on the screenplays of the saga’s prequels. On television, she was a guest star in an episode of the TV show “30 Rock” in the role of a writer in crisis which ended up begging the protagonist to help her because she was her only hope. 😉 Instead, she played herself in an episode of “The Big Bang Theory”.
In 2015 the release of the movie “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” marked Carrie Fisher so to speak official return to Star Wars. Se recently completed filming “Episode VIII”, which is scheduled to be released in 2017.
In her book “Wishful Drinking,” Carrie Fisher wrote that she wanted to be reported that she died drowned in moonlight, strangled by her bra. Several obituaries fulfilled this wish. Her life was complicated and yet she managed to do many things and to inspire other people to talk openly about her problems. In the end, however, she’ll be remembered above all as the strong and brave Star Wars princess.
