Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher
Fisher in 2013
Carrie Fisher
Born	Carrie Frances Fisher October 21, 1956
Birthplace	Burbank, California, U.S.
Died	December 27, 2016 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress, writer
Known for	Princess Leia in the Star Wars films; Postcards from the Edge
Education	Beverly Hills High School; Sarah Lawrence College (attended)
Spouse(s)	Paul Simon (1983–1984)
Children	1
Awards	Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (2018, posthumous); Disney Legend (2017, posthumous)

Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress and writer best known for portraying Princess Leia in the Star Wars film franchise, beginning with the original 1977 film and continuing through The Rise of Skywalker (2019). The daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, she grew up amid the glare of mid-century Hollywood and eventually transformed those experiences into a body of candid, self-deprecating writing that included the novel Postcards from the Edge and the autobiographical stage show and memoir Wishful Drinking. Her other film credits included Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), When Harry Met Sally... (1989) and Soapdish (1991). Beyond performing, Fisher worked extensively as an uncredited screenplay script doctor, polishing dialogue for major Hollywood productions during the 1990s and 2000s. Fisher spoke openly throughout her later career about her experiences with bipolar disorder and addiction, becoming a recognizable public voice on mental health. She died in Los Angeles in December 2016, four days after suffering a medical emergency aboard a transatlantic flight.

Early Life

Fisher was born on October 21, 1956, in Burbank, California, the first child of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her birth was reported in The New York Times the following day. Her younger brother, Todd Fisher, was born in February 1958. Her parents' marriage ended in 1959 amid widespread press coverage after Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for actress Elizabeth Taylor, the widow of his close friend Mike Todd. The scandal became one of the defining tabloid stories of the era and was a recurring subject in Fisher's later writing and stage work.

Fisher was raised primarily in Beverly Hills by her mother, who soon remarried businessman Harry Karl. She was raised within the cultural framework of her father's Jewish background and her mother's Protestant upbringing, and later described herself as identifying with her Jewish heritage on her father's side. Fisher later recounted that she had been a voracious reader as a child—books, she said, served as an escape from the unusual circumstances of being raised by famous parents. Reynolds frequently performed in Las Vegas and on the road, and Fisher began appearing in her mother's stage act as a teenager, which provided her earliest performance experience.

She attended Beverly Hills High School but left before graduating in order to perform alongside her mother in the Broadway revival of Irene in 1973. She made her film debut soon afterward in Hal Ashby's Shampoo (1975), playing a small but memorable supporting role at age 18.

Education

After leaving Beverly Hills High School to pursue acting, Fisher briefly enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She also attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, although her studies there were interrupted when she was cast as Princess Leia in Star Wars. Sarah Lawrence has listed her among its noted former students. Fisher returned to her interest in literature and writing throughout her life, eventually producing a string of novels and memoirs that became among her most lasting work.

Career

Early film roles and Star Wars

Fisher's screen debut came at 18 with a part as the precocious teenage daughter of a Beverly Hills couple in Shampoo (1975), directed by Hal Ashby and starring Warren Beatty. Two years later, she was cast as Princess Leia Organa in George Lucas's Star Wars (1977), opposite Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. The film became a worldwide cultural phenomenon and made Fisher internationally famous in her early twenties. She reprised the role in The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), establishing Leia as one of the most recognizable characters in popular cinema.

Between the Star Wars films and after them, Fisher built a varied filmography. She appeared as Jake Blues's vengeful spurned fiancée in John Landis's The Blues Brothers (1980), as one of Mia Farrow's sisters in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), as Tom Hanks's neighbor in Joe Dante's The 'Burbs (1989), and in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... (1989) as Marie, the best friend of Sally (played by Meg Ryan). She also appeared in Soapdish (1991) and The Women (2008).

Return to Star Wars

After more than three decades away from the role, Fisher returned to play General Leia Organa in J.J. Abrams's Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). She reprised the part in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), released after her death and dedicated to her memory, and posthumously appeared in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), which used previously unreleased footage shot for The Force Awakens. She was named a Disney Legend posthumously in 2017 in recognition of her contributions to the franchise.

Writing and script doctoring

Fisher published her first novel, Postcards from the Edge, in 1987. Drawn loosely from her own experiences with addiction, rehabilitation and her relationship with her mother, the book became a bestseller. Fisher adapted it herself for the 1990 film directed by Mike Nichols and starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine, and her screenplay earned her a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She went on to publish further semi-autobiographical novels, including Surrender the Pink (1990) and Delusions of Grandma (1994).

During the 1990s, Fisher worked extensively as a Hollywood script doctor — a writer hired, often without credit, to revise screenplays already in production. Her credits in this capacity included rewrite work on Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992) and The Wedding Singer (1998), among many others, and she also contributed dialogue polishing for several films in the Star Wars franchise. A 1992 Entertainment Weekly feature described her as one of the most sought-after script doctors working in Hollywood at the time.

Stage and later television work

Fisher developed an autobiographical one-woman stage show, Wishful Drinking, which she performed beginning in 2006 in Los Angeles and later on Broadway. The show was filmed by HBO and earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special. She published a book of the same title in 2008, followed by Shockaholic (2011) and The Princess Diarist (2016), the last of which discussed, among other topics, a romantic relationship with Harrison Ford during the filming of the original Star Wars.

On television, Fisher received two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series: first for a 2007 appearance on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, in which she played a former 1970s feminist comedy writer, and again in 2017 for her recurring role as the mother of Sharon Horgan's character on the Channel 4 series Catastrophe. The latter nomination came after her death.

Personal Life

Fisher married singer-songwriter Paul Simon in August 1983; they divorced the following year, although the two continued an on-and-off relationship for several years afterward. She later had a relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd, with whom she had a daughter, Billie Lourd, born in 1992. Billie Lourd, an actress in her own right, has spoken publicly about her mother in the years following her death.

Fisher discussed her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her struggles with cocaine and prescription drug addiction in numerous interviews, articles and in her own books. She presented her recovery and ongoing mental health treatment, including electroconvulsive therapy, with frankness and humor in Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic. Her openness about these subjects was frequently cited as one of her significant public contributions.

Fisher's relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was the subject of the 2016 documentary Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 and aired on HBO in early 2017. Reynolds died on December 28, 2016, the day after Fisher's death.

Death

On December 23, 2016, Fisher suffered a medical emergency on a United Airlines flight from London to Los Angeles, approximately 15 minutes before landing. She was transported to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she remained in intensive care until her death on December 27, 2016, at the age of 60. The Los Angeles County coroner later determined that she had died of sleep apnea and other undetermined factors, with contributing causes including atherosclerotic heart disease and the presence of multiple drugs in her system. Tributes from cast members of the Star Wars films and from across Hollywood followed in the days after her death. Fisher was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, beside her mother. Some of her cremated remains were placed in an urn shaped like a giant Prozac pill, a detail her brother Todd Fisher said reflected her sense of humor.

Recognition

Fisher received nominations and honors across multiple media during her lifetime, and was honored posthumously by several industry institutions. Her screenplay for Postcards from the Edge received a BAFTA nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. She received two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, for 30 Rock (2007) and Catastrophe (2017), the latter nomination coming after her death. Her HBO special Wishful Drinking received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special.

In 2017, the Walt Disney Company posthumously named Fisher a Disney Legend in recognition of her work in the Star Wars franchise. In 2018, she was posthumously awarded the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for the audiobook version of The Princess Diarist, which she had recorded shortly before her death. In 2023, she received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located fittingly near the star for her mother. Bright Lights, the documentary about Fisher and Reynolds, was widely covered following its 2016 Cannes premiere and HBO broadcast, generating renewed attention to both women's careers.

Legacy

Fisher's portrayal of Princess Leia has been cited as among the most influential performances in popular cinema. The character — a senator, military commander and resistance leader presented as the equal of her male counterparts — was, at the time of the original film's release in 1977, an uncommon depiction of female leadership in mainstream science fiction. Fisher's later return to the role in the sequel trilogy, in which Leia appeared as a weathered, middle-aged general, was widely noted as a continuation of that screen presence into later life. Following her death, The Last Jedi was dedicated to her memory.

Beyond her on-screen work, Fisher's writing reframed how many in Hollywood spoke about addiction, recovery and mental illness. Postcards from the Edge and Wishful Drinking were repeatedly cited in retrospectives as foundational documents of the celebrity memoir form, blending self-mockery and frankness about subjects — bipolar disorder, electroconvulsive therapy, the toxicity of fame — that were rarely discussed publicly when she began writing about them.

Her work as a script doctor, although mostly uncredited, gave her an influence on late twentieth-century Hollywood that extended well beyond the films in which she appeared. Coverage following her death emphasized that, in addition to the cultural visibility of her acting roles, she had quietly shaped the dialogue and structure of numerous studio comedies and franchise films, including projects within the Star Wars universe itself.

Her daughter, Billie Lourd, has continued to mark the anniversary of her death publicly, and tributes from her former co-stars — Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and others — have continued in the years since. The simultaneous deaths of Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, one day apart, drew widespread commentary, and the pair are often discussed together as figures emblematic of twentieth-century Hollywood: Reynolds of the studio era and Fisher of the blockbuster generation that followed.