Carrie Fisher

• Born: October 21, 1956
• Birthplace: Beverly Hills, California
• Died: December 27, 2016
• Place of death: Los Angeles, California

Actor, novelist, and writer

Fisher played the role of Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars franchise and she has written novels and screenplays, one of which,Postcards from the Edge (1990), was nominated for multiple Academy Awards.

Early Life

Carrie Fisher (KA-ree FIH-shur) was born on October 21, 1956, in Beverly Hills, California, to Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Her father’s grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Fisher can recall her father singing in synagogue, and as an adult she attended Friday services, although she described herself as an enthusiastic agnostic. Her parents were both entertainment celebrities; her father was a crooner with gold records to his credit, and her mother was a singer, dancer, and star of many popular films. The couple was dubbed “America’s Sweethearts.” Her parents’ fame was something that had a profound effect on Fisher’s life. It afforded her a comfortable existence and helped her own career, but Fisher felt that she always had to compete for her parents’ attention. She has a younger brother, Todd, who was named after a family friend, Mike Todd, who was married to Elizabeth Taylor. When Mike Todd died in a plane crash, Fisher’s father left her mother for Taylor. Fisher attended Hollywood High School, but she dropped out to tour with her mother on the road. At the age of thirteen, she appeared onstage for the first time in her mother’s Las Vegas nightclub act and tried marijuana. At the age of fifteen, she consulted a psychologist. Fisher started at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 1973. She studied there for eighteen months until she landed her first screen role, in Shampoo (1975).

Life’s Work

Fisher auditioned for two roles at once, for the films Carrie (1976) and Star Wars (1977) since George Lucas, the writer and director of Star Wars, and Brian de Palma, director of Carrie, were close friends and ran joint casting sessions. Fisher was selected for a leading role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. She was told to lose ten pounds for the role, even though she weighed 105 pounds at the time. She found Lucas a controlling figure, and she hated the hairstyle that was chosen for her character. She chose not to say anything because she was afraid she would lose the part. During shooting, she abused drugs, such as painkillers and hallucinogens. Star Wars became an instant success and was one of the top-grossing films of all time. Fisher was surprised by the film’s influence.

In 1980, Fisher reprised her Princess Leia role for The Empire Strikes Back, and she played a smaller role in The Blues Brothers as the former lover of John Belushi’s character. She was briefly engaged to Dan Aykroyd during this period, but she left him to go back to her former boyfriend, singer Paul Simon. She also appeared on Broadway in Censored Scenes from King Kong (1980). She performed in the comedy Under the Rainbow in 1981, and she played Princess Leia in 1983 in Return of the Jedi. One of the scenes in this film featured Fisher in a gold bikini. The scene assured her iconic status and made her a sex symbol for a short while. She married Simon in 1983, but they divorced in 1984. She appeared in The Man with One Red Shoe (1985) opposite Jim Belushi.

Fisher accidentally overdosed in 1985 and entered a drug rehabilitation program. In 1987, Fisher built on her experiences with drug addiction and rehab and wrote Postcards from the Edge (1987), which was a novel based loosely on her own life. The book won the Los Angeles PEN Award for best first novel and was later adapted into a film in 1990, for which Fisher wrote the screenplay. The film starred Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. Fisher was in the hit film When Harry Met Sally . . . (1989) in a prominent supporting role. She appeared in a handful of films in the 1990s and wrote two novels, Surrender the Pink (1991) and Delusions of Grandma (1993). Fisher married Bryan Lourd and the couple had a daughter, Billie. Lourd left Fisher for a man after three years of marriage. In 1997, Fisher was hospitalized for a bad interaction between her bipolar medication and her pain medication. She checked herself into rehab afterward. Eventually Fisher received electroconvulsive therapy to treat her bipolar disorder.

Fisher was also one of the top script doctors in Hollywood for a time, hired to improve scripts. Her work was uncredited, but she worked with the scripts for The Wedding Singer (1998) and Sister Act (1992), among others. Lucas even hired her to refine his television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. She was proficient enough at fixing scripts that she was featured in a screenwriting documentary, Dreams on Spec (2007).

Fisher appeared on various popular television shows, including Ellen, Sex and the City, and 30 Rock. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role on 30 Rock. In 2005, R. Gregory Stevens, a friend, was found dead in Fisher’s bed, and she relapsed into drug abuse from the shock of the experience. However, she quickly overcame her addiction. Soon after she wrote and performed a one-woman show, Wishful Drinking (2009), which eventually she adapted into her memoir of the same title. Wishful Drinking was also nominated for a Grammy Award for best spoken-word album.

Thirty-two years after her appearance in Return of the Jedi Fisher reprised her role as Leia Organa, a general, once again in The Force Awakens (2015), the seventh episode in the Star Wars franchise. Fisher completed her work on the eighth episode, The Last Jedi, but died in December 2016, about one year before the film’s release. Weeks before her death she had released a memoir, The Princess Diarist, based on diaries she kept while filming Star Wars in 1976.

Significance

Fisher’s long-lasting entertainment career covered many aspects of the industry. From appearing in her mother’s Las Vegas show to roles in a series of films, her performing career has spanned over four decades. The Star Wars films that she starred in secured her icon status. She appeared in more than forty films, on various television shows, and onstage. She wrote award-winning fiction and nonfiction. Her writing talents also extended to the field of script doctoring, and some of the most prominent names in the entertainment industry turned to her to polish their scripts. Fisher’s life took extraordinary turns. Her battles with drug addiction and bipolar disorder are well documented, but she used her challenging personal experiences in the award-winning Postcards from the Edge. She raised awareness of these issues by speaking and writing openly about them.

Bibliography

Biersdorfer, J. D. “Carrie Fisher Has More to Say about Her Life in ‘Star Wars.’” Review of The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher. The New York Times, 29 Nov. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/books/review/carrie-fisher-star-wars-memoir-princess-diarist.html. Accessed 6 Nov. 2017.

Fisher, Carrie. Postcards from the Edge. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Fisher’s best-selling novel loosely based on her life. Deals with her main character’s drug addiction and relationships.

Fisher, Carrie. Wishful Drinking. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008. An autobiography written in Fisher’s easy style. Highly personal and gives an intimate view of the events in her life.

Itzkoff, Dave. “Carrie Fisher, Child of Hollywood and ‘Star Wars’ Royalty, Dies at 60.” The New York Times, 27 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/movies/carrie-fisher-dead-star-wars-princess-leia.html. Accessed 6 Nov. 2017.

Palmer, Cynthia, and Michael Horowitz. Sisters of the Extreme: Women Writing on the Drug Experience. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press, 2000. Various writings by women, including Fisher, on their experiences with drugs. Pertinent in the light of Fisher’s addictions and triumph over addiction.