She’s best known, perhaps exclusively known in many cases, as Princess Leia Organa, the iconic, no-nonsense star of the Star Wars franchise. Yet beyond this one performance (defining as it is), Carrie Fisher’s most important role has been autobiographer; chronicling a life borne from the melodrama of Hollywood, plagued by addiction and mental illness, and yet defined by passion and good humour.
Born Carrie Frances Fisher on October 21st, 1956 in Beverley Hills, Fisher was very much born into a celebrity home. Her father was singer Eddie Fisher, and her mother 50s movie star Debbie Reynolds. “I am truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result,” Fisher would joke.
The pair were very much America’s sweethearts, but like so many couples in the spotlight, their relationship was not as ideal as it seemed. When Fisher was only two years old, Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor, the actress and close family friend, who had recently lost her husband in a plane crash. Debbie went on to marry the owner of a shoe-store chain, who went on to steal her life savings.
To escape the drama, Fisher hid in books. They called her a bookworm, “and they didn’t say it nice,” she recalled to The Telegraph. From there, she began writing limericks like her idol, Dorothy Parker.
Inevitably, Fisher’s mother forced her on stage as part of a Las Vegas nightclub act, telling her that chorus work was the most important education she would ever receive. As a result, Fisher dropped out of Beverley Hills High School at 15.
Not long after making her stage debut in the Broadway hit Irene, Fisher left home and enrolled at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama in 1973. 18 months later, she appeared in her first film, a comedy called Shampoo.
Fisher’s first starring role would be her best known. In 1977, she appeared as Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars, opposite Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. The film would change her life forever, but not only because she suddenly propelled to stardom even beyond that which her parents achieved.
Since the age of 13, Fisher had been experimenting with marijuana. On the set of Star Wars, however, her trips were becoming increasingly dark and frightening, so she started looking for an alternative. They eventually arrived in the form of hallucinogens and painkillers.
“I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid; that I was a light bulb in a world of moths.”
Between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, Fisher starred in several TV movies, and an anthology series alongside Laurence Olivier Presents. The 80s brought further success: she featured as a vengeful ex in The Blues Brothers, appeared on Broadway in Censored Scenes from King Kong, and completed the Star Wars trilogy in 1983 with Return of the Jedi. That summer, she would appear in her iconic metal bikini to promote the film on the cover of Rolling Stone.
The same year, she married her partner, Paul Simon. The marriage would last only a single year. Simon went on to write the song Hearts and Bones in reaction to their tumultuous relationship:
Thinking back to the season before
Looking back through the cracks in the door
Two people were married
The act was outrageous
The bride was contagious
She burned like a bride
This burning to which Simon referred would be given an official diagnosis in years to come, but for now, Fisher continued with her string of cinematic successes in the likes of When Harry Met Sally, and The ‘Burbs.
Her first novel, Postcards from the Edge, was released in 1987. Offering satirical, semi-autobiographical insight into her drug addiction and relationship with her celebrity parents, it defined the humour for which she would be celebrated for. The book went on to receive the Los Angeles Pen Award for Best First Novel, and was adapted for the screen.
In the 1990s, Fisher had a four year relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd. They had a child together, but in 1994 Lourd revealed he was gay, and left her.
In response, she was ‘invited’ to visit a psychiatric institution to consider her mental condition. There, she learnt that her often manic behaviour was a result of bipolar disorder. Years of drug abuse had been a means to quelling her pain, and now that pain had a name. To counteract it, she began undertaking electroconvulsive therapy treatment every six weeks to “blow apart the cement” in her brain.
For all of this, Fisher continued to persevere with her career. “There is no point at which you can say, ‘Well, I’m successful now. I might as well take a nap’,” she said. In the 90s and early 2000s, she wrote three more novels – Surrender of the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, and The Best Awful There Is – made a range of cameo appearances in television and film, and became an esteemed ‘script doctor’, polishing the screenplays for such projects as Lethal Weapon 3, Sister Act, The Wedding Singer, and the three Star Wars prequel films.
In 2006, she created a one-woman play, Wishful Drinking, which reflected on her experience with fame and addiction. It was adapted into a book in 2008, and along with 2011’s Shockaholic, revealed the true nature of her struggles over the last four decades with a kind of cheeky grace that enamoured her once more in the hearts of fans.
Of course, the same thing happened in 2015, when Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, was unleashed across cinemas worldwide with Fisher in her classic role.
In 2016, Fisher was awarded with the Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by Harvard College.
“When I spoke about my mental illness publicly, I won great acclaim. I waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything (OK, fine, not acting, but what about a tiny little award for writing? Nope), I now get awards for being mentally ill,” Fisher jokes in Wishful Drinking.
Carrie Fisher’s struggles continue, but her openness and good humour about her condition have helped many who suffer from mental illness accept what they face, and vow to give it hell in the battle to overcome. Yes, she is a fantastic actor and writer. Yes, she is the first woman just about everyone thinks of when asked to name a leading lady of sci-fi. But her outspoken humanism is what ultimately makes Fisher a true legend.