Fisher, a mental health advocate who spoke about her own
struggles with bipolar disorder and cocaine addiction, had
suffered a heart attack on Friday as she flew into Los Angeles.
The daughter of actor Debbie Reynolds and the late singer Eddie
Fisher had been returning from England where she was shooting
the third season of the British sitcom "Catastrophe."
"Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of
my beloved and amazing daughter," Reynolds said on Facebook. "I
am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding
her to her next stop."
Fisher's friend and former Star Wars' co-star Mark Hamill, who
played Leia's brother Luke Skywalker, said in a tweet: "No
words. #Devastated"
Fisher was met by paramedics and rushed to the Ronald Reagan
UCLA Medical Center after suffering the heart attack during the
flight on Friday.
She made headlines last month when she disclosed that she had a
three-month love affair with her "Star Wars" co-star Harrison
Ford 40 years ago.
Fisher revealed the secret to People magazine while promoting
her new memoir, "The Princess Diarist," just before it went on
sale. The book is based on Fisher's diaries from her time
working on the first "Star Wars" movie.
Harrison said in a statement Fisher was funny, emotionally
fearless and one-of-a-kind. "She lived her life, bravely...We
will all miss her."
Fisher said the affair started and ended in 1976 during
production on the blockbuster sci-fi adventure in which she
first appeared as the intrepid Princess Leia. Ford played the
maverick space pilot Han Solo.
"It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison
during the weekend," Fisher told People. She was 19 and Ford was
33 at the time.
"How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be
satisfied with the likes of me? I was so inexperienced, but I
trusted something about him. He was kind," she wrote of Ford in
the memoir, the latest of several books Fisher authored.
Fisher reprised the role in two "Star Wars" sequels. She gained
sex symbol status in 1983's "Return of the Jedi" when her Leia
character wore a metallic gold bikini while enslaved by the
diabolical Jabba the Hutt.
She returned last year in Disney's reboot of the "Star Wars"
franchise, "The Force Awakens," appearing as the more matronly
General Leia Organa, leader of the Resistance movement fighting
the evil First Order.
Filming was completed in July on Fisher's next appearance as
Leia in "Star Wars: Episode VIII," which is set to reach
theaters in December 2017.
Fisher's Princess Leia makes a surprise appearance at the end of
"Rogue One," the latest blockbuster, which opened this month, in
the "Star Wars" series.
Shortly after news of her death was made public, her dog Gary,
who has his own Twitter account, said goodbye: "Saddest tweets
to tweet. Mommy is gone. I love you @carrieffisher."
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She is survived by her mother, Reynolds, her daughter, Billie
Lourd, and her brother Todd Fisher.
EARLY SHOWBIZ START
Fisher also played a memorable supporting role in the 1989 hit
film "When Harry Met Sally," as a friend of Meg Ryan's character
who falls for and marries the best pal of Billy Crystal's
character.
More recently, Fisher played the American mother-in-law on
"Catastrophe."
Born in Beverly Hills, Carrie Fisher got her showbiz start at
age 12 in her mother's Las Vegas nightclub act. She made her
film debut as a teenager in the 1975 comedy "Shampoo," two years
before her "Star Wars" breakthrough.
But her life was also at times mired in drug abuse, mental
illness and tumultuous romances with other entertainment figures,
all of which she laid bare in her books, interviews and a one-woman
stage show titled "Wishful Drinking."
She was once engaged to comic actor Dan Aykroyd, later married, then
divorced, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, and had a daughter out of
wedlock with Hollywood talent agent Brian Lourd.
After undergoing treatment in the mid-1980s for cocaine addition,
she wrote the bestselling novel, "Postcards from the Edge," about a
drug-abusing actress forced to move back in with her mother. She
later adapted the book into a film that starred Meryl Streep and
Shirley MacLaine.
She told Reuters in a 2011 interview that tabloid exposure of her
private life could be trying.
"'Carrie Fisher's tragic life.' That was one that hurt," she
said, quoting a headline. "'Hey, how about Carrie Fisher? She used
to be so hot. Now she looks like Elton John.' That hurt."
She also acknowledged being briefly hospitalized in 2013 due to a
bout with bipolar disorder.
However, Fisher told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview
published last month she was happier than she had ever been.
"I've been through a lot, and I could go through more, but I hope I
don't have to," she said. "But if I did, I'd be able to do it. I'm
not going to enjoy dying but there's not much prep for that."
Summing up the showbiz legacy she expected to leave behind in her
2011 memoir "Shockaholic," Fisher wrote in self-deprecating style:
"What you'll have of me after I journey to that great Death Star in
the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a
picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini
lounging on a giant drooling squid, behind a newscaster informing
you of the passing of Princess Leia after a long battle with her
head."
(Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Daniel
Wallis and Jill Serjeant in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold and
Diane Craft)
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