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Iconic Star Wars Actress Carrie Fisher Dies at 60 (people.com)
Carrie Fisher, the actress, author and screenwriter who brought a rare combination of nerve, grit and hopefulness to her most indelible role, as Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" film franchise, died on Tuesday morning at the age of 60. From a report: "It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning," reads the statement. Fisher was flying from London to Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 23, when she went into cardiac arrest. Paramedics removed her from the flight and rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was treated for a heart attack. She later died in the hospital. The daughter of renowned entertainers Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Fisher was brought up in the sometimes tumultuous world of film, theater and television. Escaping Hollywood in 1973, the star enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she spent over a year studying acting. Just two years later, though, the bright lights of Hollywood drew her back, and Fisher made her film debut in the Warren Beatty-led Shampoo. Her role in Star Wars would follow in 1977 -- and she detailed the experience, including her on-set affair with costar Harrison Ford, in her latest memoir, The Princess Diarist. She was only 19 when the first installment of the beloved sci-fi franchise was filmed. Fisher's fans, family, and colleagues have paid their tribute to the actress The Guardian has published an intense tribute to Fisher in an article titled "The loss of Carrie Fisher is felt by all who love Hollywood, warmth and wit".
From BBC's obituary of Fisher: She was a self-confessed bookworm as a child reading poetry and classical literature. Her high school education was disrupted by the lure of the stage when she appeared in the musical Irene alongside her mother, and she never graduated. She moved to London where she enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama before returning to the US and attending the Sarah Lawrence arts college near New York. Having managed to kick drugs and alcohol, she was rushed to hospital in 1985 after accidentally taking an overdose of sleeping pills and prescription drugs. The episode formed the basis for her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, in which she satirised her own dependence on drugs and the sometimes difficult relationship she had with her mother. Three years later Fisher adapted it into a screenplay, and it was made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid. Fisher -- who had bipolar disorder -- also wrote and frequently talked in public about her years of drug addiction and mental illness. Carrie Fisher's fame as an actress rested on just one role, but it was a role in one of the best known and most successful film franchises in cinema history. She was remarkably frank about the personal difficulties she had fought and overcome. "There's a part of me that gets surprised when people think I am brave to talk about what I've gone through," she once said. "I was brave to last through it." The world is poorer without you, Fisher. Rest in peace.
From BBC's obituary of Fisher: She was a self-confessed bookworm as a child reading poetry and classical literature. Her high school education was disrupted by the lure of the stage when she appeared in the musical Irene alongside her mother, and she never graduated. She moved to London where she enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama before returning to the US and attending the Sarah Lawrence arts college near New York. Having managed to kick drugs and alcohol, she was rushed to hospital in 1985 after accidentally taking an overdose of sleeping pills and prescription drugs. The episode formed the basis for her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, in which she satirised her own dependence on drugs and the sometimes difficult relationship she had with her mother. Three years later Fisher adapted it into a screenplay, and it was made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid. Fisher -- who had bipolar disorder -- also wrote and frequently talked in public about her years of drug addiction and mental illness. Carrie Fisher's fame as an actress rested on just one role, but it was a role in one of the best known and most successful film franchises in cinema history. She was remarkably frank about the personal difficulties she had fought and overcome. "There's a part of me that gets surprised when people think I am brave to talk about what I've gone through," she once said. "I was brave to last through it." The world is poorer without you, Fisher. Rest in peace.
this has been a trump of a year
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happned
good night sweet prince
As Leia, she was a blaster-toting Rebel leader. Off screen, she battled with mental illness and came forward about it - enabling many other people to feel like they were not alone. She was the toughest Princess ever. RIP Carrie.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Just as a new generation of Star Wars fans were getting to know her, she suddenly passed away. May the Force be with her.
Can't we just declare it 2017 early and relegate this dumpster fire of a year to the past once and for all?!??
I had a boyhood crush on her in the days of the original trilogy. We lost a lot of celebrities this year, but the cast of the first three have always been special to me.
May she rest in peace.
there is only the force.
As we all collectively say "You'll be missed", she's somewhere looking at us and saying "I know".
That is all.
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
The Entire World
She was a very complex person, and before people start beating her up because she "let herself go" (which, by the way, she readily admitted)... You weren't her, you didn't have her problems and her life. Could she have done things differently? Of course. But, it is what it is. An early death is generally the price paid for drug abuse and not taking care of yourself.
She was witty A.F. and an excellent writer. I was 13 when I saw her for the first time on the silver screen. And *wow*. Over the years, I've appreciated what she has done - which is why people that knew her loved her deeply. Leia was just the start.
The actress? Not so much. Greta Garbo: Iconic. Bette Davis: Iconic. Carrie Fisher's Mom, Debbie Reynolds: Iconic. But Carrie herself? No.
All Farce jokes aisde,
We will miss you..
best wishes, rest in peace.
But I really should have. The cocaine must have damaged her body.
I thought the actors said they would move to Canada if Trump won, not die.
A lot celebrities died this year. But some folks I know — and what I read by other people on various comment boards — are claiming that 2016 sucked because these people died. Not with a passing sadness but a lingering depression, as if they personally known these people in person. That is weird.
Cocaine damages the heart. Cocaine use finally caught up to Carrie Fisher. In an era where people are calling for legalization of drugs, you might want to consider that people had motives for banning drugs in the first place. A generation of smokers brought an avalanche of lung cancer. I wonder if a generation of marijuana users will lead to early onset dementia, and low IQs. At least marijuana has less side effects for fighting pain than opiates.
The new Star Wars movie killed her. The stress from the promotional appearances and book tour took a toll on her. I hope you guys enjoyed your dreck.
I've come to know this /. thing as a pretty atheist, skeptic, science/empiricism-oriented site.
Yet, a lot of venom is vented against such an intangible and abstract concept as a calender year. As if 2016 is some grim reaper-kind of figure. As if its start and end was not quite arbitrarily chosen by someone long ago for reasons best known to themselves.
Then there's all this talk of the imaginary, fictitious Force...
And death itself: all people do die some day, for any of an untold number of reasons, and because they are better known than others due to being active in the entertainment world, does not in any way exonerate them from this. And REALLY, entertainment??? Is that really the epitome of value?
What about the anonymous mother that brought up well-adjusted humans that got hit by a car, or the anonymous daughter single-handedly financially supporting her parents, that got cancer, or the beloved grandfather guiding younger people with wisdom dying simply of old age?
AC because of being critical of others' beliefs...
So did the author of "Watership Down" today. And a foul mouthed comic died too.
I subscribe (or more accurately, was subscribed) to Slashdot for news and information about technology, not celebrities.
Han may shoot last, but if you cross him he ALWAYS gets you eventually...
"She drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra."
The Digital Sorceress
It's anudda Shoah I tells ya! Anudda Shoah!
Cocaine damages the heart. Cocaine use finally caught up to Carrie Fisher. In an era where people are calling for legalization of drugs, you might want to consider that people had motives for banning drugs in the first place.
High velocity lead is bad for you too. Legalizing drugs takes organized crime out of the equation, and reduces the incentives to run around murdering people for large amounts of cash, drugs, and turf. People will always do dangerous drugs, why not just legalize them so that people who don't want anything to do with drugs can walk down the street without getting shot?
Banning drugs is just providing price supports for organized crime. If you are pro-drug laws, you are pro-Organized crime, it is as simple as that.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not."
I think the part the original three actors played in Star Wars is underappreciated. Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, and Mark Hamill each played their parts well, and could fix up George Lucas' bad dialogue. It turns out that adult Mark Hamill is naturally a villain. Maybe George Lucas should have made sequels with the original cast instead of the prequels. Have Luke turn to the dark side, and kill Han Solo.
To the credit of the Force Awakens, Finn, and the woman also seem to have good chemistry and personality.
The woman was literally a 1-hit wonder
You only need one thing to be iconic.
never went on to do anything else that was worthy of note.
When the one thing is big enough, none of that matters.
Any number of actresses could have played the part
Like who exactly? Who would have been as perfect in that role as Carrie Fisher was?
Yes she was in the right place at the right time, but it's also true that she was the RIGHT PERSON in the right place at the right time. Any other actress would have mangled the part. Her actual person including her background growing up was perfect for that role in a way I'm not sure anyone else was.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
.
(The single period to mark a passing may not be a thing here but it once was, on metafilter)
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Yes coke (the powder) is bad for you. But she also would not have been the person she was without it. I don't know that she would have changed anything, even knowing she would die early...
Do you really want to continue to try and eliminate drugs, and have a world with no more Carrie Fishers?
Find your own monastery, I say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
She's dead Jim!
Now Star Wars fans get to experience what Star Trek fans have been feeling for decades... Your favorite performers in your favorite roles are mortal. Sure, your character might get a Genesis resurrection, or turn into a Force Ghost, but eventually, the actors die. Then the copyright holders get to screw with your favorite memories by remaking your favorite films with completely different actors. It's worse than Life Day.
butthurt, she has.
I saw one article today saying 47 famous celebrities died this year, and they included people I had never heard of like Greg Lake, AA Gill, Rick Parfitt, etc. That doesn't seem like that many people to me. If you assume the average celebrity lives 50 years after initial stardom, it would only take 2500 total celebrities for 50 of them to die each year. I would bet there are at least a few thousand people in the world we would consider celebrities.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I liked her best in The Blues Brothers.
Thanks Carrie, we'll miss you but your persona will live forever.
You pass slow mofos on the freeway. You DIE when you do that into an truck train.
Vera Rubin also died. I'll bet you guys don't even know who she was. Sad.
I have to wonder what will happen next. How exactly does the USA mourn when it loses the only actual princess it has ever had?
Self rescuing princess.
Does this mean a Carrie Fisher fappening leak is more or less likely to happen?
Is carrie fisher a sentient robot? Did she invent hyper space travel? Did she do ANYTHING for science at all?
No, one more worm food bag that accomplished nothing of value.
When this site figures out what science and technology is, wake me up
On Christmas day (Isaac Newton's birthday), one of the people who studied galaxies far, far away and the dark side of matter passed away. Vera Rubin
Fiction, especially science fiction, is a form of literature. Literature explores and expands the human condition. Carrie Fisher's acting & the science fiction she helped bring to life inspired the dreams of millions, maybe billions. She embraced that role her entire life.
Some of those dreams translated to a reusable rocket actually landing on a floating barge at sea. Maybe someday even your myopic ass will have a chance to holiday in orbit, the moon, or on Mars. But you'll probably just bitch about the toilette and packaged food.
Science without dreams is pretty damn boring. Carrie Fisher may have done more for the dreams that fuel science than you, Mr. Anonymous Coward, could ever hope for.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
Seriously, I was expecting to find that sort of comment in the discussion, though I wouldn't know how to mod it (if'n I ever got a mod point to bestow). The stress of Trump is certainly making me feel bad these days, and stress can elevate blood pressure and even cause heart attacks...
Seems like a number of prominent people have had unexpected and fatal heart attacks recently, but I think the sample size is still too small. The BIG stress should be on people in OTHER countries. "The big monster is loose, and it's ANGRY and ORANGE." Of course the punchline is that even if the death rate does increase, Trump will just blame it on the repeal of ObamaCare and the Democratic Party interference that is preventing "something terrific" from replacing it.
Lemonade time? There's a great business opportunity for a new news network featuring less Trump. Light Trump News (LTN) will promise the absolute minimum of Trump-related stories. Lots of stories about cats doing interesting things.
Still sorry to hear about her death, even though I was more of a Trekkie.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Perhaps the most insightful of the posts (currently) moderated insightful, and I actually count it in Slashdot's favor that there weren't any (visible) funny mods.
Or maybe seeing a humorous aspect somewhere in this story would have been a good thing? Creativity is a good thing and linked to humor, and I even had the impression that she played her iconic role with an edge of humor and wit. Maybe it was just in the script?
What bothers me is the edge of criticism of her lifestyle almost to the point of blaming her for her own death. Angry moralizing, but the offensive part is that I bet the critics would have done the same things or worse if they had the opportunities. It was her great success in the role of Princess Leia that created the temptations she faced and struggled with for the rest of her life.
If she had bungled the role and the movie had flopped, maybe she'd still be alive? Is that the conclusion we should reach? I hope her life had more meaning than that, and if so, much of it was related to the ideals of the character she brought to life so many years ago.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
...is for people who know nobody will give a shit when they go.
My guess, since she was "flat line" for 10-15 minutes at least, is she was pretty much gone before arriving to the hospital. Keeping her on a ventilator, "technically" kept her alive until she could make it past Christmas. Who the hell would want to remember your wife, daughter, mother "dying" on Christmas. Another thing that may or may not show up if there is an autopsy, made public, is considering her youthful lifestyle, "sex, drugs and rock & roll", her system was probably weakened. Then on top of that, she was told to lose a bunch of weight for the star wars movie, which she did. Who knows how she lost it. Training or drugs? Couple that, with the extended book tour she's been on, requiring a lot of traveling inside a pressurized aluminum tube (airplane), can cause a weakened heart to go out, not to mention any DVT clots that may have broken loose. Just a little warning for the youth, from someone who is close to her age, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF in your youth...you can't wreck your body that much in your 20's and 30's and expect it to behave in your late 50's and higher.
We Lost somene that really care about the humanity... TOGEL SGP
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of [male teenage fantasies] suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
She played an iconic new kind of fantasy princess that boys and girls alike could love - beautiful yet heroic, vulnerable yet brave, etc. a great CHARACTER played by a good ACTRESS.
Lots of people die all over the world every day. Every single one of us will die. Most humans die having lived lives of poverty and varying levels of misery. Carrie Fisher died having lived a life of fame and fortune, and it's quite likely that her own lifestyle (heavy drug use) contributed to her sadly premature demise. She's not unique in that, plenty of people in all walks of life have self-destructive tendencies and habits.
It's very sad for her friends and family to lose her, but her fans need to keep some perspective: you did not really KNOW her, you mostly just liked the characters she played. You did not have her, the actual person, in your home as a guest; you had a DVD of her performances on a screen in your home. You are not personally mourning her actual loss, you are just sensing the loss of an icon of your youth, the loss of the opportunity to see any future performances, the reduction in possible future plot lines in a film series you like, etc. The Force does not exist, and Carrie did not become "one with it". To her REAL friends and family (rather than people followed her on Twitter, "friended" her on Facebook, or otherwise used social media to convince themselves she was their friend) this is a very real loss, and they certainly need support and sympathy as ALL loved ones of ALL who die need. Being a wold-famous entertainer, however, does not make her death more important than the death of another person to those outside her personal circle. Mass media really warps the perspectives of large parts of the population. The funny part is that she seemed to have a better perspective on this sort of thing than many of those who never met her and did not know her (the real person) yet who now think they are mourning her loss.
RIP Carrie Fisher.
Are being ironic or satirizing Hollywood's 'Nothing is sacred in the pursuit of moar moniez!'
Honestly they should have left them immortalized as their 70s era selves, made the sequels not involve a handing over (if they had to make the sequels at all.) and been happy with the generations they inspired and the fictional universe they helped breath life into through their onscreen depictions.
Having said that, how soon isn't too soon to call filming more Star Wars movies 'beating a dead actress'?
And to Fisher's offspring: My condolences on your loss, I hope your time together was memorable and that she helped sow the seeds for you to grow into the kind of person she will be proud of in the future.
It sounds quite interesting!
I assume you can do so without personally identifying yourself.
Blame rereleases. In the original cut, Han dies first.
your heart, lungs, dna, or pretty much every other part of your body.
As a counterexample to Fisher: Ozzie Osbourn and plenty of other 'rockstars' are still alive, despite abusing as many if not more drugs than Fisher did.
The key thing in life is not to take ANYTHING in quantities sufficient to damage you. We don't know what those quantities are for all substances, but over time we're getting there. It would be a lot better for humanity if we invested heavily in health care for a generation or two and following both regular people and substance abusers on a weekly basis. The correlation between particular substance abuse and certain health conditions might be more readily exposed, as opposed to relying on chronic substance abuses who may or may not have had predispositions that lead them there and actually caused the conditions.
Alright, you're using that word too much. Afraid it will fall back out of style. Most of my life, icon referred to people certain churches revered, and then computer images and just this decade, to people and characters in media.
Until sometime in this decade, I never heard "iconic" refer to media/media personalities at all
Sissy Spacek, Cindy Williams, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Cybill Shepherd, Anjelica Huston, Kim Basinger, Kathleen Turner.
BWA HA HA HAH AHAHAH!
Most of them are 7-10 years older for one thing. Of the ones that aren't, they are totally different types and simply were nowhere near as fiery as Carrie was.
Everyone of these names are better actresses
I don't think you quite understand. Carrie Fisher was not really a great actress. She was a perfect Princess Leia.
All of those names listed COULD have done the role, but the movie would have been worse for it, in many cases disastrously so.
Maybe that counterexample from the original response to my post was Natalie Portman, a great actress also but nearly unwatchable in the Star Wars prequels... though like I said that's a pretty different situation and not really compatible. Star Wars was good source material, the prequel scripts unsalvageable by any actor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The rapture's happening right in front of your eyes yet you don't see it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
As it happens, I arrived to Star Wars a bit late, about half a reel late. As I walked up the ramp in Plaza 1 theater in Plaza Las Americas, PR, the screen came into view, just as R2 and 3P0 were climbing up a dune in Tatooine. Now that I think on it, it was curious timing.
Having missed half the first reel, I stayed for the next show, and saw the whole thing. The movie changed something in me. Changed my mind. I won't say it saved or changed my life, but it awoke something in me, something that I guess eventually led to my attraction to technology of all sorts.
I didn't know shit from shinola back then, and I still don't now, but the character of Leia stuck with me to this day. The Plaza twins 1 & 2 are gone, Leia is gone, but the sweet memories of that moviehouse and that film, I'll take to the grave. "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" -- that phrase, that voice, that hologram still resound in my mind, in a place close to my heart.
How odd, since I unplugged from pop culture sometime like 25 years ago, I didn't know of her struggle with bipolar disorder. I must read her books on this... because it is a cross I bear, and have bore, since before I saw the film. Yes, I found treatment, no, i'm not "cured," yes, it's a cast-iron bitch to live with. So maybe her passing will introduce yet more people to how she dealt with it, and that is a good thing.
When I heard the news, my mind immediately played that bit of the soundtrack, her leitmotif, with that reedy little oboe. Yes, it struck tears.
RIP Carrie Fisher, long live Princess Leia Organa Solo.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
I spent the day talking to a man who kept on falling over. The reason he kept on falling over is he was too fat and was not taking a big enough step because he could not support his weight so he would take little steps which meant he was not supporting his stomach, and thus he was falling over.
His speaking voice was like somebody who had his own fist in his mouth. He said he used to be a well-known East End Jewish, gangster. When sitting down he would lean to the side so he could squeeze out a fart that sounded like a drowning trumpet player.
He had stretchmarks on his triple chins, he had a gruesome looking stomach scar that sunk into the cavity of the fat. The scar was from two previous gastric band surgery operations that he had managed to break by forcing the food that come up back down. Not suitable for band surgery.
He kept on telling us = us pronoun (group) not the country U.S. ) how he enjoyed running over a bunch of Palestinian children at full speed in a jeep. His wife said he had never been there because he is too fat to fit in the seat of a aircraft.
His wife was saying he is looking to purchase a new motor vehicle but the "car dealers" would not allow him to sit in the seat of the car or to test drive it because he would damage their vehicles suspension.
He was covered in gangster jewellery Bling Bling and he is 64 years old and has never worked ever and had been claiming disability allowance because he was so fat from the year dot.
He was a repulsive sarcastic pathetic evil bastard with a spiteful tongue. A senior citizen suggested that he was a "typical Jewish man" and we should get the Irishman, to deal with him because Irishman are good at dealing with "Jewish people". ??? ( is that anti-Semitism? ).
The Irishman examined him and said "the reason you are falling over is because you are too fat and if you do not want to fall over go on a diet or else do not walk".
The Jewish man said he had been to Ireland and they were all retarded terrorists and then giggled meaning he was joking?
The Irishman asked him whether he travelled by cargo ship and did they use a crane.
The Jewish man become very friendly and polite. What is it with Jewish people and Irish people?
Anyway to cut a long story short those who do die should not. Those who do not die should.
It's all over the world, a fact of history. That when you die, you'll become something worse than dead, you'll become, a legend.
I bet no one looked at Neil Armstrong and said Hey pal, you only landed on the moon once, you're a one hit wonder. I'm fairly certain that many of them regret being so famous, perhaps a little unexpectedly, and that living a legend is a curse that costs them their freedom. I don't think you would be able to handle the pressure of being so recognizable out of one role.
Then again, perhaps you are jealous you aren't a space princess, I will never know.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
RIP Carrie Fisher aka Princess and General Leia. You will be remembered. Thank you for everything.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Seriously, the number of inappropriate posts on here is shameful.
"It's not the band I hate, it's the fans"
Was this over a psychic dick
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happned
That is, by far, the queerest thing I have ever heard.
Fucking grow a pair, will ya??