5 things you may not have known about Carrie Fisher
Celebrities and fans alike mourned the loss of Carrie Fisher, who died on Tuesday morning. The actress passed away just days after suffering a heart attack.
Fisher was best known as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies, but the multi-faceted actress was an accomplished hyphenate with several more roles under her belt.
Here are five facts you might not have known about Fisher.
1. She was the child of a Hollywood power couple. Fisher’s parents, actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, suffered one of the most scandalous splits of their time when her father left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor. Fisher was only 2 years old. She said of the breakup in her 2008 autobiography “Wishful Drinking”: “When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result.”
The acting bug runs in the family. Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, is an actress on “Scream Queens.” She plays Chanel #3.
2. Her breakout role was in 1975’s “Shampoo.” Fisher was just a teenager when she was in “Shampoo,” starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie and Goldie Hawn. The actress had a small role as Lorna, the daughter of Lee Grant and Jack Warden’s characters. Just two years later, Fisher nabbed a leading role as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” trilogy, and the rest is history.
3. She had romances with several big stars. Fisher and singer Paul Simon started dating while she was filming “Star Wars” in 1977, and they married in 1983 at their apartment in New York City. They divorced after just one year, but continued to date on and off for a decade afterward.
Before Fisher married Simon, though, she was briefly engaged to Dan Aykroyd while they were filming 1980’s “Blues Brothers.”
She told the Chicago Tribune, “On ‘Blues Brothers,’ he proposed in the trailer on set. He was forcing me to eat because I was very thin in those days -- no longer -- and I inhaled a Brussels sprout, and I started choking. He thought I was laughing, and then he saw that I was dying, and he did the Heimlich maneuver, and then like 10 minutes later he asked me to marry him, and I thought, ‘I better marry him. What if that happens again?’ We had rings, we got blood tests, the whole shot. But then I got back together with Paul Simon.”
Fisher also had an affair with Harrison Ford. She shared in her book “The Princess Diarist” that she was romantically involved with her co-star while filming the first “Star Wars” movie in 1976. She later expressed regret about revealing the affair.
4. Fisher was a prolific writer. The actress was also a best-selling author. She wrote seven books and was in the midst of a book tour during her passing for “The Princess Diarist,” a candid memoir during which she revealed she was first introduced to drugs at the age of 13.
Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel “Postcards from the Edge,” which was first published in 1987, was also adapted by Fisher into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine.
5. She was open about her addiction and mental illness struggles. Fisher was an outspoken advocate for people struggling with mental illness, and talked publicly about having bipolar disorder, helping to destigmatize the illness. She also talked about her past drug and alcohol abuse, and her time in rehab.
