Carrie Fisher Passes Away At 60
Another brilliant star in the world has passed on – and this time, it’s a pop culture icon. Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher, who has been hospitalized since this past Friday after suffering a massive heart attack, passed away today at the age of 60 years old.
Fisher was traveling to Los Angeles from London on Friday, December 23rd, when she suffered cardiac arrest during her flight. Medical personnel traveling on the plane were able to keep her sustained but she was immediately taken to UCLA Medical Center upon landing at Los Angeles International. She had been placed in the ICU and, as late as Sunday afternoon, was in stable condition. She passed away at 8:55am this morning peacefully.
Carrie Fisher was the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and entertainer Eddie Fisher. She enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London in 1973 to break free from her troubled household and had aspirations to become an actress herself. Though her big-screen debut was in Shampoo, she wouldn’t receive her big break at stardom until the 19-year-old Fisher was cast as Princess Leia in Star Wars. From there on out, Fisher would be remembered as a character that generations of young girls could look up and aspire to become, a brave and fearless woman who wouldn’t be told to shy away from any fight.
Over the years Fisher had delighted audiences through both film and television. Altogether Fisher had 90 on-screen credited appearances. Outside of the world of Star Wars she had also acted in The Blues Brothers, The Man With One Red Shoe, Hannah and Her Sisters, When Harry Met Sally, The ‘Burbs, and also appearances on 30 Rock, Family Guy, and The Big Bang Theory. She had recently wrapped filming on Star Wars: Episode VIII with daughter Billie Lourd starring alongside, the baton passing from one generation to the next.
Fisher had fought substance abuse heavily at a younger age, chronicling back to when she was just 13 years old. Her addiction later would include cocaine and LSD. In 1987, after getting clean and freed from her demons, she penned the best-selling semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge, which later would become a Hollywood adaptation starring Meryl Streep.
Fisher, who had only recently became involved in on-screen acting again, has spent years of her life using her struggles with drugs and bi-polar disorder in attempts to help others afflicted with the same demons as herself. She was a beloved playwright, author, actor, and script writer/doctor, who had her hand in scores of uncredited script doctoring for some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1980’s through 2000’s, from Hook to The Wedding Singer.
The staff here at Fan Fest News passes along our deepest and sincere condolences to Carrie Fisher’s family and friends during this most particular time of grieving – and to all of the fans of both Star Wars and Hollywood in general, to whom Carrie Fisher was a true icon of popular culture. To paraphrase a quote from Chirrut Imwe in Rogue One – she was one with the Force and the Force is one with her now.
Jerrold spent his childhood in southeastern Pennsylvania ingesting far too many TV shows and movies, thus creating a stark-raving mad geek. He’s a movie aficionado, binge-watches Netflix, and is a total TV junkie. His addiction has led to an unhealthy and rabid obsession of various geek pantheons – Star Trek, Star Wars, both DC *AND* Marvel,
cult 80’s and 90’s television, Supernatural, The X-Files, Doctor Who, and, and…holy overload. He’s still waiting to run away in a 1967 Impala or a blue police box.
