This past weekend, the actress, author and producer suffered a massive heart attack on an airplane, and was administered CPR for 10-15 minutes before her plane landed and she was rushed to hospital. Now, we’ve learned that after spending Christmas in intensive care, the actress who stole every nerd’s heart in 1977 and beyond, has passed away.
What is Carrie Fisher doing on a DC Comics-themed website? For those who don’t remember anything but “Slave Leia,” Fisher also portrayed the character Pauline Kahn on the WB show Smallville. The character she played was Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Planet before the era of Perry White, and helped Chloe Sullivan hone her journalistic skills.
She appeared in just one episode of the show, making it just a blip in her long and storied career. She started in 1975 with her silver screen debut as Lorna in the movie Shampoo, and then landed her next part, probably the biggest of her life, Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars. She had innumerable guest star roles and uncredited parts throughout the 80s and 90s, and eventually ended up in one of the biggest pop culture booms of the early 2000s with her recurring role as Peter Griffin’s boss at the Pawtucket Brewery, Angela, on the crude humor sensation Family Guy.
We encourage you to read her autobiography, Wishful Drinking, to learn more about the life she led prior to, during, and after Star Wars. Carrie was always gracious to fans, she knew how to make people laugh, and she won our hearts over not just as a fictional rebel space princess, but as a person, and her charming method of storytelling always left fans clamoring for more of her.
Her most recent book, The Princess Diarist, is a reprinting of her personal journals from her time producing Star Wars. This quote from the Amazon.com description states pretty well the contents of the book:
“When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized.”
To the memory of Carrie Fisher,
Thank you for living a life for others. Thank you for being brave enough to put your personal life in the spotlight that we might learn your lessons and not make your mistakes. Thank you for being such an incredible role model to generations of fans. Thank you for always being honest, for never pulling punches, and for standing up for what you believed. You were an inspiration to us all, and the world is a slightly darker place, now that you’ve left it.
“Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.” — Yoda, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Rest in peace, Carrie Fisher.
