Actress and writer Carrie Fisher, best known for her role in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged just 60. Fisher suffered a heart attack while on a transatlantic flight late last week and passed away on Tuesday after four days in intensive care.
Actress Carrie Fisher with a Storm Trooper at the opening of the European premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in central London on December 16, 2015. Fisher reprised her role as Princess Leia (left) in the film, more than a decade after her last appearance in the franchise.
FOREIGNEDITORIAL
Carrie Fisher, best known for her role in the original Star Wars trilogy,
died on Tuesday, days after suffering a heart attack.
Vogue.com
Actress and writer Carrie Fisher, best known for her role in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died aged just 60. Fisher suffered a heart attack while on a transatlantic flight late last week and passed away on Tuesday after four days in intensive care.
A spokesperson for the family confirmed her death with a statement from the actress’s daughter, Billie Lourd, which revealed that she passed away just before 9am in the morning.
“She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers,” it read. Fisher was in the midst of the European leg of her book tour for new autobiography The Princess Diarist, a witty look back at her life so far, which revealed - among other things - her affair with Star Wars co-star Harrison Ford. Following weeks of promotion, she was on route home for a family Christmas when the medical incident occurred aboard a flight from London to Los Angeles.
The actress was the daughter of Singing in the Rain actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, who scandalously left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor when Fisher was just two. Reynolds said later that she had made her peace with having been left for “the world’s most beautiful woman” and she and Taylor resumed their friendship once Taylor and Fisher divorced five years later. Fisher’s daughter has continued the acting dynasty and currently stars in television show Scream Queens.
Fisher made her on-screen debut in 1975’s Shampoo, but was catapulted to global fame two years later when the first of three Star Wars films that she was to star in was released. The actress reprised her most famous role for 2015’s Star Wars Episode VII, and finished filming on Episode VIII - due for release in December 2017 - shortly before she died. Fisher is survived by Lourd, as well as by Reynolds, who is 84.
