Actress and novelist Carrie Fisher has died. As reported on Digital Journal, Carrie Fisher suffered a heart attack on board an airplane bound for Los Angeles. She was initially said to be in a serious condition; although she had later been described as ‘stable’. Information relating to the incident, recounted by TMZ, suggested Ms Fisher had suffered a cardiac arrest on board a United flight from London Heathrow to Los Angeles (LAX), fifteen minutes before the aircraft touched down in the U.S.
United Airlines states its flight crew reported Carrie Fisher as “unresponsive” when they landed in the U.S. Staff on board also stated they were unable to find a pulse; when medics arrived on the aircraft they removed the actress and took her to a nearby hospital (the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center); during transit she was fitted with a ventilator. On Christmas Day, Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, reported that her daughter was “stable.” No further communications were issued on December 26; on December 27 it has been announced that the movie star has passed away.
News of Carrie Fisher’s death comes from the BBC. News of Carrie Fisher’s death came first via a family statement which noted with “deep sadness” that Carrie Fisher died on Tuesday morning and a more personal statement on behalf of Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd (Scream Queens), (via spokesman Simon Halls) which states: “It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8.55 this morning. She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.”
Star Wars co-star Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) simply tweeted: “No words #devastated”.
Debbie Reynolds later messaged on Facebook: “Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter. I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop. Love Carries [sic] Mother.”
Obituary
Carrie Frances Fisher was born on October 21, 1956, the child of actress Debbie Reynolds and the singer Eddie Fisher. As a teenager she originally planned to go into art before making the switch to acting. Her debut movie was in 1978, the Warren Beatty movie Shampoo. Fame quickly followed with her casting, at the age of 19, in George Lucas’ Star Wars. Fisher played the role of Princess Leia, one of the leaders of the Rebellion and later revealed to be a force-sensitive offspring of Anakin Skywalker/ Darth Vader. During the filming Fisher later admitted she had an affair with Harrison Ford, who was married at the time and 16 years older.
Fisher appeared in several other movies during the 1980s, as well as the Star Wars follow-up movies, including The Blues Brothers and the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters. She also had a role in When Harry Met Sally. During this decade Fisher was briefly married to musician Paul Simon. In 1985, People Magazine reports that Fisher was diagnosed with bipolar disorder; afterwards she became an outspoken advocate for mental health awareness.
Disillusioned with acting, Fisher moved into writing, producing some critically acclaimed semi-autobiographical novels, of which Postcards from the Edge was the most successful (and later turned into a movie). In the novel Fisher satirizes her own dependence on drugs and her sometimes ‘difficult’ relationship with her mother. Over the years, Carrie Fisher continued to write (Surrender the Pink and Delusions of Grandeur) and appear in small movie roles, until coming back into the public eye with her reprisal of Princess Leia in the eighth Star Wars movie The Force Awakens in 2015.
In 2016, Fisher released her memoir, The Princess Diarist. She had been promoting the book in Europe prior to taking the flight back to Los Angeles, to spend Christmas with her family, when the tragedy happened and she suffered the heart attack.
Carrie Fisher died at age 60 on December 27, 2016, at 8:55 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, in Los Angeles, California. She is survived by her mom Reynolds and daughter Lourd.
