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Fans Sense a Great Disturbance In The Force, as Carrie Fisher Dies

Star Wars Actress never recovered consciousness after massive seizure 12/23

Carrie Fisher has died at UCLA Hospital's Ronald Reagan Medical Center, at 8:55 am PST Tuesday. She was 60 years old.

Fans, who remembered her mostly for her role as Princess Leia, shared their feelings on Social Media following Christmas. It was as if Darth Vaader had prevailed in "A New Hope."

"A million voice's are crying out tonight... Carrie Fisher was very intelligent, funny,forthright and a film icon she will be sadly missed," said Bryan Dow.

"Now a million voices cry out in mourning. R.I.P Carrie Fisher," said Mike Kabbot, quoting the original Star Wars movie.

"She was the only celebrity I was ever truly "in love" with (in as much as one can know being in love before puberty.)," explained Conejo Kruger. "She was a big part of changing my world when I was 7 years old and saw Star Wars. Through my adulthood, I always read the news stories involving her when I saw them. When I heard the original cast had signed on for the new Star Wars movies, I was excited mostly about Carrie Fisher reprising her role as Princess Leia. Alliance flags at half mast..."

In her book, Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote: "I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra." Several obituaries and retrospectives obliged.

The Star Wars actress was flying from London to Los Angeles on 12/23, when she went into cardiac arrest. According to actress Anna Akana who was on the flight, passengers with medical training onboard administered CPR. It took over 15 minutes to get her pulse to restart, and she did not ever recover consciousness. Experts said at the time that she had only a 5% chance of recovering.

Fisher, 60, was rushed to UCLA medical center by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics shortly after noon, after her flight touched down at LAX.

Fisher, who rose to stardom as Princess Leia, recently published an autobiography titled the "Princess Diarist," her eighth book.

She was the daughter of famous Hollywood couple Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

"Carrie Fisher, the brash and witty Hollywood princess who became a galactic princess in Star Wars and later found acclaim as an author and screenwriter, died on Tuesday after suffering a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles on Friday," said Entertainment Weekly.

Carrie Frances Fisher is best known for her role as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy (1977–83) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Fisher is also known for her semi-autobiographical novels, including Postcards from the Edge, and the screenplay for the film of the same name, as well as her autobiographical one-woman play, and its nonfiction book, Wishful Drinking, based on the show. Her other film roles include Shampoo (1975), The Blues Brothers (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The 'Burbs (1989), and When Harry Met Sally... (1989).

In her 2016 autobiography, The Princess Diarist, Fisher disclosed that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair during the filming of Star Wars in 1976.

Fisher dated musician Paul Simon from 1977 until 1983. In 1980, she was briefly engaged to Canadian actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd, who proposed on the set of their film The Blues Brothers. She said: "We had rings, we got blood tests, the whole shot. But then I got back together with Paul Simon."

Fisher was married to Simon from August 1983 to July 1984, and they dated again for a time after their divorce. During their marriage, she appeared in Simon's music video for the song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War". Simon's song "Hearts and Bones" is about their relationship.

Subsequently, she had a relationship with Creative Artists Agency principal and talent agent Bryan Lourd. They had one child together, Billie Catherine Lourd (born July 17, 1992). Eddie Fisher states in his autobiography (Been There Done That) his granddaughter's name is Catherine Fisher Lourd and her nickname is "Billy". The couple's relationship ended when Lourd left to be in a relationship with a man. Though Fisher has described Lourd as her second husband in interviews, according to a 2004 profile of the actress and writer, she and Lourd were never legally married.

Fisher also had a close relationship with James Blunt. While working on his album Back to Bedlam in 2003, Blunt spent much of his time at Fisher's residence. When Vanity Fair's George Wayne asked Fisher if their relationship was sexual, she replied: "Absolutely not, but I did become his therapist. He was a soldier. This boy has seen awful stuff. Every time James hears fireworks or anything like that, his heart beats faster, and he gets 'fight or flight.' You know, he comes from a long line of soldiers dating back to the 10th century. He would tell me these horrible stories. He was a captain, a reconnaissance soldier. I became James' therapist. So it would have been unethical to sleep with my patient."

On February 26, 2005, R. Gregory "Greg" Stevens, a lobbyist, was found dead in Fisher's California home. The final autopsy report lists the cause of death as "cocaine and oxycodone use" but adds chronic, and apparently previously undiagnosed, heart disease as contributing factors. Media coverage of an initial autopsy report used the word "overdose," but that wording is not in the final report. In an interview, Fisher claimed that Stevens' ghost haunted her mansion, which unsettled her: "I was a nut for a year", she explained, "and in that year I took drugs again."

Fisher described herself as an "enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God". She was raised Protestant,but often attends Jewish services, the faith of her father, with Orthodox friends. She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Inc. weight loss television ads that aired in January 2011.

On December 23, 2016, Fisher was hospitalized in critical condition after suffering a heart attack while on a flight from London to Los Angeles.

Fisher's death was confirmed to Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE in a statement released by family spokesperson Simon Halls on behalf of Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd.

"It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning," the statement read. "She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers."

 

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