If the news of Carrie Fisher’s recent passing has left you wondering what matters anymore, rest assured, you’re not alone. This week devastated super-fans and casual-fans everywhere.
Fisher’s character in the epic saga, Star Wars, was one of the main good guys.
Most fans of Star Wars know her personal life was a battlefield of cocaine abuse and dealing with a bipolar disorder. No doubt, the woman lived many lives in addition to one’s she played on screen.
You may find it surprising to recall a few of those roles, along with some of her romances over the years.
Born From Stars
(Papa Fisher, Reynolds and baby Carrie | source: mirror.co.uk)
Eddie Fisher, her father, was a pop music star. Debbie Reynolds, her mother, starred in Singin’ In The Rain.
Two years after they delivered Carrie, Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor. This would only further complicate Fisher’s upbringing, deepening her relationship with Hollywood.
In her autobiography, Fisher would remark on this as the reason she struggled, her famous parents. There was no attention left for her, standing in the shadows of such celebrity.
In an even more bizarre twist, Reynolds outlived her daughter, but only by hours. She passed away yesterday, likely due to stress over losing her daughter this week.
Harrison Ford
(source: eonline.com)
Ford played Han Solo, Fisher’s tumultuous lover, in all the Star Wars movies so far. In the movies, they are either resisting attraction, going with it, fighting, or making up.
At one time, the romance didn’t end with each work day. For three months during the filming of A New Hope, Fisher and Ford kept a weekend romance that played well on screen.
For years they kept this a secret, perhaps because Ford was a married man at the time. Not only that, but he was 33 years old. Fisher was 19 at the time.
Paul Simon
(source: telegraph.co.uk)
When Fisher met Simon, she was already into drugs and filming Star Wars. The drugs were not his preference, but he saw past the abuse somehow, enough to marry her.
Their relationship was explosive at times. They divorced in the same year they married, then got back together, even lived together. This went on for about a decade.
In the book, Homeward Bound, author Ames Carlin talks about how the pair would fight until they would grow tired then start laughing.
When Harry Met Sally
(source: bustle.com)
Few people remember or know that Fisher played Sally’s (Meg Ryan) friend, Marie, in the movie When Harry Met Sally. Audiences loved her sharp-tongued character but were often unaware that the actress once played Princess Leia.
In an unplanned bit of irony, calling back to her relationship with Ford, her character is the single woman who dates married men. In fact, she tries to convince Sally that married men make the best partners.
Marie eventually marries Harry’s best friend, so it’s all a happy ending.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
(source: moviestillsdb.com)
A tribute to the movie, The Empire Strike Back, Kevin Smith’s comedy starring two of his favorite characters features a scene where they hitch a ride with Fisher.
She plays a station-wagon driving nun, who strikes up a conversation with the main characters; one that’s lost in translation. Jay mistakes a question from the nun as an invite to perform oral sex on her.
The scene ends with Jay and Bob on the side of the road; she has kicked them out of the car.
Leia Theme Music
(source: starwars.wikia.com)
Not to be confused with “The Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s theme song, Leia had her own marching music; “Princess Leia’s Theme.”
The first time audiences hear her theme music is in A New Hope, the first movie in the Star Wars canon.
Her song resurfaces throughout the movies in key scenes with Leia, but also in the prequels when her adoptive parents meet. Aw.
(source: hypable.com)
We may not recover from losing Fisher. There is still one movie left to film, #9, one where the director has implied Leia was critical.
What producers will do is anyone’s guess, but this guy predicts they’ll digitally recreate her likeness. This worked well enough in the last Paul Walker film.
The Star Wars team has already done this in the fan fiction film, Rogue One, with Grand Moff Tarkin, a character played by Peter Cushing in A New Hope. Cushing died in ’94.
We may have yet to see the end of Fisher’s work. This is the modern age of cinema, where even the demise of an actress is not her end.