Actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in Star Wars, has died at age 60, daughter's publicist says.
"It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning," Simon Halls, a spokesperson for Fisher's family, said in a statement to People.
Fisher suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles on Friday (US time), according to TMZ.
She was administered CPR until the flight landed. Her heart attack reportedly occurred 15 minutes before the plane was scheduled to arrive.
Carrie Fisher, who has sadly died at the age of 60, was one of the wittiest, most quotable stars in Hollywood. Here are some of her choicest lines:
On Harrison Ford
It was so intense. It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.
Although Carrie Fisher had previously hinted at a past liaison with the Han Solo actor in interviews and journalentries, she let the cat out of the bag in 2016, nearly 40 years after the relationship took place on the set of the first Star Wars film.
People magazine published an excerpt from Fisher's memoir, The Princess Diarist, and she explained the affair more fully in an interview. At the time, Fisher was 19 while Ford was 33, married and father to two young children.
In her autobiography, Fisher writes that Ford was "kind", although she felt insecure after their first sexual encounter: "I looked over at Harrison. A hero's face - a few strands of hair fell over his noble, slightly furrowed brow. How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?"
Ahead of the release of 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Fisher explained the advice she gave to Rey actress Daisy Ridley - although she never specified whether she had followed it herself. "I told her not to go through the crew like wildfire, but I also told her not to take any advice from me. When I was first in it I never wanted anyone to have the anecdote, 'I slept with Princess Leia.'"
Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford in 2015. Photo / Getty Images
After all, several years earlier Fisher admitted to having plans to do exactly that before stepping on set:
"I went on the film saying, 'I'm going to have an affair,' like it was a kiwi, an exotic fruit, because I'd never had one".
I did blow a couple of times. That's not a difficult time.
Asked by the Daily Beast whether she had had a "difficult time" shooting 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, due to her well-publicised struggles with drug addiction, Fisher apparently "chuckled".
"Actually, no, I didn't go through a difficult time! I said I did blow a couple of times. That's not a difficult time!" she told the website.
"Oh God, that will be fun for Disney! It's a billion years ago, and if I could tell you the truth, you would laugh so hard. And...I can't. But it was location. Location means everything is permitted. I went without being needed to Norway [on Empire], that's how much fun I was having. I was upset that I didn't get to go to Tunisia for the first one. But I had a good time on the movies."
"I never liked marijuana, so the fact that I'm a type of marijuana is ironic."
In 2011, while discussing the apparently unstoppable reach of Star Wars merchandise, Fisher revealed she'd even discovered a variety of marijuana named after herself.
She started smoking the drug when she was 13, but stopped six years later, while on the set of Star Wars, after her experiences with it turned "nasty". She went on to battle a cocaine habit, and an addiction to prescription medication.
On her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds:
Debbie remains the girl-next-door, whereas I live somewhere down the street.
The quote above is taken from a 1984 interview with the TV Times. Fisher was born in 1956 to a Hollywood super-couple: actress Debbie Reynolds and singer/entertainer Eddie Fisher. Fisher, who died in 2010, went on to leave his wife for the actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married in 1959.
On her father, Eddie Fisher:
There hadn't been a note he couldn't hit, a girl he couldn't hit on, an audience he couldn't charm or bring to its feet cheering.
In her 2011 memoir Shockaholic (the title is a reference to the electroconvulsive therapy she was undergoing at the time, to treat her depression and bipolar disorder), Fisher described how, after her father's death, she inherited a diamond "pinky ring", worn by him for as long as she could remember. But when she took it to a jewleler, he pointed out the chips in the stone: something a real diamond would never have.
"I loved my father," she wrote. "The man was beyond fun to hang out with, appreciative, playful and eccentrically sweet. But this was also a man who - though he genuinely meant to give bona fide diamonds of only the finest colour, cut, and clarity - ultimately was only able to offer cubic zirconium."
Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds hold their baby daughter, Carrie Frances Fisher. Photo / AP
On playing Leia
People want me to say that I'm sick of playing Leia and that it ruined my life. If my life was that easy to ruin, it deserved to be ruined.
On killing Jabba the Hutt
I had a lot of fun killing Jabba the Hutt. They asked me on the day if I wanted to have a stunt double kill Jabba. No! That's the best time I ever had as an actor. And the only reason to go into acting is if you can kill a giant monster.
