Carrie Fisher

"If my life wasn't funny, it would just be true and that is unacceptable." 

As the internet rightly celebrates the life of Carrie Fisher, I felt inspired to do some writing about her as well and her legacy as the woman most certainly was more than just Princess Leia. She had a long and varied career, both as an actress and also as a writer in her own right. Unapologetically brash and bold, Carrie Fisher blazed her own trail while facing life with a self-deprecating sense of humor. 

I should probably get Star Wars out of the way first, since they were the films she was best known for. Over the course of four films, Fisher tackled the role of Princess Leia Organa with a fierce strength that made the role iconic. Never the damsel in distress and not one to hesitate to pick up a blaster gun and get shit done herself, all with easily the most ridiculous hairstyle no less, Leia was a fantastic character portrayed wonderfully by Fisher. She continued the role through the subsequent three films, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi, and The Force Awakens. As we catch up with Leia again in the latest film, it is perhaps the most poignant rendition of the character we have seen. She is now a General in the Rebellion forces, her love, Han Solo, has left to go galavanting around the galaxy again with his "walking carpet" Wookie, Chewbacca, and she has lost her only son to the Dark Side of the Force. Having seemingly lost everything, she continues to stand tall and continue pushing forward against seemingly insurmountable odds. If ever there was a role model for the age we live in, it's General Leia Organa. By all reports, Fisher was proud of her work as Leia and said that of all the characters to be typecasted as, that one was not bad. 

She continued to work regularly, with memorable turns as Jake Blues' spurned girlfriend in The Blues Brothers, Tom Hanks' wife in Joe Dante's criminally underrated dark screwball comedy The Burbs and as Meg Ryan's matchmaking best friend in When Harry Met Sally. She never quite matched the blockbuster status of the Star Wars saga, but she continued to work steadily as an actress beyond that. 

However, as the years marched on she began to work more and more behind the camera as a writer, becoming a highly sought after script doctor known for helping save troubled productions with contributions to films as varied as Hook, Sister Act, The River Wild, Coyote Ugly, and many others. She also wrote the scene for her cameo appearance in Scream 3, where her character not only admits to her likeness to Carrie Fisher, but suggests Fisher slept with George Lucas to get the part of Princess Leia. Needless to say it was one of the funniest parts of the so-so sequel.

She was also an accomplished novelist and writer, with several novels under her belt including the semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, inspired by her relationship with her mother, Hollywood celebrity Debbie Reynolds (although Debbie always insisted, "It's not about us."). She also wrote the screenplay for the screen adaptation, directed by Mike Nichols. She also wrote three memoirs, Wishful Drinking, Shockaholic, and The Princess Diarist, where she reveals her life with a sort of self deprecating humor and candor that can only be admired. Unflinchingly honest about her bouts with alcoholism, drug addiction and mental illness were admirable in her steadfast devotion to removing the stigma of mental health issues. All are worth checking out. She also did Wishful Drinking as a one woman show, which was recorded and aired on HBO. It's worth seeing, if only for the sequence where she relates the scandal of her parent's divorce and the ongoing aftermath from that leading to her helping her daughter determine if she and her would be boyfriend, a son of one of Fisher's father Eddie Fisher's exes children, are in fact related. At one point she pulls out a flow chart and takes us through all of it step by step and it is hysterical. 

I was saddened to hear of Carrie Fisher's passing yesterday. Not just because she played Princess Leia in Star Wars, but because I knew about so much of her other work. Her accomplishments as a writer are equally, if not more, impressive. Her work with de-stigmatizing Mental Health issues and both her humor and candor as she shared the issues she had personally struggled with in the process were an inspiration for many. I have seen so many posts on social media only mentioning Leia and while that is cool and everything and certainly something Carrie was proud of, even if she gently mocked it, there was so much more to her than just Leia. Her life wasn't an easy one, but the fact that she approached it with an unending sense of humor and biting wit should be enough to give everyone more strength. 


Edit: As I was writing this, I saw the news that her mother, Debbie Reynolds, has now passed away too. The two may have had their issues, but they were always close and even wound up living next door to each other. The fact that they both died within a day of each other almost makes sense, in a weird way. I'll have to think up some sort of tribute to Debbie as well as a separate post as I enjoyed much of her work as well. But for now, my thoughts and prayers are with their family, who have lost a mother, a sister and a grandmother all in the span of 24 hours.