Mike Redfern
“Sometimes I feel like my life ended and I’m still here.”
This sentence closes out the 1987 book ‘Postcards from the Edge’—Carrie Fisher’s first novel, although it was clear to most that it was really Fisher’s own life disguised as fiction. Her life really did end last week, and regrettably it does not feel like she is still here.
She came into most people’s lives in the spring of 1977, having a lead role in ‘Star Wars,’ which was only her second film. She appeared, and would forever be remembered, as the feisty Princess Leia, a character who had absolutely no fear and a striking cinnamon bun-like hairdo. She appeared again as Leia five more times across four decades (‘Star Wars Holiday Special’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ ‘Return of the Jedi,’ ‘The Force Awakens’ and the next currently unnamed Star Wars film, in which had completed filming before her death).
Yet before she was Star Wars royalty she was Hollywood royalty, being born in 1956 to parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. Her childhood was brutal, as her parents were either battling alcoholism, creditors, or themselves. Fisher learned early on to hide from the turmoil in books, earning the nickname “bookworm” from her family and peers. When she turned 17 she enrolled in London’s School of Speech and Drama, where she spent 18 months. Her time there was not only a much needed break from her dysfunctional home life, but also clearly explains why in the original Star Wars she speaks with an English accent 60 percent of the time.
Although she also appeared in just over 30 films unrelated to Star Wars, and about 40 different television shows, her main talent was writing. ‘Postcards from the Edge’ wasn’t another book by another celebrity; it was a wholly unique work by a major talent. The New York Times was bowled over with Fisher’s “candour and bravery,” calling the book “groundbreaking.” She followed ‘Postcards’ with more novels, including ‘Surrender the Pink,’ ‘Delusions of Grandma,’ and ‘The Best Awful There is.’
She also wrote matter-of-fact memoirs, which revealed a much more painful life than most people thought. Besides suffering from alcoholism and heavy drug addiction, Fisher also suffered from medication-resistant bipolar disorder, which meant the only treatment left was electroconvulsive therapy. She writes gut-wrenchingly yet humorously about it in all three of her autobiographies—‘Wishful Drinking,’ ‘Shockaholic,’ and ‘The Princess Diarist.’
Fisher was also a script-doctor—a writer who rewrites existing film scripts for no credit but lots of pay. Her expertise in this field goes all the way back to the original Star Wars, when she would have to tell George Lucas again and again (possibly in an English accent) that the dialogue needed revamping. This continued in 1980’s ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ where she returned the script like a teacher returning homework, with all kinds of strike-throughs and giant Xs in red ink (please see me after class George!)
In the 1990s she was the most sought after script-doctor in Hollywood, and she either fixed or rewrote the films ’Hook,’ ‘The Wedding Singer,’ ‘Sister Act,’ ‘The River Wild,’ ‘Outbreak,’ ‘Coyote Ugly,’ ‘The Mirror has Two Faces,’ ‘The Last Action Hero,’ and many more. Words were her thing.
49 major celebrities died in 2016, twice as many as had in 2015, and four times as much as 2012. Carrie Fisher’s death stings the most, and this feeling is not just felt by me. A lot of people looked like they had just been slapped when they found out. Much like Elvis, Fisher just felt like one of those people who would just always be there.