J-Speaks: Saying Goodbye To Princess Leia

In 1977, filmmaker George Walton Lucas, Jr. of Lucas Films created a film titled Star Wars. That movie would begin a franchise of films that would go on for 40 years and vaulted an actress who played not only the lone female lead at the time, but the heroin and love interest. She was also a rare person in the spot light that turned her up and down life behind the scenes into a message of courage and hope that became an inspiration to many, especially women. On Tuesday, this icon of Hollywood, whose famed line in the Star Wars, “May the force be with you,” suddenly said goodbye.

Actress Carrie Fisher, who for nearly 40 years we knew as Princes Leia Organa from Star Wars passed away on Tuesday from cardiac arrest. She was 60 years old.

Fisher is survived by her mother, “Hollywood’s sweetheart,” actress Debbie Reynolds, her father Eddie Fisher, brother Todd Fisher, half-sisters Joely and Tricia Leigh Fisher, daughter Billie Lourd and her beloved French Bulldog Gary.

In a statement on Facebook, Ms. Reynolds acknowledged the many fans of her daughter and her work by saying, “Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter. I’m grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop.”

“Well, were a very tight family as small as we are. My mother is very strong right now and we’re all together now at this point,” Todd said yesterday about her sister’s passing. “Everybody’s just in shock because she’s so young and was doing so great and to have her in cardiac arrest at this age is unexpected.”

Fisher, who had been on tour promoting her memoir “The Princess Diarist” and was returning to Los Angeles on a United Airlines flight from London when she collapsed just 15 minutes before the plane landed at Los Angeles International Airport. A passenger seated next to the actress and author reportedly said that she stopped breathing and another passenger performed CPR on her until paramedics arrived.

“We have an unresponsive passenger. So, they’re working on her right now…,” the pilot of the flight said in a recording from LiveATC.net.

Fisher was transported to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center by ambulance, where she was placed on a ventilator. She passed was as mentioned on Tuesday.

In a statement by the family spokesperson Simon Halls to the press stated that Fisher, “passed away at 8:55 a.m. [Pacific Standard Time: PST] this morning. She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly.”

News of Fisher’s passing quickly spread and fans, people she worked with in the Star Wars movies to acquaintances via social media or statements expressed their feelings about the sudden passing of a person unlike any other.

“She was a hero at a time in science fiction when there wasn’t any,” a man said to WABC 7 Eyewitness News Entertainment Reporter Sandy Kenyon.

A young lady said to Kenyon that Fisher was a woman who, “had a lot of spunk. She was fierce and she was strong.”

Another young lady said to Kenyon about Fisher is that, “From the outside, she had the idyllic life. You know famous parents and then had all this inner turmoil and how she handled it with grace and wisdom.”

Those lessons of strength came at an early age for Fisher when her father Eddie, an iconic entertainer, who left Reynolds to marry her best friend the iconic late Elizabeth Tayler, when her husband, film producer Mike Todd passed away. That event brought some very unwelcome publicity for Fisher and his children.

As a young child, Fisher spent most of her time reading, earning the nickname from her family, “the bookworm,” reading classic literature and writing poetry.

After attending Beverly Hills High School until age 15, Fisher’s journey into show business began as a debutante and singer in the hit Broadway revival of Irene in 1973, which also stared her mother Debbie.

She would later enroll at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, attending there for 18 months.

In 1978, Fisher was accepted into Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY where her plan was to study the arts, but left before graduating because it interfered with her being a part of Star Wars, where a call for help to Obi Wan Kenobi, portrayed by actor Ewan "

Fisher character Princess Leia was not only the female lead in the original Star Wars Trilogy, but she was an action hero opposite Mark Hamill’s character Luke Skywalker and Harrison Ford’s character Han Solo.

This character was very different from a lady that needed to be saved by a man. Fisher as Princess Leia did most of the heroics in a number of the films in the franchise and as noted by Lucas Films was a role model and inspiration of power and confidence for young women and all women in general.

 “I have always stood in awe of Carrie. Her observations always made me laugh and gasp at the same time. She didn’t need The Force. She was a force of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. I will miss her very much,” acclaimed Hollywood Director, Producer and Screenwriter Steven Spielberg stated on Tuesday about Fisher.

Fisher said to ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” headline news anchor Amy Robach when she came to promote Star Wars: The Force Awakens with her dog Gary by her side that, “I’ve been Princess Leia for over 40 years and I’ve never gotten out again

Fisher revealed in her memoir that she was promoting prior to her death that during filming of the first Star Wars that she and Ford had an affair.

Fisher once stated that the affair with Ford, who was married at the time to Mary Marquardt was, “so intense…It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.”

Their chemistry in the movies was so good it was undeniable and it was as good as ever in a poignant exchange in the 2015 installment of Star Wars: The Force Awakens when Fisher’s character said, “I’ve always hated watching you leave.”

Ford’s character, Han Solo replied by saying, “That’s why I did it. So, you’d miss me.”

Both Hamil and Ford each stated how much Fisher meant to them and the joy they had in working with her.

“No words #Devastated,” Hamil said on his twitter page @HamilHimself.

“Carrie was one-of-a-kind… brilliant, original. Funny and emotionally fearless. She lived her life bravely…We will all miss her.”

Fisher also starred in other well-known films like The Blues Brothers (1980), which starred John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin; When Harry Met Sally… (1989), which starred Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), which starred Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, the late Bernie Mac, Justin Theroux, Demi Moore and Shia LaBeouf and The Women (2008), which starred Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debi Mazar, Cloris Leachman, Bette Midler and Candice Bergen.

While she was a star and iconic figure in front of the camera, Fisher behind the scenes dealt with many struggles from a tumultuous love life; constant strains in her family to her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and her addiction to cocaine and prescription drugs.

Fisher said to Psychology Today in 2001 that “Drugs made me feel normal. They contained me.”

She also revealed in another interview that during the filming of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 she took cocaine.

“Slowly, I realized I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter,” she said.

Five years later after a month of sobriety, Fisher accidently overdosed on a combination of prescription drugs and sleeping pills. She was rushed to a hospital, which created a turn of events that led to a great deal of material for her autobiographical novel and screenplay, Postcards from the Edge (1990).

The main character Suzanne Vale, an actress that was a recovering drug addict was played by Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep.

When asked why she did not take on the role herself, Fisher remarked, “I’ve already played Suzanne.”

In her 2008 book, Wishful Drinking, Fisher wrote about her eventual obituary, where she said, “I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”

That ability to publicly and through a sense of humor talk about and put onto screen how she battled her personal demons why she received from Harvard College their Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.

The school noted that Fisher’s “forthright activism and outspokenness about addiction, mental illness, and agnosticism have advanced public discourse on these issues with creativity and empathy.”

Hollywood and the world said goodbye to a true treasure of show business in Carrie Fisher, who will be in the next installment of Star Wars: Episode VIII, scheduled for release on Dec. 15, 2017. She changed the game for women in science fiction films. Someone who battled some major demons in her personal life and turned as “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts once said her mess into a message. She entertained, inspired, and motivated us to get through anything and dare to be great at whatever we do and enjoy life.

“Millions fell in love with her as the indomitable Princess Leia. She will always have a special place in the hearts of Star Wars fans as well as us who were lucky enough to know her personally. She will be sorely missed, and we join millions of fans and friends around the world who mourn her loss today” Robert A. Iger, Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, which owns the production company Lucas Films and the parent company of ABC said of Fisher.

Information and quotations are courtesy of 12/27/16 5 p.m. edition of WABC 7 “Eyewitness News at 5,” with Bill Ritter, Sandra Bookman and Amy Freeze, report from Sandy Kenyon; 12/27/16 6:30 p.m. edition of “ABC World News Tonight with David Muir,” being anchored that evening by Tom Llamas and reports from Matt Gutman and David Wright; 12/28/16 7 a.m. edition of ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” with Paul Faris, Dan Harris and Rob Marciano; 12/27/16 “Entertainment Weekly” article on www.ew.com “Stephen Spielberg Pays Tribute To Carrie Fisher: ‘I Will Miss Her Very Much,’” by Anthony Breznican; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Fisher; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lucas; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Episode_VIII and  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi_Wan_Kenobi.