TMS Muse of the Week: Carrie Fisher

(Michael Ochs Archives / NBC Studios)

Every actor’s biggest fear behind irrelevancy is being associated with one character their whole career. Anthony Perkins famously battled being typecast as parts similar to his iconic role of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). TV actors especially have this issue since they can be playing the same popular character for years. One actor who never seemed to mind being connected to her most famous character most of her life [save for some self-deprecating jokes about identity crisis] was Carrie Fisher. Everyone knows Carrie because of her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa of George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy (1977-83). But if you look at the rest of her resume, you’ll notice she pretty much only ever appeared on film and TV in supporting roles and cameos. This isn’t a coincidence, as the petite brunette never really made acting a huge priority, and essentially only fell into it because she was part of a showbiz family. Coming from musically talented parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Carrie initially performed as part of the chorus in the 1973 Broadway revival of Joseph McCarthy & Harry Tierney’s musical ‘Irene,’ with Debbie as the starring role. Supposedly Carrie was cast in her first movie, Hal Ashby’s Shampoo (1975), at age 17 because the film happened to be shooting in the same Beverly Hills neighborhood she grew up in.

When auditions began for Lucas’ first foray into his classic space opera universe in 1975, most of the youngsters reading for the main trio of Leia, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were already friends with Carrie. Naturally, the famous offspring wanted a hand at trying a screen test for the regal space princess, and beat out famous faces including Jodie Foster, Amy Irving, Cindy Williams and Linda Purl for the part. But while Carrie, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford shot up to stardom in 1977 as the leads of the first Star Wars movie, later re-titled Episode IV—A New Hope, Harrison was the only one who got to be a bonafide movie star. Mark would eventually discover his niche as a steady working voiceover actor, and Carrie found her calling as a writer, particularly as a ‘memoirist’ with up to eight books inspired by or directly about periods of the famous woman’s eclectic life. The most popular of these was her debut, Postcards from the Edge in 1987, which she also adapted into a 1990 movie directed by Mike Nichols and starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine as characters intentionally similar to Carrie and Debbie. In between the books, one-woman shows, various public appearances and motherhood, Carrie also had memorable performances in John Landis’ The Blues Brothers (1980), Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally… (1989), Michael Hoffman’s Soapdish (1991), Jay Roach’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Wes Craven’s Scream 3 (2000) and returning as Princess Leia for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens (2015) and Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi (2016).

(via telegraph.co.uk)

Unlike a lot of actors who have to remind people they’re not their famous characters, it isn’t too hard to remember Carrie isn’t actually an intergalactic royal leader helping save the world. For one, Leia didn’t have very public struggles with cocaine and methadone addictions, history of bipolar disorder or a complicated relationship with her equally famous mother, like Carrie did. Leia became a mother to a son, while Carrie’s one child is daughter Billie Lourd [b. 1992]. Leia’s love life was almost as messy as Carrie’s, what with a love triangle between Han and Luke until Luke discovers he and Leia are siblings. While the actress in real life had her share of famous beaus, such as fellow Hollywood nepo kid Griffin Dunne as her first boyfriend in 1973 and Blues Bros. co-star Dan Aykroyd as her first fiancé in 1979-80 [whom she started going out with after he saved her with the Heimlich maneuver while she was choking on a piece of food]. From 1978 to 1983, the writer-actress was in an on-again/off-again relationship with musician Paul Simon in between fooling around with Mark and Harrison while filming Star Wars, before briefly marrying Paul for a year between 1983-84. Fans have noticed most of Paul’s songs inspired by Carrie are rather turbulent, including the title tracks of his albums ‘Hearts and Bones’ (1983) and ‘Graceland’ (1986). Billie’s father, talent agent Bryan Lourd, was involved with Carrie in 1990 to 1993 before coming out as gay.

Carrie’s eccentric and exciting life sadly came to a sudden halt when the starlet-turned-author had a drug-induced heart attack mid-flight on December 23rd, 2016, and passed five days later from side effects as well as symptoms of sleep apnea. Debbie died only a day afterwards of a stroke, leaving poor Billie to survive both of them. Naturally, no one wanted to recast Leia for the third part of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker (2019), so the character’s sceentime was limited to outtake and archival footage. Carrie is a cautionary tale, but she’s also much more than that in the long run. She had not one, but two successful careers, close bonds with her family and friends, inspired other artists and is now a part of pop culture history as both Carrie and Leia.