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Carrie Fisher

"Star Wars" and Sharp Wit: R.I.P., Carrie Fisher

December 27, 2016

Fisher, the star of Star Wars and prolific writer, recently passed away at the age of 60. As a playwright, screenwriter, and memoirist, she was outspoken about her years in Hollywood…and often in a brutally funny way.
Carrie Fisher
The Star Wars Holiday Special is legendarily bad, but Fisher embraced that fact. The special, cheaply produced and farmed out to awards show writers by Star Wars mastermind George Lucas, it aired just once in 1978 and it’s only available as a bootleg. Lucas gave Fisher a copy of the special as a gift after she recorded the DVD commentary for the original Stars Wars. She claimed that she would play it at parties…when she was ready for her guests to clear out and go home.
At the end of the special, Fisher makes a cameo appearance as Princess Leia. Fisher demanded that she get to sing a song in the show, and she was allowed. Set to the melody of the familiar Star Wars orchestral score, Fisher sings a song about “Life Day,” the Star Wars world’s version of Christmas. Of the special, Fisher said in 2015, “It was awful. And I don’t mean awful in a good way.”

In 2012, an eagle-eyed Star Wars fan was watching Return of the Jedi and noticed that Fisher-as-Leia had one fingernail that was noticeably longer than her other ones. Fisher. The fan posited on the internet that Fisher, who has been candid about her past drug use, particularly while filming the Star Wars movies, was using it to snort cocaine. Fisher denied it on Twitter, saying that she “used dollars or tiny spoons like any other respectable former drug addict.”
Fisher returned to the most famous role of her career, Princess Leia, in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Fisher says the film’s production pressured her to lose weight. She made light of it in an interview with Good Housekeeping, saying, “They don’t want to hire all of me. Only about three-quarters.”
In 2015, a rumor spread that Star Wars owner Disney would no longer allow the manufacture or sale of merchandise depicting Fisher’s Princess Leia in her “Slave Leia” costume—a scant bikini the character was forced to wear when she was held captive by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. When asked if she sided with parents who wanted the ban upheld because the outfit was objectifying, Fisher told a reporter, “A giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.”