On December 27, 2016, actress, singer, producer, and writer, Carrie Fisher passed away from complications suffered due to a heart attack. Fisher was just 60 years young and left an iconic mark on the world by embodying the most famous princess in a galaxy far, far away — Princess Leia. The role of Leia made Fisher a pop culture goddess, a hero to young women, and allowed her to share more and more of her talents with the rest of us.
“I am very sane about how crazy I am.” – Carrie Fisher
One of Fisher’s greatest creative talents came as a writer. In 1987, Carrie Fisher wrote her first novel, a semi-autobiographical book called Postcards From The Edge. The bestseller examined, to an extent, Fisher’s life with drugs and alcohol, as well as her relationship with her parents, singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds.
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Fisher later wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Postcards From The Edge which earned her a BAFTA nomination (British Oscars). Fisher would go on to write three more novels in for the form of memoirs.
“I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.” – Carrie Fisher
Scripting Postcards From The Edge lead Fisher into a new role in the 90s as a script doctor. All this means is that Fisher would get hired to come in and fix scripts that just weren’t right. Along with her iconic tough, science fiction Princess, Fisher made a lot of iconic movies better thanks to her skill with the written word.
Fisher was responsible (and uncredited for because that’s how script doctoring works) for punching-up Steven Spielberg’s Hook, The River Wild, the wildly successful comedy Sister Act with Whoopie Goldberg, Lethal Weapon 3, Outbreak, and Adam Sandler’s The Wedding Singer. The Princess even used her scriptwriting magic on Lucas’ Attack of the Clones. By the early 2000s, script-doctoring morphed into the much less compensated “script consulting” and Fisher left it behind.
In 2008, Fisher wrote Wishful Drinking, an honest and compelling autobiography which she also turned into a one-woman play that’s available on HBO. Fisher’s gift at communicating came from a life of many highs and lows. Carrie Fisher shared laughter and pain with equal measure and without hesitation. Often, Fisher would share her thoughts without a coat of sugar to make it go down easier but with a dose of laughter to make the truth a touch less terrifying.
Rest in the infinite of time and space to a princess like few we’ve ever known. A queen of entertainment and royalty in the legacy of the written word.
