Carrie Frances Fisher was born on October 21 in 1956 in Beverly Hills, California, to actor parents Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds - both already well-known for their careers in Hollywood.
When Carrie was only 2 years old, her parents divorced as her father began a relationship with her mother's close friend Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor was herself a widow following the death of her third husband, Fisher's close friend Mike Todd. Her mother also remarried to the owner of a shoe shop chain, who Reynolds would later reveal spent millions of her life savings.
Growing up, Carrie immersed herself in books ("I really liked the way everything worked out, to some extent or other, in a book," she once said), but never graduated from Beverly Hills High School - as aged 15, she made her stage debut alongside her mother in Irene, playing a debutante and singer.
Following Irene's success, Carrie enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama and attended classes for a year and a half. She was accepted into Sarah Lawrence College in 1978 to study the arts - but conflicts with what became her most enduring and memorable role meant her formal education was placed on hold once again.
Carrie had already made her film debut in Shampoo in 1975 alongside Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn and Julie Christie before landing the role of Princess Leia in George Lucas's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977, starring opposite Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.
Fisher went on to star in two subsequent Star Wars films – The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and The Return of the Jedi in 1983, wearing a metal bikini in the latter which has gone down in popular culture history.
Carrie said she had a three-month affair with Ford during filming of A New Hope, a secret which was only revealed 40 years later as she promoted her memoirs, The Princess Diarist, in 2016. She described it as "so intense… it was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend".
Alongside her iconic appearances as Princess Leia, Carrie appeared in films including The Blues Brothers, The Man with One Red Shoe and Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters. She later starred in a major supporting role in When Harry Met Sally, and appeared opposite Tom Hanks as his wife in The 'Burbs. She also clocked up TV appearances in Ringo Starr's 1978 TV special Ringo, and appeared alongside Laurence Olivier in the anthology series Laurence Olivier Presents.
Alongside her on-screen appearances, Carrie became a published author. Her first novel Postcards from the Edge was published in 1987 – a semi-autobiographical account that satirised her own drug addiction and her relationship with her mother.
She received the Los Angeles Pen Award for Best First Novel, and a film adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine and Dennis Quaid premiered in 1990. When asked why she didn't take the leading role as Suzanne in the movie, Carrie told People magazine: "I did that one already."
Carrie continued to make appearances in films throughout the 1990s and 2000s with notable credits in Drop Dead Fred (1991), Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997), Scream 3 (2000) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) amongst others.
In the 1990s she also developed a reputation as Hollywood's go-to script doctor, polishing the efforts of screenwriters until 2005. Carrie worked on projects including George Lucas's TV show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, and was a natural choice to consult on dialogue for his prequel Star Wars films. She also lent her writing and editing skills to on Hook (1991), Lethal Weapon 3 and Sister Act (1992), among many others, over that 15-year period.
Carrie continued making regular TV appearances, too, voicing Peter Griffin's boss Angela on Family Guy, playing Rob's fierce mother Mia on Channel 4's hit comedy Catastrophe and cameoing on The Big Bang Theory. She also published a sequel to Postcards from the Edge called The Best Awful in 2004, which picks up Suzanne Vale's story and once again deals with themes including drug addiction and mental health.
After touring with her one-woman play Wishful Drinking in 2006-2007, Carrie published her book of the same name based on the play, and began a media tour. The play then moved to Broadway in late 2009, and the audiobook recording earned her a 2010 Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album - she was pipped to the prize by Michael J Fox.
On January 21, 2014 it was confirmed Carrie would be returning to the role of Leia (now a general) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens alongside her original co-stars Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. She joked at the time: "I'd like to wear my old hairstyle again, but with white hair. I think that would be funny."
The Force Awakens was released worldwide on December 18, 2015 to popular and critical acclaim, and Fisher was nominated for a 2016 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. 2016 also saw the release of her latest autobiography The Princess Diarist, based on her diaries from filming the original Star Wars movies.
Fisher had a chequered love life. She dated musician Paul Simon between 1977 and 1983. Then, she was briefly engaged to Dan Aykroyd, who proposed to her on the set of their film The Blues Brothers, but she broke it off and married Simon instead.
Carrie and Paul's marriage lasted from August 1983 to July 1984, and they dated once again after their divorce. She then had a relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd, and their daughter, actress Billie Catherine Lourd, was born in July 1992.
In later years, she forged a close friendship with singer-songwriter James Blunt, who stayed at her home as he worked on his breakthrough album Back to Bedlam. She said their friendship didn't go any further than her acting as "his therapist", adding with her trademark candour: "It would have been unethical to sleep with my patient."
That honesty also extended to Carrie's reflection on the effects of bipolar on her life, as well as her past addictions to cocaine and prescription medication. She recalled taking coke during filming of The Empire Strikes Back, saying: "Slowly I realised I was doing a bit more drugs than other people and losing my choice in the matter." In 1985, after months of sobriety, Carrie was hospitalised after an accidental overdose, and shortly after that began work on Postcards from the Edge.
In a 2001 interview, Carrie said that her drug use was a form of self-medication in an attempt to "dial down" the manic side of her bipolar, and in 2008, she confirmed that she'd also undergone electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as part of her treatment. In recent years, Carrie's beloved service dog Gary was her constant companion on chat shows, red carpets and at book signings and other public appearances, developing a loyal following and even getting his own dedicated Instagram account.
In an advice column published for The Guardian in late 2016, Carrie wrote an emotive reply to a reader seeking help and support:
"We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges," she said. "Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic – not 'I survived living in Mosul during an attack' heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder.
"That's why it's important to find a community – however small – of other bipolar people to share experiences and find comfort in the similarities… You can let it all fall down and feel defeated and hopeless and that you're done. But you reached out to me – that took courage. Now build on that."
Carrie Fisher suffered a medical emergency while on board a transatlantic flight from London to LA on December 23, 2016. She was given "advanced life support" from paramedics at Los Angeles International Airport and rushed to UCLA Medical Center for further treatment. The sci-fi and greater Star Wars community - including Carrie's co-stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Peter Mayhew - had been rallying around her with messages of support.
She died on December 27, 2016, four days after suffering cardiac arrest.
Carrie leaves family members including her mum Debbie Reynolds, her brother Todd Fisher and Billie Lourd, her daughter with Hollywood talent agent Bryan Lourd and an actress who cameoed in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
An incredible wit to the very end, Carrie left strict instructions on how she'd like to be remembered in her obituary. We share that story with you below:
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