O n December 23, , right before her favorite holiday, as the day was just starting in London, Carrie Fisher boarded United Flight at Heathrow Airport. She took Gary everywhere: to talk shows, to restaurant dinners, and now to his own seat in the first-class cabin of this plane. Carrie subsequently survived early, sudden, international megafame—at age 20 in —as Princess Leia, the arch-voiced galaxy-far-away heroine in that flowing white gown and those funny hair buns. She was the only girl warrior among the boys, and she could hold her own better than they could. If second-wave feminism had a science-fiction stand-in, it was the Princess Leia created by Carrie Fisher. As Carrie and Gary settled into their seats for the long flight home to Los Angeles, if she had wanted to use the hours in the sky to mull her accomplishments, she had plenty about which to feel satisfied.
All rights reserved. I cried when I heard Carrie Fisher died, a couple of days after Christmas in People all across the galaxy did: Star Wars nerds, avid readers of her novels and memoirs, mental health advocates, self-proclaimed killjoy feminists. But Carrie was never easy, never well behaved, never secretive about her demons. She was never not controversial in life, so why should her death be any different? There had never been anything like Star Wars before in the history of cinema.
The Last Days of Carrie Fisher: An Exclusive Excerpt from the Bombshell Biography
Skip navigation! Story from Movies. Warning: There are spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker ahead. She was walking the convention floor, sans disguise, with her beloved French bulldog Gary Fisher at her side. She interacted with the fans around her, sprinkling glitter as she walked along; she seemed at home in this throng of Star Wars superfans.
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