Carrie Fisher was launched into stardom in 1977 when she appeared in the first Star Wars film as Princess Leia.
She went on to star in many other films and TV roles, as well as the Star Wars sequels in the ‘80s, and the ones that came long after, finally ending her reign in the 2017 flick, Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, which was released one year after her death, using the footage she has shot to tie up the princess’s story in that film and the next.
Fisher was known to have struggled with substances throughout her life, but some of the actress’s friends believe another contribution to her death was the pressure the studio put on her to lose weight for her return to the role.
Carrie Fisher’s close friend and singer James Blunt claims that Disney and Lucasfilm had put “pressure on her to be thin.” He and Fisher formed an unlikely friendship in the early 2000s and he wrote his first album, 2004’s Back to Bedlam, while staying in her house.
Blunt told audience members at the UK’s Hay Festival (via SFFGazette.com): “I was with her the day before she died, when she came down to my house. And she’d been really mistreating her body, and she’d just got the job again of being Princess Leia in a new Star Wars movie.
“So she was really on a high and a positive, but they had applied a lot of pressure on her to be thin. She spoke about the difficulties that women have in the industry, how men are allowed to grow old, and women are certainly not in film and TV.
“And she really put a lot of pressure on herself, started using drugs again and by the time she got on the plane, she had effectively killed herself. They say it was heart failure of some kind, but she had taken enough drugs to have a really good party.”
In his autobiography, Blunt said Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, holds him partly responsible for her mother’s passing. “Charlie, her best friend, confronted her more directly and told her she needed to quit drugs.”
He wrote. “I took a different approach and did them with her, pretending to myself that I would guide her to redemption one day – just not today. As a result, her daughter Billie blames me in part for her death, and no longer speaks to me.”
That’s a tough situation. I always felt bad for Carrie Fisher, for all the things she faced. She was a great actress and a funny and endearing woman. She will always be missed and remembered.
via: CBM
Jessica Fisher
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