Comprehensive information and links about Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher in Beverly Hills, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her younger brother is Todd Fisher. Her half-sisters are actresses Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher, whose mother is actress Connie Stevens,

When she was two years old, her parents divorced and her father married actress Elizabeth Taylor. The following year, her mother married shoe store chain owner Harry Karl.

Fisher grew up wanting to follow in the footsteps of her famous parents. She began appearing with her mother in Las Vegas at age 12. She attended Beverly Hills High School, but left to become an actress. She appeared as a debutante and dancer in the hit Broadway revival (1973) starring her mother.

Soon after, she enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she attended 18 months. Her first movie appearance was in the Columbia comedy (1975) starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, and Goldie Hawn, with Lee Grant, and Jack Warden.

In 1977, Fisher starred as Princess Leia Organa in George Lucas's sci-fi classic was a huge success and made her internationally famous in her own right. Princess Leia became a merchandising triumph; there were small plastic dolls of her in every toy store nationwide. Fisher has often joked that it was actually Princess Leia who became famous, and she just happened to look like her.

During that time, the late 1970s, Fisher became addicted to various drugs. She appeared as Princess Leia in the 1978 made-for-TV movie, , and her drug use was quite evident from her on-screen performance. The problem became so severe that she was nearly fired from (1980) for being unable to sober up long enough to film a proper scene. She then cleaned up and joined N.A. and A.A.

She appeared on Broadway as Iris in , which was semi-autobiographical in the sense that she fictionalized events obviously from her real life, such as her drug addiction of the late 1970s, was published in 1987. It became a sensational bestseller and she recieved the Los Angeles Pen Award for Best First Novel.

In 1990, Columbia released a movie version of , adapted for the screen by Fisher and starring Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid.

Carrie Fisher has had one husband, musician Paul Simon (married 1983-divorce 1984). She is the mother of Billie Catherine Lourd (born July 17, 1992), whose father is CAA principal and agent, Bryan Lourd. The couple's relationship ended when Lourd left her for a man. For a brief time she was engaged to Dan Aykroyd.

Fisher hosted the Saturday Night Live episode that was the first polished performance by Aykroyd and his friend John Belushi as their popular Blues Brothers characters Joliet Jake and Elwood, and Fisher later appeared in The Blues Brothers movie as Joliet Jake's vengeful ex-lover, listed in the credits as "Mystery Woman."

Her other novels include (2000), Fisher's character, Bianca Burnette, is mistaken for Carrie Fisher. Fisher pokes fun at herself with the line, "Yeah, I was up for the part of Princess Leia. But who gets it? The girl who slept with George Lucas!"

(2001), of which she was also co-executive producer. It starred her mother, Debbie Reynolds, as well as Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, and Shirley MacLaine. In this, Taylor's character, an agent, explains to Reynolds's character, an actress, that she was in a drunken blackout when she married the actress's husband, "Freddy."

In an interview on public radio in 2005, Fisher expressed some regret about being known overwhelmingly for her role as Princess Leia, and joked that she was afraid if she ever became senile she might begin to slip back into character.

Fisher has publicly discussed her problems with drugs, her battles with bipolar disorder, and overcoming an addiction to pre.

On February 26, 2005, 42-year-old Republican Party media adviser R. Gregory Stevens was found dead in a guest room at Fisher's home. She stated that he was a longtime friend and often stayed with her. An autopsy revealed he died from an overdose of cocaine and OxyContin. [1]

Besides acting and writing, Carrie Fisher also works as a