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Star Wars' Princess Leia Carrie Fisher dies aged 60

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Press Trust of India Los Angeles
Veteran actress Carrie Fisher best known for her role as Princess Leia in "Star Wars" series has died aged 60, four days after she suffered a cardiac arrest on a flight.

Fisher, who made a mark as a tremendous writer and character actress, was in intensive care unit after she had a heart attack while on a flight from London to Los Angeles on December 23.

Her daughter Billie Lourd said the actress passed away on Tuesday morning, reported People magazine.

"It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning," reads the statement. "She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers."
 

A Hollywood's child, Fisher made her own idiosyncratic career, enjoying her biggest on-screen popularity as Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy before going on to establish herself as an acerbic, truth-telling witty writer with such books as "Postcards From the Edge".

Her HBO special, "Wishful Drinking," in which she recounted her unusual life, was nominated for an Emmy as outstanding variety, music and comedy special in 2011.

Born to actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher in 1956, Carrie Fisher grew up with the best of Hollywood around her. Fisher's parents divorced when she was just two, after her father left Reynolds for actress Elizabeth Taylor.

Fisher grew up in Beverly Hills and first stepped onstage when she was 15 to join her mother in the Broadway musical "Irene."

Leaving Hollywood in 1973, the actress enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she spent over a year studying acting.

Soon she made her film debut in Warren Beatty's "Shampoo" (1975), playing a precocious teen who seduces Beatty's sexually adventurous hairstylist.

Her role in "Star Wars" came in 1977, the experience she recently detailed in memoir, "The Princess Diarist." She was only 19 when the first installment of the popular sci-fi franchise was filmed.

In addition to the second and third "Star Wars" films, and last year's "The Force Awakens," Fisher starred in 1980's "The Blues Brothers," "The Man with One Red Shoe," Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986 and, later, "When Harry Met Sally.

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First Published: Dec 28 2016 | 10:02 AM IST

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