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Carrie's Story
Though she is a best-selling author and screenwriter, many fans will always associate Carrie Fisher with the role of Princess Leia from George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy. She is the daughter of movie stars Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and grew up wanting to follow in their footsteps. When Carrie was quite young, her father left the family to marry Elizabeth Taylor. Reynolds raised Carrie and her younger brother, Todd, alone, but then later remarried. As a performer, she started appearing with her mother on Vegas nightclub stages at age 12. When she was 15, Carrie left high school to focus on her show business career. The following year, she was a dancer in the Broadway revival of Irene, which starred her mother. Soon after that, Carrie enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama where she studied for 18 months.
Carrie made her film debut playing a girl who succumbs to womanizing Warren Beatty's seduction in Shampoo (1975). Next came the Star Wars films. Her feisty portrayal of the courageous young princess made Carrie a star. In November 1978, she hosted the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live where she befriended John Belushi. Later, Carrie became romantically involved with singer/songwriter Paul Simon and married him in the early '80s. Due in part to other problems, the marriage lasted less than a year. Carrie details her experiences with drugs and recovery in her witty first novel, Postcards From the Edge (1987). Two years later, Carrie adapted the tale for Mike Nichols' charming and moving screen version which starred Meryl Streep as a daughter struggling to make a comeback and compete with a glamorous movie star mother (Shirley MacLaine).
Throughout the '80s, Carrie continued appearing sporadically in feature films. By the latter part of the decade, her acting career began really picking up again with such films as When Harry Met Sally (1989), in which she played Meg Ryan's best friend. Carrie appeared in a few more films and also in the television series Leaving L.A. through 1992 and then abandoned acting for the next five years to focus on child rearing and her writing career. Subsequent novels include Surrender the Pink, a semi-autobiographical novel exploring her relationship with Paul Simon, and Delusions of Grandma. In 1997, Carrie returned to feature films playing a cameo-esque role in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. She also experienced renewed fame when George Lucas released restored and enhanced versions of his Star Wars series in 1996.
~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide [edited]
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