Every once in a while you get a reminder of your own ageing process and mortality - when the icons of your childhood are taken away. This year, it's been a maha-unsettling, unseemly exodus... the latest to join the motley crew (wherever they are) is Carrie Fisher. She passed away at the age of 60, after suffering a heart attack. A legend, thanks to her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars, and a touchstone for a generation (though not necessarily in the way she would have wanted).
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Author of 'The Princess Diarist', she was also candid about living with a mental illness. Talking about manic depression, and substance abuse, openly, helping to lift the stigma.
She will be remembered and much-loved for her iconic role -- which she reprised in last year's blockbuster Star Wars movie as well. She was very open last year about being pressurised to lose weight for the role, just as she had felt that pressure back as a 19 year old in an "image-obsessed" Hollywood.
Back in 2005, when George Lucas was getting a lifetime achievement award, The Verge reports it was her speech that stole the show.
“Hi, I’m Mrs. Han Solo and I’m an alcoholic,” Fisher begins. “I’m an alcoholic because George Lucas ruined my life.” She goes on to call Lucas a sadist, but adds that “like any abused child wearing a metal bikini, chained to a giant slug about to die, I keep coming back for more.”