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Carrie Fisher, the iconic Star Wars princess, died Tuesday morning after suffering a heart attack days earlier while on a flight from London to Los Angeles.
Fisher’s fleet of loved ones had taken to social media over the weekend to send their thoughts and hopes that the Force would be with the actress after she went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to UCLA Medical Center Friday afternoon. The 60-year-old was treated in an intensive care unit over the weekend and though her mother, Debbie Reynolds, announced Fisher was stable on Christmas Day, a spokesman for the family confirmed she had passed on Tuesday morning.
Reeling from the tragic news, many of the actress and writer’s Hollywood friends, including those from the Star Wars universe, again took to social media Tuesday to express their grief. The mark left by the galaxy’s princess was given a voice as pictures, quotes and shared memories began to circulate, including a one-time wish made by Fisher about what she thought would make a “fantastic obit.”
In her 2008 autbiography Wishful Drinking — which she later adapted into a one-woman show — the actress wrote about an exchange she had with Star Wars creator George Lucas surrounding her iconic Princess Leia outfit while on set for the original film:
George comes up to me the first day of filming and he takes on look at the dress and says, “You can’t wear a bra under that dress.”
So I say, “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”
And he says, “Because … there’s no underwear in space.”
I promise you this is true, and he says it with such conviction too! Like he had been to space and looked around and he didn’t see any bras or panties or briefs anywhere.
Fisher — who had returned for 2015’s blockbuster hit Star Wars: The Force Awakens and is due to reprise her role as Princess Leia in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII — went on to explain Lucas’ thinking when they discussed it a second time:
What happens is you go to space and you become weightless. So far so good, right? But then your body expands??? But your bra doesn’t — so you get strangled by your own bra.
She then describes how she would like her “fantastic obit” to read:
Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit — so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.
The book documented everything from her addictions to her failed marriages, struggles with bipolar disorder and her iconic role in the original Star Wars trilogy. Fisher was promoting her current memoir, The Princess Diarist, while in the U.K. last week.
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