Carrie Fisher (born October 21, 1956) is an American actress, screenwriter and novelist.

She was born Carrie Frances 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 actress Joely Fisher and actress 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 Irene (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 Pictures comedy Shampoo (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 Star Wars opposite Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, with Peter Cushing, and Alec Guinness.

Star Wars 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. At the same time, Fisher became addicted to various drugs.

She appeared on Broadway in Censored Scenes From King Kong (1980), playing Iris. She was also a replacement in the Broadway play Agnes of God (1982).

Fisher's book Postcards from the Edge, which was 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 won the Los Angeles Pen Award for Best First Novel.

In 1990, Columbia released a movie version of Postcards from the Edge, which was adapted for the screen by Fisher and starred Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid.

Fisher was married to musician Paul Simon (1983-1984). 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 Fisher for a man.

Her other novels include Surrender the Pink (1991), Delusions of Grandma (1993), Hollywood Moms (2001), and The Best Awful (2004).

In 2001, she co-wrote the TV comedy movie These Old Broads, of which she was also co-executive producer, starring 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 that if she became senile she may begin to slip back into character.

Fisher has publicly discussed her problems with drugs, her battles with bipolar disorder, and overcoming an addiction to prescription antidepressants, most notably on ABC TV's 20/20.

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, she has worked as a "script doctor" on the screenplays of other writers.

Credit: en.wikipedia.org