Carrie Fisher, who has died aged 60, never intended to become a celebrity, yet from the moment she was born her often tumultuous life was lived in the public eye.
Fisher’s iconic roots were established early. She was born to 1956 to Hollywood starlet Debbie Reynolds and her first husband Eddie Fisher.
The couple’s marriage produced another child, son Todd, in 1958, but fell apart soon after when Eddie Fisher began a began an affair with screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married in 1959.
That marriage also soured, but in true Hollywood style, both Reynolds and Carrie Fisher mended bridges with Taylor, remaining friendly with the Hollywood icon up to her death in 2011.
In 2001, Reynolds and Taylor even starred together in television movie These Old Broads, which was written by Fisher.
In an op-ed published in 2011, Fisher said she had never intended to follow in the footsteps of her famous parents.
“I never wanted to be an actress, let alone a celebrity. I had grown up watching the bright glow of my parents’ stardom slowly dim, cool, and fade,” she wrote.
Nonetheless Fisher did rise to fame, astronomically, as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy.
Since donning her iconic cinnamon-bun hairstyle in 1977’s Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Fisher has gained cult status as the headstrong and heroic sister of protagonist Luke Skywalker, and paramour of mercenary Han Solo.
The role hurtled her into superstardom around the world.
Her character became a pop culture icon and Fisher herself touted Leia as a “huge” feminist icon, dismissing the notion she was ever a “damsel in distress”.
“She bossed them around,” she said.