Whilst the survivors of the plague riddled years of 1346 to 1353 might beg to differ, 2016 seems to have been to us soft-handed, celebrity obsessed millennials: The Worst. Because this is how death tends to work, the dear departed of 2016 will still be dead next year (also my prediction is that people will continue to die) and of course the current calendar system is down to Julius Caesar (if my patchy Roman history serves me well) and pretty arbitrary, but we thought we were so nearly in the clear of this seemingly cursed year 2016. Not so.
Yesterday it was announced that Carrie Fisher had died. Why is she getting an obituary on the Funny Women site you might ask. Because Carrie wasn’t just Princess Leia, she was a very funny woman.
Refusing to be defined by her Star Wars character, “A lot of it was just running down corridors”, Carrie continued to act, most recently in comedy shows such as 30 Rock and Catastrophe – alongside her french bulldog Gary Fisher – displaying a great aptitude for comedy and willingness to send herself up.
Carrie also had a great talent for writing, working as a script doctor and publishing sardonic and funny books such as Postcards from the Edge, Wishful Drinking and most recently The Princess Diarist. Carrie was also an advocate for mental health, being refreshingly open about her bipolar disorder, her difficult relationship with her famous parents, her marriages and drug addiction, calling herself “Joan of Narc, patron saint of addicts”.
Her Star Wars co-star Mark Hamill said on his Facebook page “It’s never easy to lose such a vital, irreplaceable member of the family, but this is downright heartbreaking. Carrie was one-of-a-kind who belonged to us all- whether she liked it or not. She was OUR Princess, damn it, & the actress who played her blurred into one gorgeous, fiercely independent & ferociously funny, take-charge woman who took our collective breath away. Determined & tough, but with a vulnerability that made you root for her & want her to succeed & be happy. She played such a crucial role in my professional & personal life, & both would have been far emptier without her. I am grateful for the laughter, the wisdom, the kindness & even the bratty, self-indulgent crap my beloved space-twin gave me through the years. Thanks Carrie. I love you.”
I’ve not mentioned the cause of Carrie’s death. In her book Wishful Drinking Carrie wrote instructions on how she wanted her death to be announced: “I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”
What a way to go.
