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Home , Billie Lourd, Mark Hamill, Postcards from the Edge, Princess Leia, The Force, The Princess Diarist

Carrie Fisher ‘’ , dies at 60 (Video)

Director and writer of “Star Wars” (C) poses with cast members and along with characters “” (L) “3CPO” (in gold) “R2D2” (short robot) and “” (background) during the premiere of “Star Wars Special Edition” in January 18, 1997. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

Carrie Fisher, who rose to fame as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” films and later endured drug addiction before going on to tell her story as a best-selling author, died on Tuesday aged 60, her family said.

Fisher, a mental health advocate who spoke about her own struggles with bipolar disorder and cocaine addiction, had suffered a heart attack on Friday as she flew into Los Angeles.

The daughter of actor and the late singer Eddie Fisher had been returning from England where she was shooting the third season of the British “Catastrophe.”

“Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter,” Reynolds said on Facebook. “I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop.”

Fisher’s friend and former Star Wars’ co-star Mark Hamill, who played Leia’s brother , said in a tweet: “No words. #Devastated”

Fisher was met by paramedics and rushed to the UCLA Medical Center after suffering the heart attack during the flight on Friday.

Actor (R) and actress Carrie Fisher pose with the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film, during the 11th annual BAFTA/LA Britannia Awards in Los Angeles, California on April 12, 2002. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

She made headlines last month when she disclosed that she had a three-month love affair with her “Star Wars” co-star Harrison Ford 40 years ago.

Fisher revealed the secret to People magazine while promoting her new memoir, “,” just before it went on sale. The book is based on Fisher’s diaries from her time working on the first “Star Wars” movie.

Harrison said in a statement Fisher was funny, emotionally fearless and one-of-a-kind. “She lived her life, bravely…We will all miss her.”

Fisher said the affair started and ended in 1976 during production on the blockbuster sci-fi adventure in which she first appeared as the intrepid Princess Leia. Ford played the maverick space .

“It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend,” Fisher told People. She was 19 and Ford was 33 at the time.

“How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me? I was so inexperienced, but I trusted something about him. He was kind,” she wrote of Ford in the memoir, the latest of several books Fisher authored.

Carrie Fisher poses at the Oscar Wilde Awards at director J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company in Santa Monica, California February 19, 2015. REUTERS/Kevork Djansezian

Fisher reprised the role in two “Star Wars” sequels. She gained sex symbol status in 1983’s “Return of the ” when her Leia character wore a metallic gold bikini while enslaved by the diabolical Jabba the .

She returned last year in Disney’s (DIS.N) reboot of the “Star Wars” franchise, “ Awakens,” appearing as the more matronly General Leia Organa, leader of the movement fighting the evil .

Filming was completed in July on Fisher’s next appearance as Leia in “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” which is set to reach theaters in December 2017.

Fisher’s Princess Leia makes a surprise appearance at the end of “,” the latest blockbuster, which opened this month, in the “Star Wars” series.

Shortly after news of her death was made public, her dog Gary, who has his own account, said goodbye: “Saddest tweets to tweet. Mommy is gone. I love you @carrieffisher.”

Carrie Fisher poses for cameras as she arrives at the European Premiere of Star Wars, The Force Awakens in Leicester Square, London, December 16, 2015. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

She is survived by her mother, Reynolds, her daughter, , and her brother .

EARLY SHOWBIZ START

Fisher also played a memorable supporting role in the 1989 hit film “When Harry Met Sally,” as a friend of Meg Ryan’s character who falls for and marries the best pal of ’s character.

More recently, Fisher played the American mother-in-law on “Catastrophe.”

Born in Beverly Hills, Carrie Fisher got her showbiz start at age 12 in her mother’s nightclub act. She made her film debut as a teenager in the 1975 comedy “Shampoo,” two years before her “Star Wars” breakthrough.

Cast member Carrie Fisher poses at the premiere of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in Hollywood, California December 14, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

But her life was also at times mired in drug abuse, mental illness and tumultuous romances with other entertainment figures, all of which she laid bare in her books, interviews and a one-woman stage show titled “.”

She was once engaged to comic actor Dan Aykroyd, later married, then divorced, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, and had a daughter out of wedlock with Hollywood talent agent Brian Lourd.

After undergoing treatment in the mid- for cocaine addition, she wrote the bestselling novel, “,” about a drug-abusing actress forced to move back in with her mother. She later adapted the book into a film that starred and Shirley MacLaine. She told Reuters in a 2011 interview that tabloid exposure of her private life could be trying.

“‘Carrie Fisher’s tragic life.’ That was one that hurt,” she said, quoting a headline. “‘Hey, how about Carrie Fisher? She used to be so hot. Now she looks like Elton John.’ That hurt.”

Chewbacca, the eight-foot tall, 200 year-old “wookie” character from “Star Wars,” gives his acceptance speech in his own tongue June 7, 1997 upon receiving the MTV Movie Awards Lifetime Achievement from Carrie Fisher (L), who played Princess Leia Organa in the same movie. REUTERS/Stringer

She also acknowledged being briefly hospitalized in 2013 due to a bout with bipolar disorder.

However, Fisher told magazine in an interview published last month she was happier than she had ever been.

“I’ve been through a lot, and I could go through more, but I hope I don’t have to,” she said. “But if I did, I’d be able to do it. I’m not going to enjoy dying but there’s not much prep for that.”

Summing up the showbiz legacy she expected to leave behind in her 2011 memoir “Shockaholic,” Fisher wrote in self-deprecating style: “What you’ll have of me after I journey to that great in the sky is an extremely accomplished daughter, a few books, and a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini lounging on a giant drooling squid, behind a newscaster informing you of the passing of Princess Leia after a long battle with her head.”

(Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle and Daniel Wallis and Jill Serjeant in New York; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Diane Craft)