Fisher had been hospitalized since Friday, December 23, after suffering a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles.
Fisher is best known for her role as rebel leader Leia Organa in Star Wars. Fisher brought a combination of grit, savvy, and hope to Leia, who was no damsel in distress and as capable -- if not more so -- as her male counterparts. Leia was both a first crush and a feminist role model for generations of fans.
Fisher herself was the daughter of entertainment royalty, singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds. Her first acting role was alongside her mother, in a Broadway revival of Irene.
Fisher was 20 when she starred in Star Wars: A New Hope, which shot her to immediate international stardom alongside Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill. She would go on to star in three sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), and The Force Awakens (2015). She had recently completed filming for her role for the upcoming eighth film in the franchise, Variety reports.
Fisher also had a key comedic role in The Blues Brothers (1980) and starred in Hannah and Her Sisiters and When Harry Met Sally. Most recently, she had done voicework for Family Guy and appeared on The Big Bang Theory and in Amazon’s Catastophe.
As smart and capable as the spacefaring counterpart that made her famous, Fisher was also an adept screenwriter and memoirist, releasing her first semiautobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge in 1987, which was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. Fisher herself wrote the screenplay.
Fisher’s later works, including this year’s The Princess Diarist, focused more on Fisher’s own battles with bipolar disorder. Until the end, Fisher remained an outspoken and warmly humorous personality online and in interviews, often poking fun at the character who made her famous.
