Movie fans, celebrities and friends have been paying respects to actress Carrie Fisher, who died Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. She had been in a hospital since Friday, having suffered a medical emergency on a flight from London to Los Angeles.
On Hollywood Boulevard, movie fans gathered alongside Star Wars impersonators to honor the late actress, who found enduring fame as Princess Leia in the original film from the series.
"I think it's really sad. I thought, too, that she was getting better in the hospital after she had a heart attack, so it feels really sad. It's a big loss," Melody Silveira, a Boston tourist, told Reuters.
"She was a huge star. Star Wars was an amazing film, she was an amazing part of it and it's a great loss that she's died so young," British tourist Lee Scott said.
Under a Yoda statue, outside the Lucasfilm campus in California, Fisher's fans left flowers and messages.
Her brother, Todd, told KABC in Los Angeles that the family had hopes she eventually would do better.
"Everybody is just a little bit in shock because she's so young and was doing so great, and to have her have a cardiac arrest at this age, to say the least, is unexpected," he said. "We've really been close our whole lives, and it's a very strange place to be looking at the world without her."
Author, host
Fisher published best-selling books, hosted a television show and played numerous characters in television series, including Entourage and 30 Rock.
Los Angeles-based film critic and historian Leonard Maltin spoke to VOA about Fisher's film legacy and said Star Wars overshadowed "everything that Carrie Fisher did for the rest of her life."
"She's been busy as a writer, as a performer, as a participant in documentaries, as a novelist, but all people know her for and cared about is that she played Princess Leia," Maltin said.
The film critic also said that in addition to writing novels and a recent memoir, the late actress was a well-known script doctor.
"Directors would bring screenplays to her to add humor, to add a love interest, and she became one of the most reliable script doctors in town," he said.
Maltin's favorite memory of Fisher is "her self-deprecating sense of humor."
The actress was the first to speak openly about her own struggles. She was a mental health advocate who endured cocaine addiction and bipolar disorder.
"She made the jokes before anyone else could," Maltin said. "She beat them to the punch — or beat them to the punchline, you could say. She did a one-woman joke, Wishful Drinking, about her problems with alcohol and with abuse and about her turbulent life growing up in the spotlight."
Berkeley Repertory Theater artistic director Tony Taccone, who directed Fisher's solo theater production of Wishful Drinking, called her a "comic genius."
Wishful Drinking played at Berkeley in 2008 and 2009, and also made its way to Broadway.
"It's a great loss. … I've never met anyone who could craft a comic line better than she could," Taccone said in a statement.
A 'lovely lady'
Former co-star Peter Mayhem, who played Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies, said he remembered his friend as a "lovely lady" who was always glad to see him.
"A friend is gone, departed, and is hopefully happy where she has gone to," Mayhem said.
Actor Mark Hamill, who played Princess Leia's brother, Luke Skywalker, wrote a tribute on Twitter with the caption "#AFewWords."
"Carrie was one-of-a-kind who belonged to us all — whether she liked it or not. She was our princess," Hamill wrote. "I am grateful for the laughter, the wisdom, the kindness [and] even the bratty, self-indulgent crap my beloved space-twin gave me through the years."
Harrison Ford, another Star Wars co-star, with whom Fisher said she had a three-month affair 40 years ago, wrote in a statement that she was funny and emotionally fearless.
"She lived her life, bravely. … We will all miss her," Ford wrote.
