Carrie Fisher is set to be the latest star to feature in BBC documentary, A Life In Ten Pictures, which returns for a second series on Thursday.
Best known for playing the role of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars films, Carrie tragically passed away at the age of 60 on December 27 2016 after suffering a cardiac arrest.
The new BBC documentary will examine her life through ‘a handful of iconic shots and private snaps reveal a new story, of an extraordinary life seen through a unique lens’ when it airs on BBC Two.
Away from a glittering career in Hollywood, Carrie lived an intriguing life.
From growing up with celebrity parents to an affair with Harrison Ford and an unlikely friendship with James Blunt, here is a look inside the fascinating life led by Carrie Fisher.
Carrie Fisher is set to be the latest star to feature in BBC documentary, A Life In Ten Pictures, which returns for a second series on Thursday
Born in 1956, Carrie was the first child of pop singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, best known for featuring in the 1952 classic Singin’ In The Rain
A star-studded upbringing
Born in 1956, Carrie was the first child of pop singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, best known for featuring in the 1952 classic Singin’ In The Rain as Kathy Selden.
Speaking about how her upbringing affected her in later life, she remarked that she was ‘truly a product of Hollywood in-breeding. When two celebrities mate, someone like me is the result,’ she told Vanity Fair.
She also shared how she was practically left unattended due to the fame of her parents from the moment she was born.
Writing about her birth in her autobiography, she said: ‘When I was born, my mother was given an anaesthetic because they didn’t have epidurals in those days. Consequently, she was unconscious.
‘All the doctors [in the delivery room] were buzzing round her pretty head, saying: ”Oh, look at Debbie Reynolds asleep—how pretty.”’
‘And my father, upon seeing me start to arrive, fainted. So all the nurses ran over saying: ”Oh look, there’s Eddie Fisher, the crooner, on the ground. Let’s go look at him.”’
‘So when I arrived I was virtually unattended. And I have been trying to make up for that fact ever since.’
Two years later, Fisher famously left Reynolds and their two children, Carrie and her younger brother, Todd, to be with Elizabeth Taylor.
Harrison Ford affair
In Carrie’s final memoir, The Princess Diarist, which was released just months before her death, she revealed she had a three-month affair with Harrison Ford while filming the original Star Wars.
In Carrie’s final memoir, she revealed she had a three-month affair with Harrison Ford while filming the original Star Wars, (pictured together in December 2015)
Writing in her memoir The Princess Diarist, Carrie said: ‘How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?’
Harrison has been married to actress Calista Flockhart since 2010 and has never publicly commented on his affair with Carrie, (pictured together)
She was aged just 19 at the time, while Harrison was 33 and married with two children.
In one passage of The Princess Diarist, Carrie recalled a birthday party for director George Lucas that she attended with her fellow Star Wars actor.
She wrote: ‘I looked over at Harrison. A hero’s face — a few strands of hair fell over his noble, slightly furrowed brow,’ she wrote.
‘How could you ask such a shining specimen of a man to be satisfied with the likes of me?
‘A tiny part of me felt like I’d won the man lottery, and here I was both counting and spending the money.’
She added that their affair, which lasted for three months, was ‘intense’ because they were working together at the time.
Carrie also told Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford of The Today Show that the affair felt like a ‘three-month one-night stand’.
Harrison would subsequently separate from his first wife Mary after the first film had been released.
Carrie went on to marry Paul Simon in 1983 for a year, before she had a relationship with talent agent Bryan Lourd from 1991 to 1994.
Their only child, daughter Billie Lourd, was born in 1992.
Harrison has been married to actress Calista Flockhart since 2010 and has never publicly commented on his affair with Carrie.
Friendship with James Blunt
Carrie Fisher also forged an unlikely friendship with British singer-songwriter, James Blunt, because he ‘was going out with a girl whose parents were family friends of Carrie’s and sat beside her at lunch.’
Carrie also forged an unlikely friendship with British singer-songwriter, James Blunt
Following Carrie’s death in 2016, James wrote the track Dark Thought, as a tribute to the legendary actress
Speaking to The Guardian, about how the pair forged a friendship few would have predicted, James said: ‘I had just got a record deal and was moving to LA.’
‘Carrie’s first question was: “What do you do?” I said: “I’ve left the army to go to make an album in LA.”
‘Question number two was: “Where are you going to live?” I said I didn’t know. Her reply – the third thing she ever said to me – was: “Well, you’re going to live with me.” So I did just that.’
Although James said he saw little of Carrie throughout his first month of living in Los Angeles, they gradually grew closer.
He added that the pair would talk after he came back from the recording studio, sometimes at 3am, which helped her and Blunt to become almost inseparable.
Following Carrie’s death in 2016, James wrote the track Dark Thought, released in 2023, which he said described the moment he returned to her house following her passing.
Recounting how the incident proved to be difficult for him, James said he ‘put my hand on her gate and started crying.’
A Life In Ten Pictures featuring Carrie Fisher will air at 9pm on Thursday March 21 on BBC Two
