Credit: Far Out / Riccardo Ghilardi
Sun 23 August 2026 12:34, UK
When Carrie Fisher passed away, the world reacted the way it always does when someone of immense legendary status dies.
As Harrison Ford said of his Star Wars co-star, “Carrie was one-of-a-kind… brilliant, original. Funny and emotionally fearless. She lived her life bravely.”
Thousands of other tributes poured in from all over, discussing how much of a film icon she was and how much her approach to art impacted the corners of almost every creative industry. Fisher wasn’t just a good actor; she had a mindset that most people would do well to imitate. She even inspired Paul Simon’s proudest song.
Entering the world of show business at the young age of 16, almost everybody immediately became endeared to Fisher’s always-on spirit and unique sense of humour. From these seminal early days, it’s almost as though she knew exactly how to warm an entire room, knowing that the only way to live in true beauty was to become it. As she once said, “I don’t want my life to imitate art, I want my life to be art.”
In almost every situation she found herself in, she delivered the kind of aura that made it seem as though she was one of the few who truly knew how to live in the moment and endear herself to anyone in her path. Although her viewpoints and remarks seemed a little off-kilter at times, this was precisely her charm, and she came across as a genuine breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale Hollywood.
As she famously quipped, “If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.”
Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Although she wouldn’t get her breakthrough until 1977 with a starring role in George Lucas’ iconic Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, the seeds to stardom had already been sewn, and she entered the mainstream with the kind of attitude it needed at the time. Fisher wasn’t just Princess Leia, she was also a figure for challenging female stereotypes in film, allowing her feverish charm to blossom where it counted.
As Lucas later reflected on her time on set, during these years, Fisher was an “extremely smart” person with a “very colourful personality that everyone loved”. In the movie, she was “our great and powerful princess – feisty, wise and full of hope in a role that was more difficult than most people might think.” In other words, she emerged as the ultimate blockbuster challenger, simultaneously mirroring and disrupting the roles everyone had come to know and love.
Therefore, when she passed, the industry felt at a loss, not just because of her achievements but because she had left behind a legacy rooted in authenticity that redefined what it meant to be in an industry that often prioritises the opposite. At her memorial, stars gathered to pay their respects, many of them holding close to the memories that demonstrated Fisher’s honesty and effervescence, some singing songs to commemorate such.
One was Meryl Streep, who performed a rendition of ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ alongside Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd. The song was apparently one of Fisher’s favourites, so it’s only fitting that the special performance resulted in everyone joining in to sing, providing a welcome reminder of the one mantra that Fisher lived by throughout her life: to live in the moment.
Originally written in 1929, as the Wall Street Crash was plunging America into the Great Depression, ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ was an almost absurdly optimistic song for its moment. Yet its irony soon became reality: it was adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt for his 1932 presidential campaign and became a soundtrack for the promise of better times. That pretty much typified Fisher’s sense of humour and outlook on life.
More than three decades later, Barbra Streisand turned that optimism on its head. On The Garry Moore Show in 1962, she performed it as a millionaire who had just lost everything. As a wealthy actor who had faced plenty of darkness herself, if anything, this made the song even funnier for Fisher. So, with the help of a thespian friend, it formed the perfect farewell for an icon
