Saga Would Carrie Fisher have been a movie star without Star Wars?

Would Carrie Fisher have been a movie star without the Star Wars films?

Harrison Ford obviously was capable, although at 33 he was nearing the limit. Mark Hamill obviously is/was a no. Fisher seems like the wild card. She's pretty great in three minutes in Shampoo - if you check contemporaneous reviews, she's mentioned in a number of the ones from big outlets. She would also seem to have the easiest path of the three, given her parentage.

That said there are two questions here:

Would Fisher have been a star without Star Wars?
Would she have been a movie star without Star Wars and her addiction/mental issues?

 

I don't think there's a scientific or right answer to those questions. With hollywood, show business ans suits all we can do is take wild guesses

I don't think she would have been a star without Star Wars.

 

Is Carrie Fisher a movie star? How do you define "movie star"?

Furthermore, does it matter?

 

You do realize she was a coke addled mess by the time of Return of the Jedi? She should have righlty emerged into the A-list star status as Harrison did. The problem is most people in the business took her for being an unreliable junkie. Most of it is outlined in her book. She admits to being a heavy smoker, partier and addict so she would have not gone very far with or without star wars.

Poor Mark was struck with the worst luck as the car accident ruined his boyish good looks and he was relagated to voice over work and bit parts post ROTJ.

 

Carrie never had designs to be a movie star. She trained as an actor, yes, but because she grew up in Hollywood she never saw it as something to aspire to. She thought of her mother, Debbi Reynolds, as a true movie star, something she didn't aspire for, and felt she never could even if she tried. Her Star Wars fame was shocking and unexpected.

She would've likely been what she ended up being; a working actor. She worked from her teen years, and stayed consistently employed as an actor (and later writer) until the day she died. She acted across the board in major feature films, indie films, TV, and on the stage.

I met Carrie last year. I asked her, in a panel for another project she was filming, if her uptick in acting work caused her to feel that old acting bug again, if she wanted to work even more. She said absolutely not.

 

Carrie Fisher Getting Hollywood Walk of Fame Star! | The Mary Sue

I'd say that defines her as a movie star.

 

I would say so, she was in different films besides Star Wars.

 

Was she a movie star? Yes

You can be a movie star with 1 movie to your name, if you make a big cultural impact.

So in many ways, Carrie is a bigger movie star then thousands of people with much more prodigious IMDB pages.

Would she have been a movie star without Star Wars? Probably not.

She probably would've made a couple films while she was young, getting her bearings in the industry, trying to find a way to make a living.
I suspect she would've found her way to writing eventually. Her success there may not have been as well known because of the lack of acting fame beforehand...but her well known family would also have played a part.

What is funny...as much as she lauds her mother's career...I would argue strongly that Carrie had a bigger impact on cinema in 3 films, then Debbie had in her whole career. Something I am sure Carrie would reject. But I think when viewed objectively in terms of references, peripheral merchandising, money made, and the sizable fanbase vocal in their devotion to her memory, I think it is true. In many ways, Debbie is now "The mother of Princess Leia" in the memory of many, rather then the starlet of "Singin' in the Rain"

Carrie's personal issues are not unique to her. We just know more about them because she was so brave and unabashed about sharing them with us. Her struggles are practically a cliche in Hollywood these days, so how they affected her career is an unknown. Some people hide it, some people let it destroy them, some people simply sail right through.

I suspect Carrie didn't become a BIGGER star...meaning she didn't become a leading lady in Hollywood for a generation...because it wasn't her. In addition to her well known issues, she was also quite social and bohemian in the years after the OT. Her romances and breakups were dramas unto themselves. And as time went on, I suspect the offers thinned out as studios tired of waiting on her, but as she said many times, it didn't really bother her.

She did it her way.