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For May the 4th, Carrie Fisher of 'Star Wars' gets a Hollywood Walk of Fame star
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Updated May 4, 2023 at 3:50 PM ET
Carrie Fisher brought sparkle wherever she went, her daughter Billie Lourd said Thursday — even flinging glitter at Star Wars fans she met at conventions. So Lourd brought some with her to the unveiling of Fisher's Hollywood Walk of Fame star, sprinkling some across it after the ceremony.
Fisher, best known as Princess Leia from the Star Wars series of movies, was given the honor on May 4, known as Star Wars Day for the date's similarity to one of the series' catch phrases, "may the Force be with you."
Leia's star isn't far from her twin brother's — the star for Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, is just a few feet away. At Thursday's ceremony, Hamill described meeting Fisher ahead of filming Star Wars, when he was 24 years old and she was 19.
"Every expectation I had was just obliterated," he said. "She was so charming, so funny, so adorable, so wise beyond her years, I just couldn't believe it. And brutally frank!"
Fisher also had memorable film roles in When Harry Met Sally and The Blues Brothers and was nominated for Emmys for a guest appearances on 30 Rock and Catastrophe and for her own one-woman show, Wishful Drinking. The latter was based on her book of the same name, one of several novels and memoirs she authored.
But it was the role of Leia — first as princess, later as general — for which she would be most fondly remembered. Though that wasn't her daughter's initial reaction.
Billie Lourd said Thursday that when Fisher first tried to introduce her to the space saga when she was a child, her reactions were "it's too loud, mama" and "is that lady in the TV you?" It was only when she reached middle school and awed classmates began asking about her mom that she absorbed the films.
"That day I realized, staring at the screen, that no one will be as hot or cool as Princess Leia," Lourd said.
She added that she came to fully embrace fandom, snapping up Leia merchandise, adding decorative Star Wars touches to her home and even snagging a role herself in the later movies. She also recalled attending fan conventions with Fisher — and acknowledging that her mom was, in fact, cool.
"People waited in lines for hours just to meet her, people had tattoos of her, people named their children after her," Lourd said.
And while Fisher was "an incredible actress who infused her strength and wit into every role she played," Lourd said she'd remember her mother as one of the wittiest writers she'd encountered. Fisher wrote seven books, but also eminently quotable tweets, her daughter said — and some very persuasive notes excusing her from school.
Fisher died in 2016, just a day before her own mother, actress Debbie Reynolds. While Lourd said she was sad that her own children never got to meet their grandmother, she was thrilled that, through Leia, she could still pass a piece of Fisher along to them.
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