Actress Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame was in critical condition on December 23 after suffering a “cardiac episode” during a flight from London to Los Angeles, according to airline and emergency officials.
Fisher, 60, was rushed to UCLA Medical Center by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics shortly after noon, after her 11-hour flight touched down at LAX.
A source who was not authorised to discuss the incident said the actress was “in a lot of distress on the flight.”
A statement released by United Airlines said that medical personnel met Flight 935 from London on arrival after the crew reported a passenger was unresponsive.
“Our thoughts are with our customer at this time,” the statement read.
Just prior to arrival, a pilot told the control tower that passengers who were nurses were attending to an “unresponsive” passenger.
“So they’re working on her right now,” the pilot said in a public recording of the conversation on liveatc.net.
According to the Los Angeles Airport Police, officers responded to Terminal 7 around 12.15pm for a call of a female passenger in cardiac arrest. On arrival, they found paramedics performing CPR on the victim, according to Officer Alicia Hernandez.
Todd Fisher, Carrie Fisher’s brother, told CNN that his sister had been stabilised at the hospital and was in an intensive care unit.
“She’s obviously a very tough girl who’s survived many things,” Todd said to KABC-TV. “I encourage everyone to pray for her.”
Her sister, actress Joely Fisher, said on Twitter that she would perform this afternoon at the Laguna Playhouse “then back by your side @carrieffisher Love you Sister Sledge.”
Fisher, who rose to stardom as Princess Leia on Star Wars, recently published an autobiography titled The Princess Diarist, her eighth book.
She is the daughter of famous Hollywood couple Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.
Fisher, who has written and spoken openly about her struggles in the movie business, is considered Hollywood royalty. She took on her prickly relationship with her mother in the book-to-movie Postcards from the Edge. She’s also been outspoken about her mental health issues and the solution she found: radical-sounding electroshock therapy.
News of Fisher’s condition sparked an outpouring of support and sympathy on social media.
Many of her Star Wars co-stars wished her well on Twitter, including Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca; Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker; Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO; Dave Prowse, who acted as Darth Vader; and Billy Dee Williams, who played Lando Calrissian.
“I’m shocked and saddened to hear the news about my dear friend,” Harrison Ford told The Hollywood Reporter on December 24. Ford played the swashbuckling Hans Solo opposite Fisher’s intrepid Princess Leia in the original 1977 Star Wars film and its sequels. “Our thoughts are with Carrie, her family and friends.”
Fisher caused a stir in November with the disclosure that she had a three-month love affair with Ford during the making of Star Wars. Fisher revealed the secret to People magazine while promoting her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, just before it went on sale.
Her friend William Shatner, best known for his role in the television series Star Trek, posted an old photograph on Twitter of him and Fisher embracing, writing that she was “all I want for Christmas.” Other celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres and Christina Applegate, took to social media to share their sadness, while the singer and actress Bette Midler described Fisher as “hilarious on paper and in person, and just plain beloved.”
Fisher reprised her Princess Leia role in two sequels and returned last year in Disney’s reboot of the franchise, The Force Awakens, appearing as the more matronly General Leia Organa, leader of the Resistance movement fighting the evil First Order.
