Roeper: From her teen debut on, Carrie Fisher talent was obvious

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Actress and author Carrie Fisher in Beverly Hills, California, in 1990, when the film based on her novel “Postcards From the Edge” was released. | Julie Markes/AP

She was born to Hollywood royalty and went on to portray the most popular live-action princess in movie history — but those are just two highlights in the remarkable career and life legacy of Carrie Fisher.

The actress-author-screenwriter-producer-public speaker-commercial spokeswoman-larger than life personality died Tuesday morning after suffering a massive heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles on Dec. 23. She was 60.

Born in Beverly Hills to singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, Fisher made her screen debut at 17 in 1975’s “Shampoo,” playing a precocious teenager who walks off a backyard tennis court, makes lunch for Warren Beatty’s womanizing hairdresser and then seduces him.

RELATED: ‘Star Wars’ actress Carrie Fisher dies

Re-watching the scene, one is struck not by the occasionally dated dialogue or the sexuality, but by a moment when Fisher grows irritated by Beatty comparing her looks to her mother’s and finally cuts him with, “I’m nothing like my mother!” It’s a powerful piece of acting from a teenager sharing the screen with one of the biggest stars in the world at the time.

Two years later, Fisher was coiffed in what she once called “that awful hairstyle” to play Princess Leia Organa, who famously said, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” in a hologram message — but would prove to be more than capable of helping herself and the Rebel Alliance in adventures that occurred a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and in a movie franchise that revolutionized filmmaking in the 1970s and 1980s, and regained its power in recent films such as “The Force Awakens” and “Rogue One.”

Fisher will be forever remembered as Princess Leia, but she had a number of terrific supporting screen roles in memorable films, including:

• The mysterious woman relentlessly pursuing John Belushi’s Joliet Jake in “The Blues Brothers.”

• April, an actress and a partner in “Stanislavski Catering” in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters.”

Sam Waterston and Carrie Fisher share a scene in the Woody Allen film “Hannah and Her Sisters.” | Orion Pictures

Sam Waterston and Carrie Fisher share a scene in the Woody Allen film “Hannah and Her Sisters.” | Orion Pictures

• Marie, Meg Ryan’s best friend in “When Harry Met Sally …” (The relationship between Fisher’s Marie and Bruno Kirby’s Jess was worth a romantic comedy unto itself.)

Fisher was a wonderful writer with a gift for acerbic, self-deprecating wit and crafting fictional relationships clearly inspired by some of her real-life experiences.

She was the author of “Wishful Drinking,” “The Princess Diarist” and “Surrender the Pink,” among other books. Steven Spielberg was one of the first directors to tap into Fisher’s gift for dialogue and character, and he brought her on board to punch up the script for “Hook.” Fisher also punched up the scripts for “The River Wild,” “Outbreak,” “Sister Act,” “The Wedding Singer” and even “Lethal Weapon 3.”

Fisher’s broken romance to Paul Simon even led to some of the most memorable lyrics in pop music history, from “Graceland”:

Composer and singer Paul Simon and actress Carrie Fisher pose outside of Simon’s Manhattan apartment in New York, Aug. 17, 1983, after the couple were married in a private ceremony. | Mario Suriani/AP

Composer and singer Paul Simon and actress Carrie Fisher pose outside of Simon’s Manhattan apartment in New York, Aug. 17, 1983, after the couple were married in a private ceremony. | Mario Suriani/AP

And she said losing love is like a window to your heart, everybody sees you’re blown apart, everybody sees the wind blow …

The 1990 Mike Nichols film “Postcards from the Edge,” about an actress and recovering drug addict, starred Meryl Streep as Fisher’s alter ego Suzanne and Shirley MacLaine as Suzanne’s mother Doris, an old-time musical comedy star not unlike Debbie Reynolds. The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Streep and several writing awards nominations for Fisher, who adapted her novel for the screen treatment.

The press junket for “Postcards” was held in Las Vegas in the summer of 1990. I interviewed Streep, MacLaine, their fellow cast members Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman and Richard Dreyfuss — and Fisher, who later wrote me a note saying in its entirety, “For Richard, Have a lovely and complete life span.”

Over the years I’ve lost track of a lot of souvenirs from interviews and appearances and awards shows, but for some reason, that crumpled, yellowing note was right there in the top desk drawer of my home office when I went looking for it a couple of days ago. I guess that wonderful, slightly New Agey, absolutely sweet message always stuck with me.

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