Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher is an actress who achieved incredible fame with her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. Known as one of the most beautiful actresses of her day, Fisher has completely let herself go in recent years, packing on close to 100 lbs and losing her femininity in the process.
Carrie Fisher was born on October 21, 1956 in Beverly Hills, California. Fisher grew up in a famous family - her father was singer Eddie Fisher and her mother is actress Debbie Reynolds. Fisher's parents divorced when she was two - her father remarried to popular actress Elizabeth Taylor and her mother remarried to Harry Karl, who owned a chain of shoe stores. Taking advantage of her family's entertainment connections, at the tender age of 12, Fisher began appearing with her mother in Las Vegas, Nevada. In one of her first acting roles, Fisher appeared as a debutante and singer in 1973 in the hit Broadway revival Irene, which starred her mother.
Fisher broke into movies with a role in the 1975 comedy movie Shampoo, alongside Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. Fisher's next movie was Star Wars: A New Hope, where she played her career-making role of Princess Leia. Fisher received acclaim for both her beauty and her acting abilities in Star Wars as well as in sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, three of the biggest box office hits of all time.
Fisher's role in Return of the Jedi provided the iconic image of her in a gold bikini as Jabba the Hutt's slave. After audiences saw Fisher in the gold bikini, she became one of the reining Hollywood sex symbols for years to come.
Fisher appeared in other major movies around the time of the Star Wars trilogy, such as 1980's Blues Brothers where she played the jilted lover of John Belushi's character. In that movie, her character chased after and shot at Belushi with a machine gun after he stood her up at a wedding. In a famous scene, Belushi pleaded for forgiveness in a dirty underground tunnel, kissed Fisher's character, and then dropped her in a mud puddle and walked away.
Fisher must have felt like she was on top of the world by the early 1980s. Unfortunately, her career was at its peak and had only one way to go from there - down, and it did crash spectacularly.
Fisher did continue to appear in movies, although the roles were fewer and farther in between. Fisher moved over to the writing side of entertainment as her roles diminished. In 1987 she published her first novel, Postcards from the Edge, and wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film adaptation of the novel. She also had supporting roles in the successful 1989 movies When Harry Met Sally and The 'Burbs. 
Throughout the 1990s Fisher seemed to do more writing than acting. She published the novel Surrender the Pink in 1991 and Delusions of Grandma in 1993. She appeared in the 1997 comedy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which was a moderate success at the box office, but became much more popular via movie rentals and sequels. She also became a busy "screen doctor," reviewing scripts for movies and TV shows, such as the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
Fisher also appeared in minor roles in few movies during the 21st century, such as Scream 3 in 2000, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. As the movie roles dried up, Fisher began acting in her own one-woman auto-graphical play, Wishful Drinking, from 2006-2009. Fisher later wrote a book of the same name, Wishful Drinking, which earned a nomination for a 2010 Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category.
Away from the entertainment business, Fisher's personal life has been rocky to say the least. She was engaged to actor Dan Aykroyd and married diminutive singer Paul Simon for a couple years in the early 1980s. Fisher also had a three-year relationship (and a daughter) in the early 1990s with top Hollywood agent, Bryan Lourd. Lourd infamously left Fisher to pursue a homosexual relationship with a man. A few years ago, Lourd claimed that Fisher's abuse of codeine was responsible for causing him to turn gay. 
Fisher also became an alcoholic and a drug addict, as she has discussed in numerous media outlets, such as during a Today Show interview. Fisher also experienced a bout with mental illness - she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and spent some time in an mental hospital. She also apparently became addicted to fast food such as McDonald's or Hostess Twinkies and Ding Dongs, ballooning up from 100 lbs in the days of Return of the Jedi to 180 lbs by 2010. Fisher is almost large enough to play Jabba the Hutt in a Return of the Jedi sequel. 
Fisher has followed in the footsteps of fellow washed-up celebrity Kirstie Alley and is currently a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig weight-loss products. 
As if the weight gain wasn't bad enough, Fisher also chopped the beautiful long hair she used to have, giving her a somewhat masculine look, as shown below:
Fisher also recently outed John Travolta as a homosexual in an interview she gave to the Advocate.
Although she was an international sex symbol in the early 1980s, Carrie Fisher has really let herself go in recent years as her movie roles evaporated. I hope she can regain control of her life and gets back down to a healthy weight, which would cause at least some of her conspicuous former beauty to reappear. However, until her gets her life and health back under control, there can be no doubt that Carrie Fisher is one washed-up celebrity!
