(NBC News) — “Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher suffered a heart attack on a plane Friday, two law enforcement sources told NBC News
Fisher, world-famous for playing Princess Leia in the blockbuster franchise, was rushed to a local hospital after suffering full cardiac arrest on a flight from London to Los Angeles. Her condition, sources said, was “not good.”
The Los Angeles Fire Department was contacted just before United flight 935 landed, about 12:11 local time. Paramedics arrived at the gate and took her to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she was in critical condition, sources said.
Two actors tweeted that they were on board the plane when Fisher fell ill.
Fisher, 60, had recently wrapped filming for “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” the second of three new films in the massively popular sci-fi saga.
She was promoting her eighth book, a collection titled “The Princess Diarist,” in which she revealed her affair with co-star Harrison Ford during the filming of “Star Wars.”
Fisher, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, was 19 when she was cast in the role of Leia, which thrust her into superstardom. She appeared in two sequels, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” along with several other films.
Her first novel, 1987’s “Postcards from the Edge,” was a semi-autobiographical account of a drug-addicted actress in Hollywood. It received widespread acclaim, and was made into a 1990 film starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine; Fisher wrote the screenplay.
But she has always been best known as Leia.
Her former co-star, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” series, tweeted his hopes that she’d recover.
Peter Mayhew, who plays Chewbacca, called her “everyone’s favorite princess.”
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