A Giant Porcelain Prozac Pill For Carrie Fisher’s Ashes

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The acting career of Carrie Fisher, who died last month after suffering a heart attack, is impressive enough to solidify her status as an icon. She will be remembered for her portrayal of Princess Leia Organa in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, and her work as an actor in films such as “Shampoo,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Hannah and her Sisters” and “When Harry Met Sally.”

But Carrie Fisher’s impact reached far beyond her work as an actor. She was an in-demand script doctor and the author of two memoirs and a novel which was later adapted into a film. She was also the star of a one-woman play about her life, a celebrated wit and the owner of a French bulldog who accompanied her everywhere. Lastly, she was Hollywood royalty —  the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and legendary starlet Debbie Reynolds, who were famous for their work and for their widely publicized 1950s love triangle involving Elizabeth Taylor.

A Staunch Mental Health Advocate

For many, however, Carrie Fisher’s most important role was as a mental health advocate. She was unabashedly honest, laudably courageous and astoundingly resilient in the face of her public struggle with bipolar disorder and addiction. She wrote and spoke candidly about the challenges she faced, and inspired countless others as she learned how to manage her illness and help others in the same boat. In her last advice column for “The Guardian” before she died (published on Nov. 30, 2016), Fisher wrote to a person with bipolar disorder in a characteristic display of compassion and wisdom.

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“We have been given a challenging illness, and there is no other option than to meet those challenges,” she wrote. “Think of it as an opportunity to be heroic — not ‘I survived living in Mosul during an attack’ heroic, but an emotional survival. An opportunity to be a good example to others who might share our disorder. You don’t have to like doing a lot of what you do, you just have to do it…Move through those feelings and meet me on the other side. As your bipolar sister, I’ll be watching. Now get out there and show me and you what you can do.”

In her memoir “Wishful Drinking,” published in 2008, Fisher wrote her own obituary, saying, “I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.” In the wake of her death, thousands of obliging tweets have gone out proclaiming just that.

Carrie Fisher’s Last Laugh

But not even her self-penned fantastical obituary was the most “Carrie Fisher” thing about her death; that would have to be the over-sized, Prozac pill-shaped urn that holds her ashes. A photo of the burial ceremony for Carrie and her mother, who died of a stroke the day after Fisher, was released recently. It shows family members holding the distinctive green and white porcelain urn. Her brother Todd said, “Carrie’s favorite possession was a giant Prozac pill that she bought many years ago. She loved it, and it was in her house, and Billie (Fisher’s daughter) and I felt it was where she’d want to be.”