My 1980s Sex Icon Gone

This morning Carrie Fisher of Star Wars' Princess Leia fame died from her heart attack aboard a flight from London to Los Angeles several days ago from which she stopped breathing and never regained consciousness. A generation of hormonal adolescent men, especially the geekier ones like me, found her captivating and her wearing her slave bikini outfit in Return of the Jedi raised her to the level of generational sexual icon on par with Farrah Fawcett's 70s bikini poster image. To many people like me, her character's appearance and personality embodied all the things we desired; physical beauty, an older woman (she being a young adult relative to our still being kids), intelligent, spunky, and courageous. Since her youthful Star Wars run I have continued to appreciate and respect her and follow her life's journey through its ups and downs including her struggles with self-esteem, living in her famous mother Debbie Reynolds' shadow, drug addiction, and bipolar disorder. I seem to have a thing for hot, crazy, emotionally wounded women. I feel profoundly sad about this celebrity death much more than most despite my having never met her. All images courtesy of 20th Century Fox (all rights reserved).