The Face That Launched 1,000 Spaceships
No one forgets their first love, and for an entire generation of self-proclaimed geeks there is one cinnamon-bunned queen, better yet princess, who reigns above all. Princess Leia burst on to the silver screen and into the hearts of fans many worlds over with the release of the original Star Wars film in 1977. However, it was arguably the franchise’s 3rd installment, Return of the Jedi, when Princess Leia’s star rose to its peak as an intergalactic sex symbol. Famously clad in a metal bikini, while held prisoner in Jabba the Hutt’s palace, Leia captured the fantasy of millions of fan-boys, producing one of the most iconic images in the storied Star Wars saga and arguably the most well known and often imitated bikini in movie history.Real life actress Carrie Fisher, who was fortunate enough to enjoy a wildly successful 3 movie stint as Leia, originally objected to her character’s most suggestive wardrobe selection, citing an implied subordination in relation to the male characters, of course, Leia was in fact being held captive in the scene, which is inherently subordinate in itself. Though the bikini stunt obviously pandered to the highly male-skewing audience, few critics objected with the final product. In her personal life, there have been a few men lucky enough to follow in Jabba’s footsteps and lock down the Princess Leia actress for extended periods of time. Fisher was set to marry Dan Akroyd, to whom she was engaged in 1980 on the set of their film The Blues Brothers, however she proceeded to rekindle her relationship with Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel, whom she had been dating since 1977. Simon and Fisher were married in 1983, though they divorced a year later in 1984. In the early 90′s she was linked to talent agent Bryan Lourd with whom she had a child. The couple never married and split in 1994.