Star Wars actor Carrie Fisher dies at 60

Hollywood star Carrie Fisher -- best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the wildly popular Star Wars films -- died Tuesday, days after suffering a heart attack on a transatlantic flight.

The 60-year-old actress had been in intensive care in a Los Angeles hospital after collapsing on the jetliner from London on Friday.

“It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” family spokesman Simon Halls told AFP in a statement on behalf of Fisher's daughter.

“She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly.” Hopes had been raised for Fisher's recovery after her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, told her Twitter followers on Sunday her daughter was in stable condition.

Fisher was catapulted to worldwide stardom as the royal rebel Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, which has been a cultural phenomenon since the release of the films from 1977 to 1983.

She had just finished filming the third season of her latest screen project, the Amazon comedy television series Catastrophe, which is set in London.

She had also been on a publicity tour for her new book, The Princess Diarist, which made headlines because she wrote about a three-month affair with Harrison Ford while they were filming the original Star Wars trilogy.