The electrifying chemistry between Princess Leia Organa and the scoundrel Han Solo was a defining element of the original Star Wars trilogy. However, in 2016, just weeks before her untimely death, Carrie Fisher revealed in her memoir a secret she had guarded for four decades: the on-screen romance between the characters had a passionate, real-life parallel that nearly destroyed Harrison Ford’s first marriage.
The Clandestine Affair on the Set of A New Hope
The affair occurred in 1976 during the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope in London. The dynamic was fraught with complication. Carrie Fisher was a relatively inexperienced 19-year-old actress, while Harrison Ford was a 33-year-old married father of two. Ford was married to his first wife, Mary Marquardt, a relationship that was already strained.
In her memoir The Princess Diarist, which was based on the “angst-ridden journals” she kept at the time, Fisher confessed to the whirlwind, three-month affair that took her by surprise. She famously summed up their dual reality on set: “It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.”
The actress revealed that the relationship began after a birthday party for director George Lucas. She described Ford, who was then still primarily a working actor and not yet the superstar he would become, as “kind” and possessing a “hero’s face.” Despite her own self-doubt about being adequate for the “shining specimen of a man,” the intensity of the romance quickly took over the production.
The Fallout and Ford’s Silence
The affair concluded when filming wrapped, but its consequences lingered. Harrison Ford and his wife, Mary Marquardt, eventually divorced in 1979, roughly three years after the affair took place. While Fisher never claimed her relationship was the sole cause, the timing and intensity of the on-set romance were a significant component of their marital troubles. The passionate nights with Harrison Ford nearly destroyed his marriage.
When Fisher decided to publish her journals and reveal the decades-old secret, she provided Ford with an advance copy of the book. Ford, famously private and taciturn, never publicly responded to the request or the revelation. When later asked about the book in a 2017 interview, Ford admitted the public disclosure was “strange for him” and largely refused to discuss the subject further, allowing Fisher’s account to stand as the public record.
The profound confession confirmed the genuine, magnetic chemistry that fueled one of cinema’s most beloved romances, while also lifting the veil on the intense, complicated realities of life behind the scenes of a galaxy far, far away.