Carrie Fisher's mother says actress is in a stable condition

Debbie Reynolds thanked fans for their support and says she will update them if there is any change in her daughter's condition

Carrie Fisher at a Star Wars premier in Leicester Square, London, 2015 (Reuters)

Carrie Fisher's mother has said she is in a “stable condition” in hospital following a heart attack on a plane.

Debbie Reynolds said she would update fans and friends about the condition of the Star Wars actress, who collapsed on a flight from London to Los Angeles on Friday, “if there is any change”.

Reynolds said: “Carrie is in stable condition. “If there is a change, we will share it. For all her fans and friends, I thank you for your prayers and good wishes”.

Fans and friends of the 60-year-old actress, best known for playing Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy and the sequel released last year, have rallied to express their shock over her hospitalisation and hopes for her swift recovery.

Her Star Wars co-stars, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, tweeted their support with Hamill:

Fisher suffered heart problems shortly before her flight landed in Los Angeles on Friday and received emergency treatment on the plane before she was rushed to a hospital.

A stable condition would be an upgrade from Friday, when her brother, Todd Fisher, said she was in critical condition.

The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality laws.

Fisher had been flying to LA from her home in London to promote her memoir, The Princess Diarist, based on diaries she kept while filming the series in the late 1970s.

In it she revealed she had had a brief affair with Ford during the filming of Star Wars: A New Hope.

She said the affair, which started when she was 19 and Ford was a 33-year-old married father of two, was “so intense. It was Han and Leia during the week, and Carrie and Harrison during the weekend.”