HEATH LEDGER, ACTOR IS FOUND DEAD AT 28- Heath Ledger,
the 28 year old Australian-born actor, who receive an Academy Award nomination for his breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in
the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain” , was found
dead Tuesday in his apartment in SoHo, Manhattan apparently with sleeping pills near his
body. The
police said Mr. Ledger’s body was found by his masseuse around 2:45 p.m. The chief police
spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play, suicide or signs that he was drinking nor were any illegal
drugs found in the loft, which takes up the entire fourth floor.
Mr. Ledger had become a familiar figure in his SoHo neighborhood
He had clashed with paparazzi in Australia, but in New York, where
there is no shortage of problem-causing partygoers, “he certainly
wasn’t one of them,” said Paul Sevigny, an owner of the Beatrice Inn, a
West Village club that Mr. Ledger frequented.
“He was really polite and nice,” said Mr. Sevigny.
Vanessa Yuille, 29, of Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, will vigil outside his apartment, to pay tribute for what Mr. Ledger did in a
Williamsburg
restaurant last summer.
“A guy fell off a motorcycle in front of the restaurant,” she said,
“and it was he, who went to see if the guy was all right.
A cocktail waitress at a downtown hotel bar said that he showed up last week with some friends,
ordered bottled water, as he always did, and stayed for an hour or two.
“He looked fit,” said the waitress. His father, Kim Ledger in an interview by Associated Press , called his
death “tragic, untimely and accidental.” An uncle, Neil Bell, said the
family was taken by surprise.“I had such great hope for him,” Mr. Gibson said in a statement. “He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss.”
Mr. Ledger met
ms.
Williams while filming “Brokeback Mountain.” They began a romance and
moved to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, where they were
widely noted in the New York tabloids and on celebrity-oriented Web
sites. Ms. Williams gave birth to their daughter, Matilda Rose, on Oct.
28, 2005.
Until they separated last summer, he, Ms. Williams and Matilda were the
darlings of Brooklyn, photographed around Boerum Hill. After splitting up with Ms. Williams — and jilting Brooklyn — Mr. Ledger remained a favorite of tabloids and photographers.
He was linked to the model Gemma Ward and with actress Kate Hudson and had been seen “kissing and
making out” at a West Village restaurant. (Her
publicist denied it.)
Mr. Ledger’s death shook Warner Brothers, which is scheduled to release
his next film on July 18 — “The Dark Knight,” a big-budget sequel to
“Batman Begins.” Mr. Ledger plays the Joker, Batman’s arch-nemesis.
The studio had already started to roll out a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign.
Fans cheered when it was unveiled late last year shows Mr. Ledger in costume, saying, “Why So Serious?” in what appears to be blood.In a recent interview with WJW-TV, in Cleveland, about his movie
“I’m Not There,” in which he was one of several actors playing the
music legend Bob Dylan, Mr. Ledger struck a philosophical note to the question about how having a child had changed his life:
“You’re forced into, kind of, respecting yourself more,” he said. “You
learn more about yourself through your child, I guess. I think you also
look at death differently. It’s like a Catch-22: I feel good about
dying now because I feel like I’m alive in her, you know, but at the
same hand, you don’t want to die because you want to be around for the
rest of her life.”