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Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger at Berlin Film Festival in 2006. Photo by Howie Berlin.
Born	Heathcliff Andrew Ledger
Years active	1996 – 2008
Children	Matilda Rose Ledger
Awards	NYFCC Award For Best Actor 2005 Brokeback Mountain

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was an Academy Award-nominated Australian actor. After appearing in television roles during the 1990s, Ledger developed a Hollywood career. He starred in both critical and financial successes, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, Monster's Ball, A Knight's Tale, and Brokeback Mountain, and completed the role of the Joker in the forthcoming movie The Dark Knight shortly before his death from an accidental prescription-drug overdose at the age of 28.

Biography

Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Sally Ledger Bell (née Ramshaw), a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, a race car driver and mining engineer. Ledger's mother is descended from the Clan Campbell of Scotland and his father comes from a family known in Perth for their ownership of the Ledger Engineering Foundry. Heath Ledger and his (older) sister, Kate, an actress, were named after the two main characters in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Catherine. The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust was named after his great-grandfather. Ledger attended Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences, starring in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10.

Ledger was an avid chess player; won a state junior chess championship at age ten, and as an adult often played with strangers at Washington Square Park.

Ledger's parents divorced when he was eleven. Other siblings include two half-sisters, Ashleigh Bell (b.1989) from his mother's side with stepfather Roger Bell, and Olivia Ledger (b.1997) from his father's side with Emma Brown.

Prior to 2002, Ledger had dated actresses Lisa Zane and Heather Graham for short periods of time. From August 2002 to April 2004, Ledger had a relationship with actress Naomi Watts, whom he met during the filming of Ned Kelly.

Ledger met and began dating actress Michelle Williams on the set of Brokeback Mountain, and their daughter, Matilda Rose, was born on October 28, 2005 in New York City. Matilda Rose's godparents are Ledger's Brokeback costar Jake Gyllenhaal and Williams' Dawson's Creek castmate Busy Philipps. The problems Ledger had with paparazzi in Australia prompted him to sell his residence in Bronte, New South Wales, for A$7 million, and to move to the United States, where he shared an apartment with Williams, in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, beginning in 2005.

In September, 2007, Williams' father, Larry, confirmed to Sydney's Daily Telegraph that Ledger and Williams had ended their relationship. Subsequently Ledger was reportedly "seeing" or "dating" supermodels Helena Christensen and Gemma Ward and former child-actress Mary-Kate Olsen.

Career

Early career

At sixteen, Ledger sat for early graduation exams, and left school to pursue an acting career. With his best friend, Trevor DiCarlo, Ledger made the cross-country drive to Sydney. He returned to Perth for the TV series Sweat (1996), in which he played a gay cyclist.

In 1996, prior to his film debut in the 1997 Australian movie Blackrock, Ledger was involved in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama Roar. This was immediately followed by a part on Home and Away, one of Australia's most successful television shows. In 1999, Ledger starred in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You and also had the lead role in the acclaimed Australian movie Two Hands, directed by Gregor Jordan.

2000s

From 2000 to 2005, he starred in The Patriot, Monster's Ball, A Knight's Tale, The Four Feathers, Ned Kelly, The Order, and The Brothers Grimm. In 2001, he won a ShoWest Award for the Male Star of Tomorrow based on his performance in The Patriot, and worldwide release of A Knight's Tale. In 2003, he was named one of Australian GQ's Men of the Year for acting.

Ledger received "Best Actor of 2005" awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for his acclaimed performance in Brokeback Mountain, in which he plays Wyoming ranch hand Ennis Del Mar, who has a love affair with aspiring rodeo rider Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. He also received a nomination for Golden Globe Best Actor in a Drama and a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor for this performance. At age 26, Ledger became one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. In The New York Times review of the film, critic Stephen Holden writes: "Both Mr. Ledger and Mr. Gyllenhaal make this anguished love story physically palpable. Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn."

In a review in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers states: "Ledger's magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn't just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens; he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack's closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost."

Also in 2005, Ledger played a fictionalised version of Giacomo Casanova in Casanova. The film, a romantic comedy which co-starred Sienna Miller, drew mixed reviews from critics and failed to find a significant audience among general moviegoers.

In 2006, Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he was one of six actors to portray different sides of singer Bob Dylan in the film I'm Not There.

Ledger played iconic comic book villain the Joker in The Dark Knight, the sequel to the 2005 film Batman Begins, opposite fellow I'm Not There star Christian Bale. The film is set to debut on July 18, 2008. Since The Dark Knight was in post-production at the time of Ledger's death, the film itself will be unchanged, although the marketing campaign that centered on Ledger's character may be affected.

The film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, in which he had been cast in a major supporting role, was in production at the time of his death.

He was working with Scottish writer/producer Allan Scott on an adaptation of The Queen's Gambit, by Walter Tevis, which would have been his first feature as a director.

Directorial work

Ledger had aspirations to become a film director and had started exploring this avenue by making some music videos, as well as a short film.

In 2006, Ledger directed three music videos: "Morning Yearning" for Ben Harper and two video clips for Australian hip-hop artist N'fa - "Cause an Effect" and "Seduction Is Evil (She's Hot)".

In 2007, at a news conference at the Venice Film Festival, he spoke of his desire to make a film about the British troubadour Nick Drake who died tragically young at the age of 26 in 1974. As a first step towards this project he created and appeared in a short film set to Drake's recording of his 1974 song about depression titled "Black Eyed Dog". Ledger's film was included in an anthology of short films about Drake titled Their Place: Reflections On Nick Drake which received its world premiere at the Mods & Rockers Film Festival held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday October 5, 2007.

Music

Ledger started a record company with singer Ben Harper. As part of his involvement he directed a music video for Harper's song "Morning Yearning".

Press controversies

Ledger had a turbulent relationship with paparazzi photographers but strongly denied allegations that he spat at and assaulted a photographer in Sydney in 2004. On January 13, 2006, several photographers retaliated for the alleged incident, squirting Ledger and Michelle Williams with water pistols as they walked the red carpet for the Sydney premiere of Brokeback Mountain.

Ledger was also subject to criticism in the press following his performance on stage at the 2005 Screen Actors Guild Awards. Ledger was seen giggling when presenting Brokeback Mountain as a nominee for Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The Los Angeles Times described his behavior as "some kind of gay spoof." Ledger later called the Times to explain that his actions were the result of stage fright, saying that he was only told he would be presenting the award minutes beforehand. "I am so sorry and I apologize for my nervousness," Ledger told the newspaper.

Ledger came under fire after he was quoted in January 2006 in Melbourne's Herald Sun as saying that he heard that West Virginia had banned Brokeback Mountain, which it had not. (A cinema in Utah had banned the film.) He also referred to West Virginia as having had lynchings as recently as the 1980s which was disputed by archivists and historians, who say that the last extralegal public hanging in the state occurred in 1931.

Death

At about 2:45 PM on January 22, 2008, Ledger was found unconscious at his fourth-floor loft apartment, at 421 Broome Street, in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City . Emergency crews arrived soon after but were unable to revive him.

After an initial autopsy on January 23, 2008, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York announced its conclusions based on the toxicology analysis on February 6, 2008: "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine. ... We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications," prescribed commonly for treatment and alleviation of insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain, cold symptoms, and related ailments. The Medical Examiner's Office announced that it would not be disclosing publicly "the official estimated time of death."

In a November 2007 New York Times interview with Sarah Lyall, Ledger had stated that his recently-completed roles in The Dark Knight and I'm Not There had taken a toll on his ability to sleep: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. ... I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." At that time, he told Lyall that he had taken two Ambien pills, after taking just one had not sufficed, and those left him in "a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing."

Memorial for Heath Ledger outside of his SoHo apartment building, in New York City.

On January 23, 2008 (Western Australian time), Ledger's parents and sister appeared outside his mother's house in Applecross, a riverside Perth suburb, and read a short statement to the media expressing their grief and desire for privacy. Two days later, memorial tributes were posted by family members, Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, Warner Brothers (distributor of The Dark Knight, his final completed film), and thousands of Ledger's fans around the world. On February 1 2008, Michelle Williams' first public statement on the death expressed her heartbreak and described her seeing Ledger's spirit surviving in their daughter.

After private memorial ceremonies in Los Angeles, which included tributes by colleagues and friends in Hollywood, Ledger's immediate family returned to Perth, Western Australia, with his body, for "a private funeral" and burial in the "family plot, near his grandparents, in Perth's Karrakatta Cemetery."

Forthcoming films

Ledger's death affects both the marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight and production for Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Although Gilliam has suspended production on the latter film, he has expressed determination to "salvage" it, perhaps using Computer-generated imagery (CGI), and plans to dedicate it to the memory of Heath Ledger.

Filmography

Film

#	Year	Title	Role	Notes	Gross US$
1.	1997	Paws	Oberon		UK£1,778,391
2.	1997	Blackrock	Toby		AUD$1,100,000
3.	1999	10 Things I Hate About You	Patrick Verona		$53,478,166
4.	1999	Two Hands	Jimmy	AFI Award nominee (Best Actor in a Leading Role)
5.	2000	The Patriot	Gabriel Martin		$215,294,342
6.	2001	Monster's Ball	Sonny Grotowski		$44,909,486
7.	2001	A Knight's Tale	Sir William Thatcher/Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein of Gelderland		$117,487,473
8.	2002	The Four Feathers	Harry Faversham		$29,882,645
9.	2003	The Order	Alex Bernier		$11,560,806
10.	2003	Ned Kelly	Ned Kelly	AFI Award nominee (Best Actor in a Leading Role)	$6,585,516
11.	2005	Casanova	Giacomo Casanova		$37,691,629
12.		Brokeback Mountain	Ennis del Mar	Academy Award nominee (Best Lead Actor) Golden Globe nominee (Best Lead Actor - Drama) BAFTA Award nominee (Best Lead Actor) SAG nominee (Best Lead Actor, Best Ensemble Cast) AFI Award (Best Lead Actor)	$178,054,751
13.		The Brothers Grimm	Jacob Grimm		$105,316,267
14.		Lords of Dogtown	Skip Engblom		$13,411,957
15.	2006	Candy	Dan	AFI Award nominee (Best Actor in a Leading Role) IF Award nominee (Best Actor) FCCA Award nominee (Best Actor)	$2,077,763
16.	2007	I'm Not There	Robbie Clark		$7,376,506
17.	2007	Black Eyed Dog		Short film directed by and featuring Ledger. Set to 1974 song about depression written by Nick Drake
18.	2008	The Dark Knight	The Joker	post-production
19.	2009	The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus	Tony	production suspended due to death of Heath Ledger