Heath Ledger dead at 28
Heath Ledger, star of such films as The Patriot, Lords of Dogtown, Brokeback Mountain, and soon to be release The Dark Knight (playing as The Joker) was found dead in a NYC apartment on January 22nd, 2008. My only question: what the hell?
An autopsy on Heath Ledger was inconclusive, and more tests are needed, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday, a day after the 28-year-old actor was found dead with sleeping pills nearby.
Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t a huge fan of Mr. Ledger’s. But he wasn’t a bad actor. And from the interviews I’ve seen conducted on him, he didn’t seem like too bad of a fellow, either. Just what in the hell is in Hollyweird’s water and just what in the hell is it doing to our actors?
The Australian-born actor was found dead Tuesday by his housekeeper and masseuse lying naked and face-down at the foot of his bed, with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.
Currently, he had been working on a film called “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”, directed by Terry Gillam with an expected release date of next year. The film itself, a movie about a traveling theater group who takes audiences on an imaginative ride through a pact with the devil, is now sans an actor. I wonder how this will effect production?
Ledger said in an interview in November that “Dark Knight” and last year’s “I’m Not There,” took a heavy toll. He said he “stressed out a little too much” during the Dylan film, and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.”
“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” Ledger told The New York Times. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” He said he took two Ambien pills, which only worked for an hour.
With Dark Knight in post, and soon to be released, it will mark the last remaining on-screen performance of the actor, albeit a pretty historical one, since the Batman series itself has been around for nearly two decades now, only recently having been remade with all new leads.
And of course, the truly sad thing of it all is that Hollywood, in the middle of this horrible and ridiculous reality tv craze, has lost yet another good talent. How long will it be, I wonder, until there really are no true stars left?
Near the entrance to the building housing his loft, about two dozen bouquets and a dozen candles formed a makeshift memorial.
One note said, “I couldn’t find anything bad about you.”
