Heath Ledger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Categories: Semi-protected | 1979 births | 2008 deaths | Australian expatriates in the United States | Australian film actors | Australian television actors | Australian music video directors | Drug-related deaths in the United States | Former students of Guildford Grammar School | People from Brooklyn | People from Greenwich Village, New York | People from Perth, Western Australia | Scottish-Australians | Irish Australians | Western Australian actors
Heath Andrew Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was an Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG award-nominated Australian-born film actor who lived in New York City. After appearing in television roles during the 1990s, Ledger developed a movie career, appearing in nearly twenty films. He starred in both critical and box-office successes, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, Monster's Ball, A Knight's Tale, and Brokeback Mountain. For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger was nominated for a 2005 Oscar for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and won awards from the British Academy and the Australian Film Institute, as well as two MTV Movie Awards. In addition to his work as an actor and as a producer and director of music videos, Ledger also aspired to be a film director.[1] Ledger completed filming his role as the Joker in the forthcoming movie The Dark Knight,[2] shortly before dying from an accidental prescription drug overdose at age 28.[3][4][5][6] His last acting project was Terry Gilliam's unfinished film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.[7][8][9]
Family and personal lifeLedger 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.[10] Ledger's father comes from a family known in Perth for their ownership of the Ledger Engineering Foundry.[11] The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust was named after his great-grandfather.[12] Ledger attended Mary's Mount Primary School, in Gooseberry Hill,[13][14] and later Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences, starring in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10.[12][4] Ledger was an avid chess player, winning a state junior chess championship at age ten,[15][16] and as an adult often played with other chess enthusiasts at Washington Square Park.[17][18] Ledger had an older sister, Kate. Their parents divorced when he was eleven. Other siblings include two half-sisters, Ashleigh Bell (b. 1989), his mother's daughter with her second husband and his stepfather Roger Bell, and Olivia Ledger (b. 1997), his father's daughter with second wife and his stepmother Emma Brown.[19] Prior to 2002, Ledger had dated actresses Lisa Zane and Heather Graham for short periods of time.[20] From August 2002 to April 2004, Ledger had a relationship with actress Naomi Watts, whom he met during the filming of Ned Kelly.[21] 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.[22] Matilda Rose's godparents are Ledger's Brokeback co-star Jake Gyllenhaal and Williams' Dawson's Creek castmate Busy Philipps.[23][24] Problems with paparazzi in Australia prompted Ledger to sell his residence in Bronte, New South Wales and move to the United States, where he shared an apartment with Williams, in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, from 2005 to 2007.[25][3][26][27][28] In September, 2007, Williams' father, Larry Williams, confirmed to Sydney's Daily Telegraph that Ledger and Williams had ended their relationship.[29] Subsequently, Ledger was reportedly "seeing" or "dating" supermodels Helena Christensen and Gemma Ward and former child-star Mary-Kate Olsen.[30][31][32][33] Career1990sAt sixteen, Ledger sat for early graduation exams and left school to pursue an acting career.[34] 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.[12] 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.[12] 2000sFrom 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. 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."[35] 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."[36] Image:HeathJoker.png
Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Also in 2005, Ledger portrayed a fictionalised version of Giacomo Casanova in Casanova, a romantic comedy which co-starred Sienna Miller. In 2006, Ledger was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[37] In 2007, he was one of six actors to portray different sides of singer Bob Dylan in the film I'm Not There. Ledger plays iconic comic book villain the Joker in The Dark Knight, the sequel to the 2005 film Batman Begins to be released on July 18, 2008.[38] The Dark Knight was in post-production at the time of Ledger's death; it includes his work as completed, though its marketing campaign, which, prior to his death, focused on his character the Joker, may still be adjusted prior to its summer 2008 release.[39] 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.[40] Directorial workLedger had aspirations to become a film director and made some music videos. In 2006 he debuted as a director with the music videos for the title track on Australian hip-hop artist N'fa's CD debut solo album Cause an Effect[41] and for the single "Seduction Is Evil (She's Hot)".[42][43] Later in 2006, he started a new record label, Masses Music, with singer Ben Harper and also directed a music video for Harper's song "Morning Yearning".[44][45][46] At a news conference at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Ledger spoke of his desire to make a film about the British troubadour Nick Drake, who died in 1974, at the age of 26, from an overdose of an antidepressant.[47] Relating to this project, he created and appeared in another music video set to Drake's recording of the singer's 1974 song about depression, "Black Eyed Dog"–"inspired by Winston Churchill’s descriptive term for depression"[3]–and included in an anthology of short films about Drake, Their Place: Reflections On Nick Drake, which premiered at the Mods & Rockers Film Festival, held at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, in Los Angeles, on October 5, 2007.[47] He was also 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 film as a director.[1] Press controversiesLedger had a turbulent relationship with paparazzi photographers but strongly denied allegations that he spat at and assaulted a photographer in Sydney in 2004.[48][49] 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.[50][51] Ledger also experienced press criticism after his performance on stage at the 2005 Screen Actors Guild Awards, when he had giggled when presenting Brokeback Mountain as a nominee for Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, leading the Los Angeles Times to refer to his presentation as "some kind of gay spoof."[52] Ledger later called the Times to explain that his levity resulted from stage fright, saying that he had been told that he would be presenting the award only minutes earlier: "I am so sorry and I apologise for my nervousness," Ledger told the newspaper.[53][54] Ledger 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).[49] After he referred mistakenly to West Virginia as having had lynchings as recently as the 1980s, West Virginian scholars disputed his statement, observing that, whereas lynchings did occur in Alabama as recently as 1981, according to "the director of state archives and history" quoted in The Charleston Gazette, "The last documented lynching in West Virginia took place in Lewisburg in 1931."[55] Yet The Gazz qualifies its newspaper's report somewhat further in adding, "though you have to wonder what the Klan was up to in the decades after that."[56] Effects of work on healthIn a November 2007 New York Times interview with Sarah Lyall, Ledger 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."[44][2] Prior to his return to New York from his last film assignment, in London, in January 2008, he was apparently suffering from some kind of respiratory illness.[57] DeathWikinews has related news:
At about 2:45 PM on January 22, 2008, Ledger was found unconscious at his fourth-floor loft apartment, at 421 Broome Street, in SoHo, Manhattan.[3][4] 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.[58][5][6][59] The Medical Examiner's Office announced that it would not be publicly disclosing the official estimated time of death.[60][61] After two weeks of speculation, the official announcement of the cause of his death heightened concerns about general "abuse of prescription medications."[6][59] Late in February 2008, a still-ongoing DEA investigation of medical professionals "cleared" two American medics, who practice in Los Angeles and Houston, of "any wrongdoing," determining that "the doctors in question had prescribed Ledger other medications–not the pills that killed him."[62][63] Memorial tributesOn January 23, 2008, 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.[64] 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.[65][66][67][68] Numerous actors have made statements expressing their sorrow at Ledger's death, including Daniel Day-Lewis who dedicated his Screen Actors Guild Award saying Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain was "perfect."[69] 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.[70][71] After private memorial ceremonies in Los Angeles, Ledger's family members returned with his body to Perth, Western Australia. On February 9 2008, a memorial service attended by several hundred invited guests was held at Penhros College. Following the memorial, Ledger's body was cremated at Fremantle Cemetery; a funeral for ten members of his immediate family followed, with his ashes to be "scattered in a family plot at Karrakatta Cemetery, next to two of his grandparents."[72][73][60][59][74][75][76][77][78] Later that night, his family and friends gathered for a wake on Cottesloe Beach.[79][77][80] Forthcoming filmsLedger's death affects not only the marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight[2] but also production for Terry Gilliam's film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.[7][8][9] Although Gilliam temporarily suspended production on the latter film,[8] he expressed determination to "salvage" it, perhaps using computer-generated imagery (CGI), and plans to dedicate it to the memory of Heath Ledger.[81][57] In February 2008 actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell signed on to take over Ledger's role, becoming multiple incarnations of his character, Tony, transformed in the "magical" world of the film, in part as a "tribute" to Ledger.[82][83][84] Posthumous press attentionA posthumous fictionalized account of "The Last Days of Heath Ledger", by Lisa Taddeo ("an associate editor at Golf Magazine and an aspiring fiction writer, [who] spent four days in restaurants and cafes and parks near where Mr. Ledger died"),[85] has raised some controversy prior to its print publication in the April 2008 issue of Esquire.[86] It covers Ledger's final four days, from January 19 through January 22, 2008, the day he died, whose entry is subtitled "The Final Curtain".[85] According to Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, "The risk of a piece like 'The Last Days of Heath Ledger' is that the work winds up in a literary no-man’s land. The biggest problem I see is you are sacrificing the biggest strengths from each of the genres. ... You are losing the veracity of journalism, and you are losing the imaginative license of fiction. You run the risk of ending up with something that is neither true nor interesting."[86] FilmographyFilm
Television
Awards and nominations
See alsoReferences
External linksWikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
ar:هيث ليدجر az:Hit Lecer be-x-old:Хіт Лэджэр bs:Heath Ledger bg:Хийт Леджър cs:Heath Ledger cy:Heath Ledger da:Heath Ledger de:Heath Ledger et:Heath Ledger el:Χιθ Λέτζερ es:Heath Ledger fa:هیت لجر fr:Heath Ledger ga:Heath Ledger gl:Heath Ledger zh-classical:希斯·萊傑 ko:히스 레저 hr:Heath Ledger id:Heath Ledger is:Heath Ledger it:Heath Ledger he:הית' לדג'ר la:Heathcliff Andreas Ledger hu:Heath Ledger ms:Heath Ledger nl:Heath Ledger ja:ヒース・レジャー no:Heath Ledger pl:Heath Ledger pt:Heath Ledger ro:Heath Ledger ru:Леджер, Хит se:Heath Ledger simple:Heath Ledger sk:Heath Ledger sl:Heath Ledger sr:Хит Леџер fi:Heath Ledger sv:Heath Ledger ta:ஹீத் லெட்ஜர் th:ฮีธ เลดเจอร์ vi:Heath Ledger tr:Heath Ledger | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


