Heath Ledger found dead in NYC apartment

Heath Ledger found dead in NYC apartment

Authorities say actor’s death likely suicide or accidental overdose


'Brokeback' co-star Heath Ledger found dead
Jan. 22: The 28-year-old Australian-born actor, co-star of the Oscar-winning movie 'Brokeback Mountain,' was found dead in his New York apartment. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

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updated 9:03 p.m. ET Jan. 22, 2008

NEW YORK - Heath Ledger, the talented 28-year-old actor who gravitated toward dark, brooding roles that defied his leading-man looks, was found dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, face-down and naked at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.

There was no obvious indication of suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Ledger’s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, issued a statement this Tuesday night, saying, “We are all deeply saddened and shocked by this accident. This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones and we are asking the media to please respect the family’s privacy.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if Ledger had committed suicide. He had an appointment for a massage at the residence in the tony neighborhood of SoHo, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. A housekeeper who went to let him know the massage therapist had arrived found him unconscious at 3:26 p.m.

According to The New York Times, his body was moved to the floor, and after receiving no response from the actor after shaking him, the masseuse and housekeeper called authorities.

“We are investigating the possibility of an overdose,” Browne said. “There were pills within the vicinity of the bed.”

A source told msnbc.com's Courtney Hazlett that Ledger had been turning down roles lately.

The Times initially reported that Ledger was found in an apartment owned by actress Mary-Kate Olsen, but a spokesperson for the actress, who is at the Sundance Film Festival, later told the Times the apartment was not Olsen's.


Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
The actor, who was Oscar nominated for “Brokeback Mountain,” died at age 28.



A large crowd of paparazzi and gawkers began gathering Tuesday evening outside the building on the upscale block, where several police officers guarded the door. According to The Times, city workers rolled Ledger’s body, encased in a black body bag, out of the building on a stretcher.

An autopsy was planned for Wednesday, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was a respected, award-winning actor who chose his roles carefully rather than cashing in on his heartthrob looks.

He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain,” where he met Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two had a daughter, now 2-year-old Matilda, and lived together in Brooklyn until they split up last year.

He once said he was ready to die because he could live on in his child.

“Having a child changes every aspect of your life — for the better, of course. The sacrifices are large, but what you get in return is even bigger than the sacrifices you make. I feel, in a sense, ready to die because you are living on in your child,” Ledger told In Touch Weekly in November.

It was a shocking and unforeseen conclusion for one of Hollywood’s bright young stars. Though his leading-man looks propelled him to early stardom in films like “10 Things I Hate About You” and “A Knight’s Tale,” his career took a notable turn toward dramatic and brooding roles with 2001’s “Monster’s Ball.”

“I had such great hope for him,” said Mel Gibson, who played Ledger’s vengeful father in “The Patriot,” in a statement from the actor’s publicist. “He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”

Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he was one of the borough’s most famous residents. “Brokeback” would be his breakthrough role, establishing him as one of his generation’s finest talents and an actor willing to take risks.

Ledger began to gravitate more toward independent fare, including Lasse Hallstrom’s “Casanova” and Terry Gilliam’s “The Brothers Grimm,” both released in 2005. His 2006 film “Candy” now seems destined to have an especially haunting quality: In a particularly realistic performance, Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend, played by Abbie Cornish.

But Ledger’s most recent choices were arguably the boldest yet: He co-starred in “I’m Not There,” in which he played one of the many incarnations of Bob Dylan — as did Cate Blanchett, whose performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday for best supporting actress.

Heath Ledger found dead
Jan. 22: Actor Heath Ledger is found dead in a New York City apartment. MSNBC.com's Courtney Hazlett and MSNBC's Chris Jansing report.
MSNBC


And in what may be his final finished performance, Ledger proved that he wouldn’t be intimidated by taking on a character as iconic as Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Ledger’s version of the Batman villain, glimpsed in early teaser trailers, made it clear that his Joker would be less comical and more depraved and dark.

Curiosity to see Ledger’s final performance will likely further stoke interest in the summer blockbuster. “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan said earlier this month that Ledger’s performance as the Joker would be wildly different than Jack Nicholson’s memorable turn in 1989’s “Batman.”

“It was a very great challenge for Heath,” Nolan said. “He’s extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic.”

Ledger told The New York Times in a November interview that 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 newspaper. “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, the paper said.

Before settling down with Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on “The Lords of Dogtown,” a fictionalized version of a cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.


Ledger was born in 1979 in Perth, in western Australia, to a mining engineer and a French teacher, and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 at a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, “Seat.”

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and costarred opposite Julia Stiles in “10 Things I Hate About You.” Offers for other teen flicks soon came his way, but Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign on for projects he didn’t like.

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me,” Ledger told the Associated Press in 2001. “It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, ‘You’re crazy,’ my parents were like, ‘Come on, you have to eat.”’