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NEW YORK: Actor Heath Ledger, 28, who rocketed to
fame in his role as a gay cowboy in the Oscar-winning movie
Brokeback Mountain, was found dead in his New York residence
Tuesday, police said.
Police sources told US media that
prescription pills were found in the apartment and said signs
pointed to either an accidental overdose or suicide. His family in
his native Australia described the death as “accidental.”
“We, Heath’s family, can
confirm the very tragic, untimely and accidental passing of our
dearly loved son, brother and doting father of Matilda,” said the
actor’s father, Kim Ledger, reading a statement outside the family
home in Perth. “He was found peacefully asleep in his New York
apartment.”
“He was a down-to-earth,
generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual who was
extremely inspirational to many.”
Ledger was found dead at 3:26
p.m. Tuesday (4:36 a.m. Wednesday in Manila) in an apartment in the
posh district of SoHo, a New York police spokesman said. Neighbors
said Ledger had been renting the loft apartment for the past several
months.
An autopsy was scheduled today.
New York City deputy police
commissioner Paul Browne said a masseuse and a housekeeper
discovered the actor’s body after the masseuse arrived for an
appointment.
They were “waiting for him to
come out of the bedroom. When he didn’t come out, they checked on
him and found the body at the foot of the bed,” Browne told
reporters.
“There were prescription
medications that included sleeping pills that were taken from the
apartment,” Browne said. “The reports that they were scattered
around the body were untrue.”
“The police department has made
no determination as to the cause of death,” he said, stressing
that police were awaiting the medical examiner’s report.
Expressions of sorrow poured in
from Sydney to Hollywood.
Australia’s Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd said it was “tragic that we have lost one of our
nation’s finest actors in the prime of his life.”
“The studio is stunned and
devastated by this tragic news,” Warner Brothers chief Alan Horn
and Warner Bros. Picture Group President Jeff Robinov said in a
statement.
Kim Ledger said while the family
was grateful for the tributes, they wanted to grieve in private.
Ledger, who was nominated for a
best actor Oscar for his performance in the 2005 film Brokeback
Mountain, had separated from his former fiancée Michelle Williams
in September. The pair, who met on the set of the Ang Lee-directed
drama, has a two-year-old daughter, Matilda Rose.
Ledger had been working this
month on his latest movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,
directed by Terry Gilliam, which was due out next year. He also
portrays The Joker in the upcoming Batman movie Dark Knight.
Lee had hailed Ledger’s
performance in Brokeback Mountain as a “miracle” of acting,
reminiscent of a young Marlon Brando.
Ledger missed out on the Oscar
for best actor in 2006, but Brokeback Mountain won three Academy
Awards, including for best director.
The flaxen-haired heartthrob
first came to prominence by acting as a homosexual athlete in a
little-known Australian soap opera, “Sweat,” in 1996.
The creator and writer of the
series, John Rapsey, once said it was clear even then that Ledger,
then a 16-year-old sports champion and high-school dropout,
possessed an unusual talent.
“He himself had absolutely no
problem playing the role. He handled all of that with great
aplomb,” Rapsey told Agence France-Presse.
“What was noticeable about him
was he was concentrated, very quiet, and you could see that he was
really observant of other people.”
Ledger never attended acting
school and left his home state of Western Australia for Sydney as a
teenager.
“The one thing that’s got me
to where I’m sitting is my instincts, you know, and I’m
impatient. I didn’t want to wait for years to work. I wanted to
just get out there and do it,” he told Australian television in
2001.
At 19, Ledger left Sydney for
Hollywood, where his talent was spotted by Mel Gibson when
auditioning 500 actors for the role of his son in The Patriot—a
break that led to his leading role in A Knight’s Tale.
“I had such great hope for
him,” Gibson said in a statement. “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.”
--AFP
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