Heath Ledger, 28, Star of 'Brokeback Mountain'

Jan 24, 09:26 AM

Al Baker, Anne Barnard, Brooks Barnes, David Carr, Sewell Chan, John Eligon, David S. Hirschman, Thomas J. Lueck, Angela Macropoulos, Jennifer Mascia, Colin Moynihan and Campbell Robertson contributed reporting.

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Heath Ledger, the Australian-born actor whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain" earned him a nomination for an Academy Award and comparisons to the likes of Marlon Brando, was found dead Tuesday in an apartment in New York with prescription pills near his body, the police said.

The police said he was found naked on the floor by the bed in an apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo that Ledger, 28, had been renting. The chief police spokesman, Paul Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play.

"There was no indication of a disturbance," he said, adding that there were no signs that Ledger had been drinking. Nor were any illegal drugs found in the loft, which neighbors said Ledger had occupied for several months.

Police officials said that a bottle of prescription sleeping pills was found on a nearby night table but that they did not know whether the pills had anything to do with Ledger's death. Officers found other prescription medications in the bathroom. Browne said no obvious indication of suicide, like a note, was found in the bedroom.

An autopsy was inconclusive, and more tests are needed, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press. It will take about 10 days to complete the investigation, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner.

Ledger, who became one of Hollywood's hottest under-30 stars with "Brokeback Mountain," had become a familiar figure in the neighborhood after moving there after he broke up with the actress Michelle Williams - and something of a fixture in gossip columns. He had clashed with paparazzi in Australia and had partied in New York, but unlike some stars, he was not remembered as a difficult celebrity.

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born on April 4, 1979, in Perth, Australia, where a local theater company cast him in "Peter Pan" when he was 10. That role led to parts on children's television programs and to the 1992 film "Clowning Around" and the 1993-4 television series "Ship to Shore."

His father, Kim Ledger, said to the Sunday Telegraph of Sydney in 2000 that he recalled picking Heath up after a late rehearsal when he was about 13 and hearing him say: "I'm going to have to get used to these late nights. I'm going to do really well in this industry. I love it."

After appearing in a short-lived Australian television series, he moved to Los Angeles in 1999 "with no expectations and all the confidence of youth," as The Sunday Telegraph put it. His first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy "10 Things I Hate About You," a send-up of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."

He passed up other roles in teen films. "I feel like I'm wasting time if I repeat myself," he later said in an interview with The New York Times. He paid a price, running so low on money that, according to the magazine Current Biography, he was borrowing from his agent.

The payoff came in an audition for the Mel Gibson film "The Patriot" - Ledger's second audition; he had walked out of the first, saying his reading was no good. He later appeared in "A Knight's Tale" and "Monster's Ball" in 2001, and in four films released in 2005: "Lords of Dogtown," "Casanova," "The Brothers Grimm" and the cowboy romance that established him as a major star, "Brokeback Mountain."

"Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character," the critic Stephen Holden wrote in The New York Times. "It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn."

Ledger was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor, but the Oscar went to Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote."

Ledger met Williams while filming "Brokeback Mountain." They began a romance and moved to Boerum Hill in the New York borough of Brooklyn, where their comings and goings were widely noted in the New York tabloids and on celebrity-oriented Web sites. Williams gave birth to their daughter, Matilda Rose, on Oct. 28, 2005.

Until the couple separated last summer, Ledger, Williams and Matilda were the darlings of Brooklyn, photographed around Boerum Hill. But Ledger often clashed with paparazzi - most intensely back home in Australia.

After splitting up with Williams - and jilting Brooklyn - Ledger remained a favorite of tabloids and photographers.

Ledger's death shook Warner Brothers, which is scheduled to release his next film July 18 - "The Dark Knight," a big-budget sequel to "Batman Begins." Ledger plays the Joker, a psychotic bank robber.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2008 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Heath Ledger, 28, Star of 'Brokeback Mountain'
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