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 at the foot of a bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said.
There was no obvious indication of suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
Ledger had an afternoon appointment for a massage at the SoHo apartment that is believed to be the home of the “Brokeback Mountain” actor, Browne said. The massage therapist and a housekeeper found his naked body on the bed. They tried to revive him, but he was already dead.
An autopsy was planned for today, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.
Ledger initially excelled as a teen heartthrob in movies such as “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999).
He also had a supporting role as Mel Gibson’s rebellious son in “The Patriot” (2000), set during the Revolutionary War. Ledger sought more nuanced roles — the suicidal son of a racist prison guard (Billy Bob Thornton) in “Monster’s Ball” (2001) and as one of the half-dozen actors playing versions of Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There” (2007).
But it was director Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) that cemented Ledger’s reputation after years in the front rank of promising young stars.
He played Ennis Del Mar, a lonely and laconic ranch hand whose affair with a rodeo rider (Jake Gyllenhaal) in 1963 sparks a lifelong passion for each other.
Critic Kenneth Turan wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “Ledger brings this film alive by going so deeply into his character you wonder if he’ll be able to come back” and said the film “could not have succeeded without it.”
He was nominated for an Oscar for “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 the couple split up last year.
Heath Andrew Ledger was born April 4, 1979, in the western Australian city of Perth. He started acting at 10, as a donkey in a Christmas play. An older sister talked him into joining an amateur theater group in Perth, for which he landed the starring role of “Peter Pan.”
He said of the part, which required him to don pea-green tights: “It took a lot of guts. For a 12-year-old kid, that can be damaging amongst your peers.”
Ledger left high school at 16 and traveled cross-country to win spots in two prominent Sydney acting companies. After he caught the attention of Hollywood, he tried to reject the industry’s efforts to make him a hunky teen idol. Ledger, who eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, expressed concern about being typecast in heroic parts.
At his death, Ledger had recently completed playing the villainous Joker in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie “The Dark Knight.”
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