Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment, naked in bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said. The Australian-born actor was 28. There was no obvious indication of suicide, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
Ledger had an 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 in the bed at about 3:30 p.m. They tried to revive him, but he was already dead
Outside the building on an upscale street, paparazzi and gawkers gathered, and several police officers put up barricades to control the crowd of about 300. Onlookers craned their necks as officers brought out a black body bag on a gurney, took it across the sidewalk and put it into a white medical examiner’s office van.
As the door opened, bystanders snapped pictures with camera phones, rolled video, and said, “He’s coming out!”
An autopsy was planned for Wednesday, medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.
While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was an award-winning actor who chose his roles carefully rather than cashing in on big-money parts. 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.
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. “He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss.”
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 costarred 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.
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.”
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