Heath Ledger Found Dead

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CNN.com has reported that Heath Ledger has been found dead in his apartment in New York:

According to the New York City Police Department, Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment in downtown Manhattan on January 22, 2008.

At 3:31 p.m., a masseuse arrived at Apartment 5A in the building for an appointment with Mr. Ledger, the police said. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of Mr. Ledger’s bedroom. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger unconscious. They shook him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities. The police said they did not suspect foul play and said they found pills near the body.

shimano reels's picture

Re:Heath Ledger Found Dead

Well said spike i am totally agree with you. This is really shocking news and yes his performance in “The Joker” was awesome. I really miss him. :(

otc stocks's picture

Re: Heath Ledger Found Dead

Hi….!!! that was really a shocking news. he was really a good actor. really miss him.

Anonymous's picture

His iconic status and young

His iconic status and young and unusual death fed many theories about his death, including murder involving the Triad society (Hong Kong mob) and a supposed curse on him and his family.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Official report: Heath Ledger died of accidental overdose

This just in from the Associated Press on Heath Ledger’s official cause of death:

Feb 6, 10:43 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and other prescription drugs, the New York City medical examiner said Wednesday.

The cause of death was “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine,” spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.

The drugs are the generic names for the painkiller OxyContin, the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, and the sleep aids Restoril and Unisom. Hydrocodone is a widely used prescription painkiller.

Borakove wouldn’t say what concentrations of each drug were found in Ledger’s blood, or whether one drug played a greater part than another in causing his death.

“What you’re looking at here is the cumulative effects of these medications together,” she said.

The ruling comes two weeks after the 28-year-old Australian-born actor was found dead in the bed of his rented SoHo apartment. Police found bottles of six types of prescription drugs, including sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication, in his bedroom and bathroom.

Ledger was discovered by his masseuse on Jan. 22 after she arrived for an appointment that afternoon. She entered his bedroom to set up for the massage and found him unresponsive, and proceeded to call Mary-Kate Olsen three times over the next 9 minutes before dialing 911. Ledger had been dead for some time, and police say no foul play occurred.

Ledger, nominated for an Oscar for his role in “Brokeback Mountain,” had returned to New York from London days before his death, where he had been filming a $30 million Terry Gilliam film. He said in a November interview that his most recent completed roles in the Batman movie “The Dark Night” and Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There” had taken a toll, saying he couldn’t sleep.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” Ledger told The New York Times. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” He said he had taken two Ambien pills, which only gave him an hour of sleep.

Ledger’s family returned to the actor’s hometown of Perth, Australia on Tuesday to prepare for his funeral. Arrangements were private.

In a statement released through Ledger’s publicist, Ledger’s father, Kim, said Wednesday: “While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy. Heath’s accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage.”

(This version CORRECTS that hydrocodone is widely used prescription painkiller sted another name for ibuprofen.)

MagnoliaFan's picture

Christopher Plummer on 'Parnassas' Salvage, Ledger's Pneumonia

Christopher Plummer is the first person to publicly speak about how Terry Gilliam is trying to salvage “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassas.” People spoke to the co-star of Ledger’s last film.

Despite earlier reports that the director might shelve the $30 million production, Gilliam, whom Plummer describes as “terribly saddened” by Ledger’s death is “trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI

“Terry was a very good friend [of Heath’s],” adds Plummer. “He very wants to go on with the movie, and I can very much understand why. Because he wants to dedicate it to Heath, of course.”

Also about conditions on set leading to Ledger being sick:

Confirming earlier reports that Ledger hadn’t been feeling well on set, Plummer says, “we all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights. But Heath’s went on and I don’t think he dealt with it immediately with the antibiotics.…I think what he did have was the walking pneumonia.”

On top of that, “He was saying all the time, ‘dammit, I can’t sleep’…and he was taking all these pills [to help him].”

As well as the damp cold and lack of sleep, Plummer describes the shoot as rigorous. “We had to shoot every second we were out there…there was hardly any time to go into the tent or the car to keep warm. We just kept shooting…boom, boom, boom…there was no pause. It was very, very hard work.”

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Director Chris Nolan remembers Heath Ledger

See our Jan. 28, 2008 thread about “The Dark Knight” director Chris Nolan remembering Heath Ledger.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Best Buy profiting from Heath Ledger hustle

Hollywood Elsewhere just wrote:

Only a few hours after the passing of Heath Ledger, an enterprising Best Buy store manager in San Diego’s Mission Valley had this display up.

I’ll wager that hundreds of video store managers across the country did the same thing yesterday. Any sightings? There used to be an idea that you should wait a few days after the death of a celebrity to reap the commercial benefits, but no longer. How long did record stores wait to exploit the death of Elvis in ‘77?

MagnoliaFan's picture

'Dr. Parnassus' Shut Down

From US Weekly:

“I just got the call [Tuesday] saying everyone was being let go,” the on-set source tells Usmagazine.com. “We were supposed to start this weekend, but obviously they fired everyone today.

“They don’t know yet what they are doing with the footage that was already shot,” the source adds.

Ledger was on a break from filming when he died Tuesday. Shooting had begun in London last December. He was last photographed on set Jan. 19.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Status of 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'

This appears to be a slightly earlier report from /Film about the status of “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” following Heath Ledger’s death:

If anyone remains unsure, Heath Ledger’s filming and voice work on The Dark Knight were completed before his unfortunate death yesterday (click here for latest updates). However, it would seem that the status of his last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which marked his second collaboration with director Terry Gilliam following 2005’s The Brothers Grimm, is in jeopardy.

Variety reports that the film had recently finished up its London leg of the shoot and had moved on to Vancouver to continue filming before the incident stunned the world. Producers of the $30 million indie film have not yet issued a statement regarding how Ledger’s death will impact production. Whether the role will be recast and whether the film can even proceed are not known.

Seeing that Ledger was the film’s largest star, with a sizable lead on co-stars Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits in terms of name recognition, this is detrimental. His casting was pivotal to the financing of the project. As most of us know, Gilliam’s films and almost-films have a long history of unfortunate events, budget issues and creative conflicts that put his latest films’ box office prospects on shaky ground. This was all painfully exemplified in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, which chronicled the downward spiral of Gilliam’s never completed $35 million The Man Who Killed Don Quixote with Johnny Depp in the lead. The final nail in that film’s coffin was the illness of star Jean Rochefort.

Doctor Parnassus follows an ancient traveling theater company “which arrives in modern London with a magical mirror that can transport its audience into fantastical realms of the imagination.” Plummer plays the title doctor, while Ledger’s role is that of an outsider who must fend off the devil in order to rescue the doc’s daughter, played by Lily Cole.

The trade also reports that Ledger was gearing up for his directorial debut, an adaptation of the 1983 Walter Tevis novel The Queen’s Gambit, about a female chess prodigy, rumored to star Juno phenom Ellen Page.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Autopsy inconclusive, will take 10 to14 more days

CNN has just reported that an autopsy for Heath Ledger conducted on Wednesday morning was “inconclusive” and his cause of death will take 10 to 14 additional days. Read the bottom of our news story for more.

Dustin's picture

It takes a lot of Ambien to

It takes a lot of Ambien to kill a 28 year old male. And I know they say he had pneumonia, but if it was really bad pneumonia, he wouldn’t call for a masseuse. I what other medications were in his system.

miss_niki's picture

Shocked.

I don’t think I’ve been as shocked to hear of an actor’s death since River Phoenix.

My thoughts go out to the Ledger family & in particular, his daughter.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Interesting reader comment at our 'The Dark Knight' viral story

Here’s an interesting reader comment over at our “The Dark Knight” viral marketing news story.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Ledger's 'The Dark Knight' work was completely finished

Just in from Harry Knowles at AICN:

Harry Knowles at <span class="caps">AICN</span> wrote:
I got it confirmed from a source involved in Post-Production on THE DARK KNIGHT. Heath’s post work was complete. He had indeed finished it, as to not interfere with the production of the film he was doing with Gilliam. We’re now working to find out what’s going to happen there. The last known photo of Heath was as a clown in that film. Will Terry re-cast? What will happen? We’ll try to find out for all of you. But there will be no-dubbing on Heath in THE DARK KNIGHT - his performance was finished.

MagnoliaFan's picture

Official Statements

Released via IESB.

Todd Haynes, director of Ledger’s last release film, I’m Not There: “This is an unimaginable tragedy. Heath was a true artist, a deeply sensitive man, an explorer, gifted and wise beyond his years. There is no finer person on this earth.”

Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov of Warner Bros., the studio behind Ledger’s next film, The Dark Knight: “The studio is stunned and devastated by this tragic news. The entertainment community has lost an enormous talent. Heath was a brilliant actor and an exceptional person. Our hearts go out to his family and friends.”

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Story now includes background, quotes from major publications

Our news story now comprehensively includes facts, background and interesting quotes from the major publications including CNN, MSNBC, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, /Film, Hollywood Elsewhere and more.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Heath Ledger's nervous ways remind me of Billy Bob Thornton

In response to this quote from above:

Quote:
Even as he spoke, Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat [and] put the hood back up. He went outside and had another cigarette.

This reminds me of my interview with Billy Bob Thornton for “The Astronaut Farmer”. I got a very similiar sense from him.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

Updates: history of distress, but no indication of suicide

See our news story for some new updates to this story.

First of all, we learn of a Nov. 2007 article in the New York Times where Ledger reveal some alarming quotes that could be interpreted as warning signs for severe distress and anxiety.

Second, the New York Police Department now reports that there was no “obvious indication of suicide”.

HollywoodChicago.com's picture

River Phoenix, Brad Renfro and now Heath Ledger

Who else has died young in film? Brad Renfro died just last week at 25 (see our thread on this here).

PatrickMcD's picture

Lotsa Deaths

Five come immediately to mind — James Dean (auto accident), Brandon Lee (mob hit), River Phoenix (indulging) Chris Farley (indulgence) and the late, great John Belushi (indulgence max).

Hank’s in a band! www.myspace.com/thetelepaths

Dustin's picture

You forgot George Burns, Walter Matheau, and Peter O'Toole

You really think Brandon Lee was a mob hit?

PatrickMcD's picture

One Never Knows, Does One

I was being flippant, but his Dad, Bruce Lee, had run afoul of the Hong Kong mob, because of their ties to the film industry…

From Wiki:

His iconic status and young and unusual death fed many theories about his death, including murder involving the Triad society (Hong Kong mob) and a supposed curse on him and his family.

The curse theory was extended to his son Brandon Lee, also an actor, who died, 20 years after his father, in a bizarre accident while filming his last film, The Crow at the age of 28. It was released after his death and gained cult status, as his father’s last film, respectively, had been, and did.

Hank’s in a band! www.myspace.com/thetelepaths

Spike1's picture

Rest in peace

This is really shocking. Such a shame that he will not get to see how people are going to enjoy his performance as The Joker.

Dustin's picture

This also begs to question

This also begs to question what will happen to the role of the Joker should it continue on in the franchise?

Dustin's picture

He has some projects coming

He has some projects coming up. See here.

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