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Heath Ledger - News Accounts
Aloysius J. Gleek:
Heath's Death Could Be Natural Causes
Posted Jan 26th 2008 6:53PM by TMZ Staff
It sounds strange, but sources intimately connected with the Heath Ledger investigation tell TMZ it's possible the actor died of natural causes.
The reason they think that -- it's now appearing that the level of toxicity (from medication) in Ledger's system was low enough that it may not have caused his death. These sources say Heath's heart stopped. It could have been a heart attack but it's not certain, at least not yet. Although it's bizarre that a 28-year-old could die of natural causes, it happens.
We've also learned authorities do not believe the housekeeper heard Ledger snoring when she walked in his bedroom at around 1:00 PM. Sources tell us, a fireman observed rigor mortis in Ledger's jaw shortly after arriving on scene at around 3:30 PM. Sources say they now believe Ledger was dead for around three hours prior to their arrival, so they don't believe the masseuse could have heard snoring.
Authorities are also annoyed at news reports that there may have been a sinister plot to remove illegal drugs from Ledger's apartment before cops and firemen arrived. There are reports out there that the masseuse called Mary-Kate Olsen and a plot was hatched to have her bodyguard remove certain drugs. Authorities tell us that's impossible, because the cops were there the entire time the bodyguard was present and there would have been no opportunity to carry out such a plan. They say it's a made up story.
As we first reported, the masseuse contacted the bodyguard because she knew he was a licensed EMT.
Ellemeno:
Doesn't TMZ trash people much of the time? Seems amazing they are basically saying what The Soup guy was saying, "So stop digging through the dirt, weasels."
I thought we were the only ones who knew he was so good and important. Turns out a mighty lot of people feel that way.
MaineWriter:
from The Age, Australia:
Heath, worlds apart
January 27, 2008
Despite his soaring fame, Ledger's Perth home had a special place in his heart. Melissa Kent and Jacqueline Maley report.
AS HEATH LEDGER's body was stretchered out of a New York chapel yesterday, half a world away his home town grieved for a man torn between two lives. As the adulation, scrutiny, intense film roles and complicated relationships of his Hollywood life took their toll, Ledger never stopped yearning for the deep bonds of his Perth childhood.
"The beauty about being an Australian in Hollywood is we've got this sense of fearlessness that comes from knowing we can always go home," Ledger said in an early interview. "It's not a bad f---ing back-up plan."
For Ledger, home became a refuge so dearly cherished that during his last return over Christmas he took the unusual step of thanking the media for leaving him alone to relive his childhood.
"I would say they were probably the best years of his life. They were certainly some of the best years of my life," one of his long-time friends told The Sunday Age.
Perth in the 1980s, when Ledger was growing up, was as far removed as possible in attitude, spirit and distance from the fast-paced film world that was to become his life.
Far-flung, sleepy and safe, it was the backdrop for a carefree childhood and Ledger's was typical of most — a happy time spent ducking in and out of mates' houses around his Perth Hills home, playing sport and swimming at the beach.
As he grew older, Ledger and his friends would spend hours surfing at Scarborough Beach on weekends, playing hockey and cricket, and hanging out in the pits at Wanneroo Raceway watching his dad Kim race.
Ledger showed particular promise on the hockey field as a half-back for the Curtin Trinity Pirates, reaching state-level competition at 15.
Club president Ian Pestana recalls a talented player who had the potential to pursue the sport to the top level.
"He had a lot of potential to do very well as a sportsman," he said.
"He was very quick and had handy stick skills. His dad used to bring him down to training and would stay to watch. He really encouraged him."
A former teammate remembers Ledger as a kid who made friends quickly when he joined the team.
"We were pretty arrogant, we thought we were pretty good, but Heath just fit right in," he said. "After he joined the team, we won all the prizes. He certainly could have pursued hockey further, but I think he made the right (career) decision.
"We had a pretty awesome three years on the team. It was a great time I'll never forget."
Ledger didn't forget either — he recently made a donation to the club and came along to watch a grand final with his dad.
At Guildford Grammar School, drama replaced hockey as his first passion and it wasn't long before his emerging talent was noticed by casting agents.
One of his first acting roles was a TV ad for Chicken Treat — still fondly recalled by Perth TV audiences — which starred a young Heath basting a chicken, those famous blond curls sticking out from under his red and yellow cap.
From those humble beginnings his career began to take off, with roles on TV show Sweat and the Australian film Black Rock among the first serious revelations of his ability.
As his success continued, Ledger never forgot those friendships forged at school, on the hockey field and at the beach. He invited his group of close-knit buddies to share his success, often flying them to LA or New York to attend his film premieres or to stay at his apartment.
Guildford Grammar School principal Robert Zordan said the bond between Ledger and his mates was important to him.
"He established very close friends at this school and throughout his very successful film career he sent text messages to his mates and invited them to stay with him at his apartment in New York," he said.
"He was an earthy sort of character and the beaut thing is, stardom never went to his head."
Despite his normal, knockabout childhood, there was always something a bit different about young Heath.
A little more intense than his peers, Ledger showed early signs of the character trait that was to later influence his eclectic choice of film roles and penchant for delving into dark characters such as the Joker.
"He was super cool, you know. Even though he was one of us, he was very mature; a deep thinker," a friend said.
"Just the way he talked, sometimes it was like he grew up in the 1600s or something. His dad was a big influence in that way, I think."
While Ledger's tragic death came at a pivotal time in his career, the final few months of his short life suggested his life in New York was a far cry from the happy childhood he enjoyed growing up in Perth.
Despite enjoying the attentions of a string of beautiful women, including Helena Christensen, Mary-Kate Olsen and Gemma Ward, Ledger struggled to deal with the separation from his daughter, Matilda, following his split with fiancee Michelle Williams.
A week before his death, he looked "pretty banged up" while filming in a wintry London street, according to a witness on the set.
Ledger spent the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before his death in the Dickensian back lanes of Clerkenwell, East London, where he was filming scenes from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
"He was sitting in the corner, sneezing and coughing," said Cheryl Dougal, a barmaid at the Horseshoe, the 17th-century pub that was the location for the shoot.
"He looked pretty banged up."
The outdoor shoot continued despite the drizzle that clouded London in a slate-grey mist last week. As the temperature dropped into single figures at night, the actors were ferried back between takes to their trailers a few streets away.
Ledger arrived on set in full costume and make-up, wearing a white cloak, a helmet and a beak-mask, for his role as a shadowy outsider who joins the theatre troupe of Dr Parnassus, played by Christopher Plummer.
This week, Plummer said the London set had been cold. "You know how damp it gets in London. And at night the temperature drops horribly, and that little breeze gets up. You have to wear tonnes of stuff," he told Entertainment Weekly.
"Heath did have a terrible, lingering bug and he couldn't sleep at all. We all thought he'd probably got walking pneumonia."
Bur Plummer said speculation that Ledger committed suicide didn't make any sense.
"He was looking forward … he was in such a good, happy mood about the picture. Looking forward to going to Vancouver. He was enjoying the film thoroughly.
"I just left a very laughing, happy fellow, practically a few minutes ago. It's quite shocking because it's so incredible."
With THE WEST AUSTRALIAN
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/26/1201157738746.html
MaineWriter:
from The New York Times:
January 27, 2008
When Icons Die Young
By JENNY LYN BADER
A YOUNG man lying in bed seems at peace. You might recognize him, or not, as he is not in a familiar role. He is supposed to wake up but he never does, causing a surge of public sadness.
Heath Ledger passed away only Tuesday, but his transformation is already under way, from acclaimed actor to most-searched Internet term, from film star to cultural touchstone.
The blogosphere went into overdrive. In two days his memorial page on Facebook had over 30,000 members. The entertainment Web site TMZ generated over 74 pages of user comments. Hundreds of eulogies for the 28-year-old Australian appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald’s site.
What accounts for this need to pay public tribute? Successive generations have felt that impulse — the need to make sense of untimely death, and even justify it, by celebrating the dead young person in an outsize way, or, every so often, to attend the funeral of someone they don’t know.
When the actor Rudolph Valentino lay in state in 1926 at the age of 31, more than 50,000 fans showed up. In 1955, Baby Boomers grieved the passing of the 24-year-old James Dean, who received two posthumous Academy Award nominations on his way to the pantheon.
In 1994, Generation X-ers, too, lost a 20-something artistic legend, with the death of Kurt Cobain. Mr. Cobain proved an unfortunate role model to some younger followers, inspiring a few copycat suicides and fueling speculation that there could be a wave of such imitations. This phenomenon, known as the Werther Effect, takes its name from Goethe’s “Sorrows of Young Werther.” The popular novel featured a hero who like Mr. Cobain, stirred fans both to dress like him and die like him.
When Marilyn Monroe died of a drug overdose three decades earlier, the overall suicide rate in the United States briefly rose by 12 percent. Fortunately, perhaps due to all the therapy and anti-depressants available in the 1990s, Mr. Cobain never had quite the Werther Effect that Werther had.
Star suicides shock us, raising the question of whether celebrities, underneath all their glamorous trappings, are just as miserable and depressed as everyone else. The suicides of the abject rarely, but occasionally, attract attention, too.
In 1770, the starving poet Thomas Chatterton killed himself at 17. His talents were not recognized until later, when the Romantic poets began romanticizing his literary brilliance and tragic death. Two of those who praised Chatterton met tragic early ends themselves — Keats by tuberculosis at 25, Shelley by drowning at 29.
As of now, the death of Mr. Ledger seems unintentional. No matter: the unintended death of someone with so much to live for captivates the public, too. Consider the mania surrounding Tutankhamen more than 3,000 years after he died at age 18.
In generational terms, the death of a contemporary most frightens the young. When one notable lifetime ends, that generation begins to end, too. The death of someone cut down in the prime of life brings home our own mortality. Maybe our rendering them immortal is our way of not facing that inevitability.
Yet, ultimately, the sudden loss of a young luminary offers a powerful message, not only about death but about life choices. There is the dilemma of Achilles, the Greek hero who learns from his mother that he has two options: go home and live a long life or die at war and earn everlasting fame.
He chooses fame, and upon his early death is mourned by mortals and gods alike. When a 20-something superstar expires, one cannot help but wonder how many celebrities make Achilles’ bargain with fame. In a way it is comforting, perhaps even life affirming, for the majority of human beings, nonsuperstars, to think they have chosen the other course.
Then there are the hard-core fans. One big fan of Achilles was Alexander the Great, who pretty much conquered the known world by the age of 25. He died at 32.
Mr. Ledger was originally offered the role of Alexander played by Colin Farrell in the biopic. Instead he will be remembered for being a leading man who is all things to all people from Casanova himself to Ennis del Mar in “Brokeback Mountain” to a literal knight in shining armor. In a way he will even be remembered for his courage, in a day and age when playing a gay role requires courage. And today he seems poised to conquer at least some of the known world in another way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bader.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=heath+ledger&st=nyt&oref=slogin
MaineWriter:
from the Associated Press, by way of the New York Times:
January 26, 2008
Redford to Take on 'A Walk in the Woods'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:51 p.m. ET
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- With the Sundance Film Festival nearly over, Robert Redford is going for ''A Walk in the Woods.''
Redford told The Associated Press that his next film project is an adaptation of the best-selling 1998 Bill Bryson book about hiking the Appalachian Trail. He will produce the film and star as Bryson, and Barry Levinson is expected to direct it.
''It'll be fun. I don't know when I've read a book that I laughed so loud,'' Redford said by phone Friday from California. ''Also it's a chance to take a look at the country. ... The backdrop is pretty terrific, if you stop to think of all the visuals that are possible as they go along that trail.''
After that, Redford said he'll tackle the ''inside, down-to-the mats story'' of how Branch Rickey helped Jackie Robinson break into major league baseball in 1947.
''What Rickey had to do, what Robinson had to go through, and the partnership they had to form, that's a story nobody knows,'' Redford said. ''It's just a fascinating story.''
Redford, who has been part of Sundance since its inception 30 years ago, said he and other festival-goers were shocked and saddened by the news that actor Heath Ledger died on Tuesday. Ledger had appeared in two Sundance films, 1997's ''Blackrock'' and 1999's ''Two Hands.''
''I just think he was one of those actors that was very, very special because he played so many different kinds of roles, and much of his work was more in the independent area,'' Redford said. ''That's too young to check out.''
As for this year's Sundance festival, which concludes Sunday, Redford said he was only able to see a few films, including ''U2 3D,'' ''In Bruges'' and ''What Just Happened?'' which was directed by Levinson.
Redford noted that there were more new filmmakers at the festival this year than ever before, and praised the ''crossover'' movies that have grown in prominence here: ''You're seeing music in film, you're seeing poetry in film, you're seeing animation.''
Redford reiterated his concern that the festival is being judged not by its films but by peripheral activities like the lavish parties companies throw to attract celebrities and promote the companies' products.
''I don't have any problem with a large part of this. It's just once some of the media began to focus on the other part, and then judge us by that, then that got frustrating,'' he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Film-Sundance-Redford.html?scp=12&sq=heath+ledger&st=nyt
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