Heath Ledger - News Accounts

[Verona]

I can't help but to keep going back to one undeniable truth...

These magazines/websites exist for no other reason than to satisfy Joe Public's insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip that makes them feel superior about their own humdrum lives. These outlets dig mercilessly into people's private lives, snoop with no regard for privacy or decency, and follow them around with cameras in the most inappropriate circumstances. It's what they do.

Now, I ask you... taking all of this into account... how is it possible that none of these "facts" about Heath's personal life ever came out while he was alive? How would he--unlike every other celebrity--have been able to so masterfully avoid it? Especially as he wasn't exactly hard to spot on a daily basis? If you wanted to hear one of Heath Ledger's conversations or witness his personal life, you didn't need to follow or spy on him. You didn't need to get past any velvet rope. You could have just had a cup of coffee or done your grocery shopping in Brooklyn.

So again, I ask you... how is it possible?

Just my two cents.

[louisev]

The only people who know for sure what any of these facts are, probably won't be coming out with them, because they are not enticed by the media, who have only money to offer in exchange for information.  Michelle doesn't need their money, neither does Jake or Naomi or any other of his close friends.

So if he struggled with addiction, he did so quietly and relatively privately, and went on with his career.  The rest of what is speculated about or offered by "insiders" may be half-truth, may be one quarter truth, but without putting their names to it, we cannot evaluate the accuracy of what is said.  It isn't news - it's "playing telephone."  I had seen the "driving to rehab" story before and there is one huge flaw in it: they say in Us that she drove him to Promises only weeks after the Oscars.  that would be 2006.  And then ordered him out of the house six months later.  This can't be.  They broke up in September 2007.  There is a year's discrepancy there.  This is a good example of playing telephone- gross confusion of facts adds up to no news at all, simply storytelling.

[LauraGigs]

About US and the other tabloids:
Those bottom-feeders didn't get enough scandal from Heath in his life, so now they're feeding off our grief.
May the tabloid writers be rewarded by spending eternity with Fred Phelps.

I love that, Mel.  A much-needed laugh this morning.   

~~~~~~~~~

Another thing to remember is that people who will get their information about Heath solely through the tabs are just getting their daily dose of mindfiller.  In other words, they'll move on and forget as the next issues drop (and drop, like poop from pidgeons).  If they take what they read on Heath there seriously at all, they would also seek out the more solid news sources on him.

[Verona]

I have a friend who's an actor and I read stuff about him all the time that just plain old isn't true, and I can't imagine where such odd stories came from. A lot of times they come from someone speculating, someone else reading that speculation and passing it on, people posting misheard/misread versions of the speculation online, and before you know it, this crap is "fact." And people who are actually in a position to know if it's true are going "WTF?!"

[MaineWriter]

Of course, now this stupid Us story is being reported everywhere as if it was fact, not crap.

Sigh...

L

[Kd5000]

I don't know what to make of the comments William Macy and wife Felicity Huffman said of Ledger. It's flattering at first, but then Felicity mentions the dark side...

"If he had done nothing but 'Brokeback Mountain,' he would be remembered for a long time," marveled Macy, who wrote and starred in "The Deal," which premiered yesterday at Sundance. "It was the most stunning performance I'd seen in a long time. My wife [actress Felicity Huffman] is from the West, and she couldn't believe his performance. It's shocking, it's sad. Felicity said it best: 'Sometimes, with talent like that, it comes with a dark side.' And I guess it got the best of him."


By the way, if US is as awful as what I've read on-line, can't wait to see what the National Enquirer is going to say.

[LauraGigs]

I wouldn't take that much to heart, KD.  Macy and Huffman were put on the spot outside an event with microphones in their faces -- I think it was either last Tuesday (the day Heath was found) or Wednesday.  And they had no information other than what was in the media at the time ('surrounded by pills', suicide theories, etc.)

With the information we all have now (1 pill bottle on a nightstand, accident, heart problems, etc.) they would have said something different, I'm sure.  At the time, they were uninformed and in shock, like everyone else.

[Meryl]

Laura, I like the "pigeon poop" analogy.  That's the realm those folks inhabit. 

[Ellemeno]

And Heath had been renting a house in North London, not staying in hotels -- per the interview with Sarah Lyall that took place shortly before the release of I'm Not There in November.

Yeah, but if you were going to do this, you might rather do it in an anonymous hotel, not your home.

[Mikaela]

My thinking is, Heath may well have used some drugs but if they were seriously interfering with his life then Christopher Nolan wouldn't have cast him. Nolan seems very professional and intent on making good movies, and I don't think he'd hand the fate of his big-budget movie over to a messed-up junkie.

I was off the net for some time to tend to RL,   - but the matter of how improbable these tales of the messed-up junkie are, kept occupying my mind.

Here's Warner and Chris Nolan, trusting Heath to deliver on the role that by all accounts would make or break their blockbuster "The Dark Knight". And going against quite a lot of fans' sentiment to do so. And they must have trusted him just as much after filming was complete, since the whole publicity approach for TDK has so obviously been Joker-skewed, which necessarily would have entailed a lot of limelight and PR for Heath on behalf of the film. Then there's Lasse Hällström, the director of Casanova, who in his comment about Heath's untimely death says he just e-mailed Heath asking if he could send him a script; - he wanted to work with Heath again too. And then there's Terry Gilliam, who directed the brothers Grimm and was now in the middle of directing his new film where Heath played a lead role. Why would these companies and all these people, who knew Heath and had worked with him closely, gamble away their time and artistic efforts - not to mention huge sums of money - on a person so volatile and so dependent on heavy drugs as the one the tabloids seem to describe?

Of course, you're right Marge, the average Joe doesn't even know who Christopher Nolan is, won't see his tribute piece, won't think things through to that extent. But screw the average Joe.

Yes!!  And No!... I don't want the average Joes to have such an obviously false image of who Heath was. Not if the average Joes think it's OK to discredit everything a person has achieved and everything he meant to anyone in life if he ever did drugs, and to reduce him to nothing more than that one thing and so carelessly dismiss him with a sneer and a shrug.  

Darn Tabloids!!