Heath Ledger, the talented 28-year-old actor who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, was found dead last night in a Manhattan apartment.
Australian actor Heath Ledger
Police said the actor was found lying facedown at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills nearby.
An autopsy was planned for today, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.
The star revealed in one of his last interviews that he suffered from insomnia due to the stress of work. He confessed to taking one Ambien sleeping pill after another while filming the new Batman movie The Dark Knight.
"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted and my mind was still going," he told the New York Times in November. He told the newspaper that taking one pill had no effect. He took a second and fell into a stupor, only to wake an hour later with his "mind still racing".
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.
During filming, 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.
Ledger's publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement: "We are all deeply saddened and shocked by this accident. This is an extremely difficult time for his loved ones and we are asking the media to please respect the family's privacy and avoid speculation until the facts are known."
In the Australian city of Perth, where Ledger was born and raised, his father called the actor's death "tragic, untimely and accidental."
"He was (a) down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish individual, extremely inspirational to many," Kim Ledger said, reading from a prepared statement. "Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life."
Ledger eschewed Hollywood glitz in favor of a bohemian life in Brooklyn, where he became 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.