Heath Ledger Tribute, The Joker

What happened?

As of Wednesday, January 23rd, Heath's autopsy is still inconclusive, however more tests are needed. Heath was 28 years old, he was found dead yesterday, Tuesday the 22nd, by his housekeeper and masseuse - lying naked and face-down at the foot of his bed, with prescription sleeping pills nearby. A full autopsy investigation will take about 10 days. Right now, it could be an accidental drug overdose.

Grueling and intense roles in movies became Heath's trademark, after starting off with teen-movies like "10 Things I Hate About You." As an actor, Heath avoided the safe and secure path in favor of more challenging roles that forced him to hide his Australian accent as well as downplay his striking "leading-man" looks. In "Brokeback Mountain," he portrayed Enis, a tormented gay cowboy. In "Candy" Heath portayed a drug addict, and he played an incarnation of Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There."

In what is Heath's final finished performance, (He was currently working on "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," about a traveling theater company gives its audience much more than they expected) he played Batman's nemesis, the Joker, in the "The Dark Knight." But the role was no cake walk. Playing The Joker forced Heath to rebrand a primary comic book character last played on the big screen by Jack Nicholson.

Heath also played the older son in "The Patriot" with fellow Australian actor Mel Gibson who was quoted as saying, "I had such great hope for him," "He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."

Ledger split last year with Michelle Williams, who played his wife on the set of "Brokeback Mountain." The two had a 2-year-old daughter, Matilda and had, until recently, lived together in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood.

The actor's personal strife, regarding the seperation with Michelle, was accompanied by professional anxiety. Ledger said in an interview in November that the Batman movie, "Dark Knight" and last year's "I'm Not There," took a heavy toll on him, physically and emotionally. He said he "stressed out a little too much" during the Dylan film, and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

"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 took two Ambien pills, which only worked for an hour.

Heath's father, Kim Ledger, called his son "down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish" and "extremely inspirational to many ...Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life," he said. "Please now respect our family's need to grieve and come to terms with our loss privately."

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and starred opposite Julia Stiles in "10 Things I Hate About You," a reworking of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." Offers for other teen flicks were thrown at him but he chose to turn down roles that didn't excite him.

"It wasn't a hard decision for me," Ledger told The Associated Press in 2001. "It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, `You're crazy,' my parents were like, `Come on, you have to eat."'

Heath began to gravitate toward more independent films "Monster's Ball," "The Patriot" and "A Knight's Tale." His work in 2005's "Brokeback Mountain" earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

In the 2006 film "Candy," Ledger played a heroin addicted poet and his girlfriend, Candy. Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in the film, said the actor had "handled his career incredibly well," steering himself toward more challenging roles.

"He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by producers and managers and to forge his own way," Armfield told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

He brought the same intensity as The Joker in "Dark Knight." In the trailers, Heath played The Joker as a depraved, dark sociopathic murder rather than the campy comical portayal that Nicholson is known for.

"Dark Knight's" director, Christopher Nolan, said, "It was a very great challenge for Heath. ...He's extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic."

We will all remember Heath Ledger and his wonderful roles as a unique actor.

The outcome.

On February 6, 2008, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York concluded that, based on an initial autopsy and a subsequent complete toxicological analysis, "Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine." The report also states: "We have concluded that the manner of death is accident[al], resulting from the abuse of prescription medications." The medications found in the toxicological analysis are commonly prescribed for insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain, and/or cold symptoms.