today20

May you stay forever young in the eternity, my love.

Yesterday, I fell on this old quote from American Beauty. Wish you had also this kind of feeling, in your very last moments.

The actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide or an accidental overdose, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born on April 4, 1979, to Sally Ledger, a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, an engineer. Named for a character in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights,” he and his older sister, Katherine, grew up in Perth, Australia; his parents were divorced when he was about 10. As a student, he joined a local theater company and appeared in a production of “Peter Pan,” which led to his being cast in children’s television programs.

Mr. Ledger’s first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999). He later appeared in romantic-hero roles in films like “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “Casanova” (2005).

But the role for which Mr. Ledger was probably best known by American audiences was in “Brokeback Mountain” (2005). The film, based on a short story by Annie Proulx about two cowboys who fall in love, won critical acclaim. Reviewing the film in The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden wrote, “Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.” Mr. Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in January 2006. (His death came on the same day that the 2007 Oscar nominations were announced.)

Mr. Ledger met the actress Michelle Williams while filming ‘’Brokeback Mountain.” They became romantically involved and moved to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, where their comings and goings were widely noted by the celebrity press. They had a daughter, Matilda Rose, who was born on Oct. 28, 2005. The couple separated last year.

In an interview in London for an article published in November, Mr. Ledger told The Times, ‘’I feel like I’m wasting time if I repeat myself.” He said in the interview that he was not proud of his latest role, in Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There,” in which Mr. Ledger was one of a half-dozen actors depicting the musician Bob Dylan. ‘’I feel the same way about everything I do. The day I say, ‘It’s good’ is the day I should start doing something else,” he said in the interview.

Mr. Ledger had been cast as the Joker in the latest Batman installment, “The Dark Knight,” set to be released this summer.

Sewell Chan

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