In Memory.

            Recently, someone very inspiring to me died. Heath Ledger was found dead on his apartment floor, next to his bed, on January 22, 2008. He was only 28 years old. This very talented actor starred in movies like The Patriot with Mel Gibson, 10 Thing I Hate About You with Julia Stiles, Ned Kelly with Orlando Bloom, A Knights Tale, Monster’s Ball with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thorton, The Brothers Grimm with Matt Damon, and his most inspiring movie to me, Brokeback Mountain. Those are just a few of the movies that he was in.

            Brokeback Mountain, people had said, was the most dedicated Heath was about a film (and Heath was very dedicated in all of his films, so dedicated that in one of his roles, where he played a drug addict he actually took drugs to look more into character). His co-star Jake Gyllenhaal, the godfather of Heath’s only child, 2 year old Matilda,  and him starred as gay cowboys that had to hide there affection for each other from other people. Two to three times a year, they would say that they were going on a fishing trip, but really they just wanted time away from other people so they could be together, alone. When people had first heard about Brokeback Mountain and how Heath and Jake were starring as the gay cowboys, people had thought that they were going to take it all out of proportion and they weren’t going to do the role like it was written. Saying that they weren’t going to kiss, or do anything that regular gay people do. But if you watch the movie, you will know that the people, who criticized their work, were wrong. They were very devoted and committed to their parts.

            The most recent movies, before his death, that he starred in were I’m Not There, where six other actors portrayed the legendary singer, Bob Dylan, including a woman, Cate Blanchett. He also was starring in a new Batman movie as the Joker, called The Dark Knight. Another actor that has played the joker in a Batman movie is Jack Nicholson, and when he had found out about Heath’s death he had said in a short interview on the streets that he had warned Heath about playing the joker. Many people think that that role in that movie had caused his death.  

            Not quite sure what happened to Heath, people are saying that it was a suicide. But Michelle Williams, the actor’s ex-girlfriend/fiancé/baby’s mother, and other family members had said that Heath would have never committed suicide. They said that Heath loved life too much, and that he was actually afraid of dying.

So my theory about the talented, endowed actor’s death is that his break-up with his beautiful girlfriend, and the stress that he had in life from his career caused him to flowingly drink and take drugs. There were no illegal drugs found in the autopsy of his body, but there were six different types of prescriptive drugs found.  The sleepless Heath was so stressed out about everything going on in his life; he disobeyed another actor, Jack Nicholson. Jack had told Heath not to take sleeping pills because they would ‘mess him up’. But those sleeping pills that he had taken were one of the drugs found in his body. Therefore, he overdosed and died because he was so sleepy that he didn’t know how much sleeping pills he was taking at the time.

The person who took Heath’s death the hardest was not his daughter, his ex, or his family. It was Heath’s best friend and co-star…Jake Gyllenhaal. When finishing up Jake’s new movie, after he had heard about Heath’s death, on goers were speaking to Jake as he sat in the director’s chair. They had said and I quote, “Jake was there with us, but he wasn’t with us.” They didn’t believe he was hearing anything that they had to say to him, he was blanking off and was in deep thought.

Heath had a lot more going for him in his acting career. He was very determined about doing not just acting, but directing movies. A few months before his death he had started directing a movie, that would never be finished…The empty roles that he had left would never be complete…The life of the young actor would never be seen…The smiling, fun, charming person that everyone loved, no one would see again. Including his young daughter…who Heath loved endingly. I was going to stop there, but I have a little more to say…

            So the life of Heath will remain, not in him, but his past roles, and in his daughter, who Michelle Williams had said was the spitting image of her father. I could go on and on about what I am thinking right now about this tragic loss, but I won’t because I will probably cry uncontrollably like I did when I had heard this shocking news. So keep it in your hearts that Heath Ledger was one of the brightest, appealing actors of this lifetime, and I am not just saying that because he is gone, but it’s true and it has always been true. Sometimes I think that this can’t be true, that he isn’t gone, but then I realize that it is, and there really isn’t anything I can do. I just wish I could have stopped it, even though I never really knew him.

The End