Heath Ledger Found Dead
TUESDAY JANUARY 22, 2008 04:45 PM EST
Heath Ledger was found dead at his Manhattan residence, a police spokesman confirms to the Associated Press. He was 28.
Police say the death may be drug-related. The NYPD spokesman tells AP that Ledger had a massage appointment at his Soho apartment. When the housekeeper went to alert Ledger the masseuse was there, she found him at around 3:26 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 3:45 p.m.
Ledger was last spotted publicly in London on Saturday on the set of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Photos show Ledger wearing a clown costume. Other pictures of Ledger out of costume show him with long brown hair and a dark goatee.
The Perth, Australia, native was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for 2005's Brokeback Mountain, on whose set he met – and began a romantic relationship with – Michelle Williams. Theirs was described by others on the film as love at first sight.
Their daughter, Matilda Rose, was born in New York on Oct. 28, 2005. Ledger and Williams, who shared a brownstone together in Brooklyn, split in September 2007.
Ledger began his acting career in 1996, when he was 17, in an Australian TV series called Sweat.