This is a Iszaham's blog.
This is a tribute page to the talented Heath Ledger! He will always be in our hearts!
Since Jan. 23,2008
BIOGRAPHY Date of Birth: 4 April 1979, Perth, Western Australia, Australia Date of Death: 22 January 2008, Manhattan, New York, USA Birth Name: Heathcliff Andrew Ledger Nickname: Heathy Height :6' 1" (1.85 m)
When a young, hunky 20 year old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of not much depth. He has spent the past five years trying desperately to sway this image away, but this has indeed been a double-edged sword. But that comes much later in his story. Heath Ledger was born on the fourth of April 1979, in Perth, Western Australia. As the story goes, in junior high it was compulsory to do one of two electives, either cooking or drama, and as Heath could honestly not see himself in a cooking class, he tried his hand at drama. Heath was talented, there was no denying that. However, the rest of the class did not acknowledge his talent, possibly out of jealousy. When he was 17, he and a friend, decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and rough it to Sydney. Heath believed Sydney to be the place where dreams are made, or at least, where actors can possibly get their big break. However, upon arriving in Sydney with a purported 69 cents to his name, Heath tried everything to get a break. His first real acting job came in a low budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliché; a teen angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl. He did not have a large part in this movie. In fact, it was a very small one. The only thing of notice in his role is you get to see him get his lights punched out. After that small role, Heath auditioned for a role in a TV show called "Sweat" (1996) about a group of young Olympic hopefuls. He got offered one of two roles, one as a swimmer, another as a gay cyclist. Heath accepted the latter because he felt to really stand out as an actor one had to accept unique roles that stood out from the bunch. It got him small notice, but unfortunately the show was quickly axed, which led him to look for other roles. He was in "Home and Away" (1988) for a very short period, in which he played a surfer who falls in love with one of the girls of Summer Bay. Then came his very brief role in Paws (1997). Paws was a film which existed solely to cash in on guitar prodigy Nathan Cavaleri's brief moment of fame, where he was the hottest thing in Australia. Heath played a student in the film, involved in a stage production of a Shakespeare play, in which he played "Oberon". A very brief role, this did nothing other than give him a small paycheck, but nothing to advance his career. Then came Two Hands (1999). He went to America trying to audition for film roles, showcasing his brief role in "Roar" (1997) opposite then unknown Vera Farmiga. He could not find any American roles but then Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in your face Aussie crime thriller, Two Hands (1999) was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, it seemed Heath was being typecast as a teen hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot (2000).
What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles, Heath accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast. Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly (2003) was an absolute flop, which led distributors hesitant to even release it outside Australia. The Order (2003) was absolutely terrible, and A Knight's Tale (2001) was just light entertainment. Heath has had such a wide variety of roles that he seems unsure what to do with himself next. Despite being a very talented comedic actor, he seems to only want serious roles, which has hindered his career. He is by no means one of the greatest actors out of Australia, but in his brief career to date has suggested he could become one, if only he accepts the right role.
5 THINGS: 1. Before becoming an actor, Ledger washed cars to make money.
2. He's dated Heather Graham and Naomi Watts.
3. He turned down Spider-Man.
4. He enjoys art, reading, writing, surfing and skateboarding.
5. He has one piercing in each ear and five tattoos.
Like you, the folks here at EW HQ thought it was a cruel hoax when reports started surfacing this afternoon that Heath Ledger was dead at 28 , the second promising young star in less than a week to die. The exact cause and circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown, but we can only hope that the performer will be remembered mainly for his all-too-brief but triumphant acting career.
Most fans will remember Ledger for his Oscar-nominated turn in Brokeback Mountain (pictured), as well they should. His role marks one of the great, astonishing acting transformations of our time. I loved Ledger's early, lighter work — his goofy romantic lead in the teen-Shakespeare farce 10 Things I Hate About You, his sly, tongue-in-cheek turn as a medieval sports hero in A Knight's Tale — and I even enjoyed his dramatic posturing as the callow rebel of The Patriot and the resentful son of Monster's Ball. But I'd never have guessed that he had that Brokeback performance in him. From his slow gait to his swallowed baritone speech, his lonesome cowpoke Ennis seemed like a brand new person, yet one the actor fully inhabited. Indeed, it's now impossible to imagine that any of his contemporaries could have done a better job, so indelible is Ledger's performance. And who didn't cry at the end when he said, "Jack, I swear..."?
After Brokeback, Ledger's characters began to take a darker turn. There was the drug-addiction drama Candy , which I fear I'll never be able to watch again without cringing, and his forthcoming turn as a bedraggled, scary-looking Joker in this summer's Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight . I'm sure no one will be able to watch that one either without seeing unintended ironies and eerie portents of doom. It's always facile to read an actor's off-screen life into his choice of roles (if you saw Ledger's depiction of Bob Dylan's crumbling marriage in the recent I'm Not There , you could be forgiven for being reminded of the recent dissolution of Ledger's off-screen union with Michelle Williams), but still, for now, I prefer to remember the jokey, cheerful, cheeseball Ledger of Knight's Tale and 10 Things, movies enhanced by the sense they conveyed that Ledger was thoroughly enjoying himself. It'll be a while before I can watch Brokeback again without getting misty-eyed for the wrong reason.
Remembering Heath Ledger
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