Heath Ledger

Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian actor, photographer, and music video director. His work consisted of nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale, Monster’s Ball, Lords of Dogtown, Brokeback Mountain, Candy, The Dark Knight, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Ledger died on 22 January 2008 as a result of an accidental overdose of medications.

About Heath Ledger in brief

Summary Heath LedgerHeath Andrew Ledger was an Australian actor, photographer, and music video director. His work consisted of nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale, Monster’s Ball, Lords of Dogtown, Brokeback Mountain, Candy, The Dark Knight, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Ledger died on 22 January 2008 as a result of an accidental overdose of medications. He was the first actor to win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and the Best International Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute posthumously. He also received numerous posthumous awards for his work on The DarkKnight, including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award, and the 2009 BAFTA Award. He had English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. On his mother’s side he was a great- great-great-great grandson of Emanuel Solomon, a sixteen year old London Jew who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1818 with his brother Vaiben having been convicted of larceny at the Durham Assizes in 1817. His half-sisters are Ashleigh Bell and Olivia Ledger, his father’s daughter with his second wife Emma Brown. His best friend since the age of three, Trevor DiCarlo, drove across Australia from Perth to Sydney, to Perth to take a small role in Clowning Around, the first part of a two-part series on the TV series Sweat.

From 1993 to 1997, Ledger also had parts in the television series Ship to Shore ; and in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama Roar. In 1999, he starred in his feature film debut, the teen comedy 10 Things About You. From 1992 to 2005, he also starred in supporting roles as Gabriel Martin, the eldest son of Benjamin Martin, and Sonny Grotowski, the youngest son of Martin Martin, in The Patriot. He left school at age 16 to pursue an acting career, and starred in the film Two Hands, directed by Gregor Gregor, in which he played the role of a young man on the run from the law. In 2007, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director and the casting director for the film I’m Not There, which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, he portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Bob Dylan’s life and persona. A few months before his death, he had finished filming his role as the Joker in TheDark Knight. His death affected the subsequent promotion of The Dark knight, and he was playing his last role as Tony in The Imagin aquarium of Doctor ParnassUS in which he was in the midst of filming, in the final part of the film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus.