Heath Ledger Died

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Flowers and messages were placed in front of Heath Ledger's Manhattan apartment Tuesday night as mourners remembered the actor following his tragic death on Tuesday.

Outside his Broome Street apartment in Soho on Tuesday, fans quickly built a makeshift memorial, with flowers, candles, and, – taped to the building – a photo of Ledger and notes that said, in a reference to his breakout U.S. film 10 Things I Hate About You: "How could anyone find 10 things to hate about you? We couldn't find one bad thing."

Friends of the actor's at one of his regular New York City haunts, the Greenwich Village restaurant The Spotted Pig, expressed shock. Ken D. Friedman, the eatery's owner, tells PEOPLE, "All of us at the Pig are devastated. He was such a sweet man. Such a tragic loss. He lit up the room."


Sadness in Brooklyn
In Brooklyn, around the neighborhood where Ledger once lived with Michelle Williams and 2-year-old daughter Matilda, locals were stunned by the news. Mary Gannett, one of the owners of BookCourt on Court Street near Ledger and Williams's former home, tells PEOPLE: "We're all devastated by this."

"This is really hard for me," she adds. "They were such lovely people. They'd come in often with their daughter and read to her in the back children's area. They always looked happy. They were just like any other Brooklyn parents.

Gannett noted that Ledger "doted on his daughter, was very loving." She also saw him often around the neighborhood. "He'd skate up and down Court street by himself every now and then. We'd see him go by and we could tell it was him because of his pink ski hat. I'm very upset by this. I haven't seen him since the summer."

Meanwhile, across the globe, Australian officials also spoke out on the death of their native son. Said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: "It is tragic that we have lost one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life. Heath Ledger's diverse and challenging roles will be remembered as some of the great performances by an Australian actor."

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Although Heath Ledger's career was cut tragically short with his death on Tuesday, he remains an inspiration to fellow actors whose thoughts turned to him that very night.

"My feeling about Heath is that I don't want to lose him at any age – 28 or 88. ... He's a real valuable guy. So I'm truly sorry and my heart goes out to everyone that knew him and loved him," John Travolta, 53, told PEOPLE at the G'Day USA: Australia Week event at Time Warner Center in New York just hours after the shocking news of Ledger's death broke.

"Actors need other actors to be inspired by. He was my actor," said Travolta, who also likened Ledger's death to the loss of James Dean, who died, age 24, in a 1955 car crash, just as he was on the crest of stardom.

Added Travolta, "He was very modest. He was almost bashful when accepting compliments. He didn't want to make a big deal out of himself. He's a big deal."

Ledger, nominated for an Academy Award for 2005's Brokeback Mountain, appears as the Joker in the Batman feature set to open July 18, The Dark Knight; he was shooting The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus at the time of his death.

Fellow Australian, Transformers actress Rachael Taylor, 23, echoed Travolta's sentiments and praise for Ledger's craft. "I was really impressed by his early Australian film, Two Hands, and his film Candy and, of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention the performance in Brokeback Mountain. He was extraordinary. It was a monumental moment in cinema."

Travolta also said: "I thought he was extraordinary and had a depth and ability and a sense of humanity that I've never seen on screen ... I really don't like it at all that he's gone."

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Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee reflects fondly on working with Heath Ledger, calling the actor's untimely death "heartbreaking."

"Working with Heath was one of the purest joys of my life," the director says in a statement. "He brought to the role of Ennis [Del Mar] more than any of us could have imagined – a thirst for life, for love, and for truth, and a vulnerability that made everyone who knew him love him. His death is heartbreaking."

Ledger was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Ennis Del Mar, a taciturn gay cowboy in the 2005 drama.

After completing the film in 2005, Lee spoke to PEOPLE about working on set with his leading man. "He understood the cowboy way, just in the way he posed, and his body language and how it developed over the course of the film," Lee said at the time.

The director also believed that Ledger understood and empathized with his character's darker elements. "He understood the shyness and vulnerability and isolation of the character," said Lee. "He really got that. And he did it while carrying the Western aura."

While praising Ledger's "great worth ethic," the director also opened up about the star's relationship with costar Michelle Williams, joking, "On the set I pushed him towards Jake [Gyllenhaal]. Maybe I pushed him too hard and he escaped out on the other side with Michelle."

"I think he will be a great father," Lee continued at the time, discussing the birth of Ledger's daughter Matilda, now 2-years-old. "It has overwhelmed him, much more than the movie has. He is enjoying every bit of it."

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A rolled-up $20 bill was found near Heath Ledger's body, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said during a press conference Wednesday – the same day an autopsy on the young actor came back inconclusive.

Kelly admitted that "no testing has been done for narcotics at this time" on the bill, but it's something the police are looking at. He also refused to elaborate on what drugs were found in the Brokeback Mountain star's apartment, saying only, "Some of them were sleeping pills, in essence, and some other drugs there as well. ... We are going to wait for the toxicology report."

Meanwhile, Ledger's body has been released to a New York City funeral home. Arrangements have not been disclosed.

According to WCBS-TV's Web site, found in the actor's apartment, besides the prescription sleeping medicine mentioned by police shortly after the discovery of the body, was the $20 bill.

The station also reported that several packets containing an unknown substance were also inside the Soho apartment where Ledger was discovered Tuesday.

The TV report stressed that it is not known whether Ledger, 28, owned the substances in question or if he even ingested them.

Asked by PEOPLE about the TV report, police spokesman Det. Ryan Sessa said he cannot confirm or deny it.

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As friends, family and colleagues talk about the imprint Heath Ledger left on their lives, his neighbors said the 28-year-old actor left something even more permanent in Brooklyn – with a little help from his daughter Matilda.

Roger Lang, who lived across the street from Ledger and Michelle Williams during the then-couple's time in Brooklyn, tells PEOPLE it was Ledger who put the markings in wet cement near the fire hydrant in front of their house. "The Matilda thing in the sidewalk with the footprints, he did that about two years ago," Lang says. "It was a secret. It was a fun thing. He did it as a surprise for his family."

The 2-year-old's name is perpendicular to the word HUGO, which is the name of a neighbor's dog. On Wednesday some carnations wrapped in plastic were placed near the spot.

Adds Lang: "He was full of life. He'd call my father Matey. 'Hi Matey.' Because he was in World War II. They're great people and it's very tragic. They loved Brooklyn. They wanted to be a part of the neighborhood."

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One director who worked with Heath Ledger remembers her young star as the leader of the pack.

"All the kids, the younger actors, loved him. He was kind of like the den father. He was like the scout leader," Catherine Hardwicke, director of 2005's Lords of Dogtown, about surfers and skateboarders in Venice, Calif., tells PEOPLE.

In the movie, Ledger played the character Skip, the owner of the board shop.

"We just had little tiny trailers on that movie and he set up, like, 'Camp Heath' out in front," remembers Hardwicke. "He had like umbrellas, tiki torches and lawn chairs so everybody could kind of hang out in between scenes and stuff. He was so cool. He would have the cast up to his house, have parties, he really made it into like a family and made everybody feel so good."

Warmly, Hardwicke adds: "You could feel his heart and his soul. He had so much heart. I think he was one of those rare people who could convey that on film. You could feel it from him. He was able to make you feel what he was feeling."

In a professional capacity, she said, "He was so creative. He would come every day and after he would get to hang out with Skip Englebom, who's the character he plays, the skateboard shop guy, he kind of got the feel of him. As soon as he got it, and got under his skin, then he would just be free and come in and do crazy, cool stuff we weren't even expecting."

In particular, she cites "a very dramatic scene, where he's losing the skateboard team that he built up. He said, 'Let me try something.' He walks out in the middle of the room in the middle of this party and just grabs this big surfboard – and he just started swinging it around and all the actors were running out of the way. It's a really cool moment where he free flows, free styles."

Concludes the filmmaker, "On one level your heart is just broken for all the cool stuff we would have seen from Heath."

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Friday will find relatives of Heath Ledger arriving in New York City for his funeral, says a spokesman for the funeral home handling the service.

Funeral Director Dominic Carella told PEOPLE that arrangements have been made but nothing is going to happen today. He said he expects Ledger's father Kim to arrive at the funeral home tomorrow.

George Amado, the general manager of the Frank E. Campbell funeral chapel, spoke to the Associated Press but declined to supply specifics about the funeral or burial plans.

"The family doesn't want us to give out any information," Amado said.

For the most part, Ledger's family is based in Perth, Australia. Two of his uncles, Mike Ledger and Hayden Ledger, appeared from there via satellite on CBS's The Early Show on Thursday. Another uncle, Neil Bell, lives in California and spoke to PEOPLE (for this week's new issue) about his nephew.

"I heard about his death in the press, and I called his mother to find out what was happening, and even she didn't know," Bell said. "Heath's father found out through the press. ... It's a pretty devastating way to find out."


Funeral Home for the Famous
Campbell's, located at 81st Street and Madison Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is no stranger to celebrity funerals. Among those who have been paid final tribute there by friends, fans and family include former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, showbiz legend Judy Garland and silent-screen idol Rudolph Valentino.

Ledger's body was taken to Campbell's on Wednesday after he was found dead in his downtown Soho apartment on Tuesday afternoon.

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He once was quoted as saying: "I'm not good at future planning. I don't plan at all. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow. I don't have a day planner and I don't have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future."

I mourn his loss. There are some people who believe an actor's death should not be front-page news when there are soldiers and civilians who are dying in faraway lands for greater causes. I don't know a single soldier or a single dead civilian. I do know a lot about war. I've read about it. I've written twenty page papers on the roots and causes of international conflict, the reasons for genocide and ethnic violence, the clash of civilizations. Reading and writing about something isn't as real as mourning the loss of something you know.

I feel that I knew him. You might feel like you knew him, too. That's because we did.

When I was fourteen years old, I watched a movie called "10 Things I Hate About You". It was one of those typical teenage romantic comedies: boy meets girl, boy courts girl, boy hurts girl, and boy takes until the end of the movie to make everything right. They kiss, followed by the rolling credits. It's one of those movies that touched me. The kind of movie you stay and watch, everytime you see it playing on some obscure television channel. Even if there's only twenty minutes left, you stay and watch. For me, it was just to catch a glimpse of his brilliance.

To me, even in the role of a teenage heartthrob, Heath Ledger, named after the legendary Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights, was always destined for greatness.

I knew it when I was fourteen and I watched his air of confidence as he sang for the girl he was trying to woo in front of a crowd of fellow highschoolers in that dreamy voice of his, "You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off of you.."

He broke out of the teeny bopper image (which I never agreed he had) with every passing film choice that he made. Heath was one of those special actors, and it pains me to speak of him in the past tense. Like Christian Bale, who picks and chooses roles that have meaning and show acting growth, Heath was only getting better and better.

He starred as legendary lover, Giacomo Casanova, in 2005. While the film was not necessarily embraced by audiences, it was well-liked by fans and leading critics. In it, Heath portrayed a man who was accustomed to having the love and adoration of all women. When one woman came along who didn't give him the time of day, his whole world came crashing down around him and he had to win the heart of the first woman who did not requite his love. His voice, his eyes; brought emotion and life to a man who was fabled to have lived centuries before ours.

Not afraid of his choices, that same year, he stood by his bold decision to star in Brokeback Mountain as a homosexual cowboy. He was rewarded for his fearlessness and his understanding of the skill of acting with his first Oscar Nomination in 2006. While he did not win the Oscar, it served as a hint of what was to come in his career. Of what would have come.

Another notable role was in the cult classic film, The Lords Of Dogtown. Again, he showed us another layer of himself, and his skill. He was one of those few and far in between actors who come along and become the role they are portraying. They take the character and turn themselves into him, making it so believable that you find yourself referring to the character as Heath and Heath as the character, as if they were one and the same.

None as much as me have been as eagerly anticipating Heath's latest two films.

In I'm Not There, Heath was one of a handful of actorsto play different facets of the character of Bob Dylan. I was listening to Dylan last night, listening to the words of one of his greatest songs "How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man..the answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind." The song is "Blowing in the Wind" and while the Kingston Trio may have added their own unique twist to it, the truthful and deep-hitting voice of Dylan is the voice that was meant to sing it. Heath was not only a man, he was destined to become as legendary as the great romantic literary figure that he was named after. Now, the answer of how great he actually might have been is just a "what if" that is blowing in the wind.

Most of all, as half the country can agree with me, I have waited to see him play the role of "The Joker" opposite Christian Bales' "Batman". To many, it is a mere comic book tale, but to me, this will be the medium by which two of the greatest young actors of our time are to be displayed to the world. They say that Heath was so engrossed in his character that he found it hard to sleep at night. His mind was entranced in Joker's world. While Jack Nicholson may have brought the role to the movie screen first, it will be Heath Ledger who will bring the character to life...to reality.

I mourn him, in a way I cannot mourn a nameless face across the country. To me, their deaths are equal, as is the loss of any human being's life. But, a soldier chooses to fight. He signs his name, says goodbye to his family, and leaves to fight for a cause, knowing he may never return home save for in a body bag.

But Heath: He had so much to give this world. So much pleasure to bring to his fans as they watch his continued and steady rise to greatness. After all, he was the man whose acting skills had been compared by the harshest of critics to those of Sean Penn and Marlon Brando (on their best days!).

When I think of him, and his passing, I think back to my years as an innocent teenager, and the stupid grin I would have on my face when boy finally wins girl's heart and her forgiveness. Forgive me for being "shallow", if that is what you think I am. But, I cannot turn my back on the death of a young man, a little older than me, who dreamed of touching the world and making it to Hollywood and greatness. It was an honorable dream, and he made it a reality. Not only did he make it as an actor, but he made it as a respected and well loved actor.

The world is a darker place for me and many others today. Hollywood, that land that can help you escape your mundane life if only for $9.00 and a bucket of popcorn, has lost a shining star.

But I will not cry, even in my mourning. I will look at the sky tonight, and look for the brightest star, knowing that he is there, finding warmth and solace in the thought that so many knew what he was truly worth. And, knowing he will live on in our hears as we watch Ennis del Mar sitting by the fireside, as Patrick Verona gets paid to date a frigid girl, as Casanova prepares to woo his sweetheart at the ball, and as we root for the bad guys he portrays, like the Joker. Heath lives on his work, through us, the moviegoers...his fans!

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Private Memorial for Heath Ledger Held in Beverly Hills

A memorial that drew Naomi Watts and other friends and relatives of Heath Ledger was held in Beverly Hills on Saturday night, just hours after the actor's death was marked at a New York event.

A small gathering of black-dressed mourners, including the Australian actress, was seen in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel around 8 p.m. for the private event, a source said. Ledger's rep had said that no public memorial was planned for Los Angeles.

Earlier, about 1,000 guests at an Australian event in New York heard a message from Ledger's father, Kim Ledger, read by Australia's consul-general, the Melbourne newspaper The Age reports.

"Heath did not become an actor for the fame or fortune. He loved his craft and he loved helping his friends. He loved chess and skateboarding too," said the letter read to guests at the G'Day USA Australia Day Ball in Manhattan. "My image of Heath in New York is him with his skateboard, a canvas bag and his beanie. That was Heath to me."

But mostly, Kim wrote, "Heath is and always will be an Australian."

Kim, Ledger's mother Sally and sister Kate were in Los Angeles on Saturday awaiting arrival of the actor's body from New York, The Age reports. Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment on Tuesday. A cause of death was not yet determined.

According to several Australian news reports, a memorial and burial in Ledger's hometown of Perth are also expected.

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Heath Ledger's death on Jan. 22 was due to an accidental mixture of prescription drugs, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner has concluded.

"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Diazepam, Temazepam, Alprazolam, and Doxylamine," said an announcement released Wednesday morning by office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.

"We have concluded that the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescription medications," the two-paragraph statement said in its entirety.

Oxycodone is a painkiller, Hydrocodone is also known as Vicodin, Diazepam is commonly called Valium, Temazepam treats anxiety or sleeplessness, Alprazolam is known as Xanax, and Doxylamine is a sedating antihistamine often used as a sleep aid.

Dr. Michael Hunter, a prominent forensic pathologist not involved in the Ledger matter, tells PEOPLE that the combination of the powerful drugs most likely caused "poly-drug intoxication" which led to respiratory arrest. "His breathing probably got slower and slower until it stopped all together," he said.

Hunter also said it is highly unlikely a doctor would have allowed Ledger to take all the different types of drugs in his system (though another doctor tells PEOPLE that it could be "sloppy prescribing"). But either way, "This is a dangerous mixture of drugs," said Hunter. "We are seeing more and more people dying of poly-drug intoxication from prescription drugs and it usually a combination of the narcotic-type drugs seen here."

Hunter said it's important to note that the Medical Examiner officially ruled the death an accident, which means they must have ruled out suicide. He also said they officially determined his death was caused by the "abuse" of prescription drugs, which is telling.

"When they use the term abuse it tells us that he used drugs to obtain an intoxicant effect and not for a therapeutic reason. They must have determined through their investigation that the drugs were not for therapeutic use."

The actor, 28, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Jan. 22. Authorities said at the time that they did not suspect foul play but that medication was found near the body. (Six medications, including anti-anxiety medications and sleeping pills, were found near the body.)

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