A medical examiner for New York City has said that Wednesday’s autopsy into Heath Ledger’s death is inconclusive.
New York City Medical Examiner spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said, “We have to do further testing including toxicology and tissue testing. Neither cause of death or manner of death has been concluded. We expect additional results in 10 days to two weeks.”
Although it has been confirmed that Heath had pneumonia at the time of his death and prescription pills were found in his apartment yesterday afternoon, there is still no reason for Heath’s untimely death.
According to the Associated Press, police have confirmed that no illegal drugs were found in the actor’s apartment. While a rolled up $20 dollar bill found at the scene will be taken to a lab for testing, police say no visible drug residue was found on it.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly released the information at a Manhattan news conference, but did not elaborate on whether police think the bill–discovered on the floor near Ledger’s bed– may have been used to snort drugs.

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HEATH Ledger’s shocking demise is not only a terrible loss for his daughter Matilda, his Perth-based family and his many fans, it also throws into disarray two movies.

Ledger was in production with the next instalment in the Batman series, The Dark Knight, in which he was starring opposite Christian Bale as a macabre joker.

Early photos from the set suggest Ledger was taking the series into a new darker chapter.

Also on Ledger’s slate was the new Terry Gilliam film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, about a travelling theatre company. It was due to start filming in London shortly.

Ledger was one of Australia’s true international acting stars. His American breakthrough role came with the teen hit 10 Things I Hate About You, but real global respect came with his Oscar nominated turn in the moving gay cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain.

He met his now ex-partner Michelle Williams on the set of the film. The pair had a baby, Matilda, but broke of their engagement and split recently.

Gossip has since linked him with troubled young actor and party girl Lindsay Lohan.

Ledger had a troubled relationship with the media in his home town of Sydney. Paparazzi photographers squirted Ledger and Williams with water pistols at the premiere of Brokeback Mountain.

He later angrily denied reports he had spat on the photographers.

“It was just silly and unnecessary. It really hurt our feelings and it hurt my feelings to suddenly have a quick title above my name now, that we’re a gang of spitters,” he told the Herald Sun later.

But he said he regretted flicking the finger at photographers.

“Pulling finger signs at photographers, it’s not representing who I am, it’s representing the panic that occurs when you turn around and there’s a camera staring in at you. You see red, or I do.

“I’m a young guy and I’ve grown up with this in the younger years when you’re more passionate and protective and you’re more explosive during that time of your life and it felt like a natural reaction for me.

“I didn’t feel that I was rebelling against anything. Obviously it’s not the most polite way of dealing with things, but I didn’t feel they were being polite. I forget that when I do that I’m not pulling a finger sign at a guy holding a camera, I’m pulling a finger sign in a newspaper that everyone reads.”

Ledger later sold his Sydney dream house, claiming the paparazzi had driven him out, and moved to Brooklyn in New York where he lived with Williams and Matilda before the split.

Ledger can be seen in cinemas now in the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There.

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The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment building at 421 Broome Street in SoHo, according to the New York City police.

Source

The film community lost one of its brightest young stars today, as Heath Ledger was found unconscious in an apartment owned by Mary-Kate Olsen at 3:30 this afternoon when he did not respond to knocks on his bedroom door. Authorities do not suspect foul play, but found pills scattered around the body. The actor was 28.

Ledger was set to appear as the iconic Joker in this summer’s The Dark Knight, and many who worked on the project claimed Heath gave the performance of a lifetime; those words take on a much more melancholy tone now. Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends, Heath will be dearly missed.

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NEW YORK - Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday at a downtown Manhattan apartment, and police said drugs may have been a factor. The Australian-born actor was 28. Police said Ledger was naked in his bed with an unknown number of sleeping pills near the body.

Ledger had an appointment for a massage at a residence in the tony SoHo neighborhood, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. A housekeeper who went to let him know the massage therapist had arrived found him dead at 3:26 p.m.

A large crowd of paparazzi and gawkers began gathering Tuesday evening outside the building on an upscale block, where several police officers guarded the door. The medical examiner’s office planned an autopsy on Wednesday, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said.

While not a marquee movie star, Ledger was a respected, award-winning actor who took his craft seriously rather than cashing in on his heartthrob looks. He was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain,” where he met Michelle Williams, who played his wife in the film. The two had a daughter, Matilda, and lived together in Brooklyn until they split up last year.

Ledger most recently appeared in “I’m Not There,” in which he played one of the many incarnations of Bob Dylan — as did Cate Blanchett, whose performance in that film earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday for best supporting actress.

Ledger had finished filming his role as the Joker this year in “The Dark Knight,” a sequel to 2005’s “Batman Begins.”

He’s had starring roles in “A Knight’s Tale” and “The Patriot,” and played the suicidal son of Billy Bob Thornton in “Monster’s Ball.” He also played a heroin addict in the 2006 Australian film “Candy.”

Before settling down with Williams, Ledger had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts. He met Watts while working on “The Lords of Dogtown,” a fictionalized version of a cult classic skateboarding documentary, in 2004.

Ledger was born in 1979 in Perth, in western Australia, to a mining engineer and a French teacher, and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 at a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, “Seat.”

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and co-starred opposite Julia Stiles in “10 Things I Hate About You,” a teen comedy reworking of “The Taming of the Shrew.” His movie career caught on soon after that, culminating with his Academy Award nomination for “Brokeback Mountain.”

“Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan said earlier this month that Ledger’s performance as the Joker would be wildly different than Jack Nicholson’s memorable turn in 1989’s “Batman.”

“It was a very great challenge for Heath,” Nolan had said. “He’s extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic.”

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OMFG  Actor Heath Ledger Is Found Dead at 28

The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide or an accidental overdose, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.

At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They moved his body to the floor and attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

The police said they did not suspect foul play. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office of the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, said that employees of the office were at the apartment and that an autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, initially said that the apartment was owned by the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, but later reversed himself and said that was not the case.

A representative of Ms. Olsen said that the apartment did not belong to the actress. “It is not her apartment,” the representative, Annette Wolf, a publicist for Ms. Olsen, said in a phone interview. “She does not own the apartment. She has never owned the apartment. She and her sister have an apartment in New York City but they are not in this building.”

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born April 4, 1979 to Sally Ledger, a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, an engineer. Named after the main characters of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” He and his older sister, Katherine, grew up in Perth, Australia; his parents were divorced when he was about 10. As a student, he joined a local theater company and appeared in a production of “Peter Pan,” which led to his being cast in children’s television programs.

Mr. Ledger’s first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999). He later appeared in romantic-hero roles in films like “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “Casanova” (2005).

But the role for which Mr. Ledger was probably best known by American audiences was in “Brokeback Mountain” (2005). The film, based on a short story by Annie Proulx about two cowboys who fall in love, won critical acclaim. Reviewing the film in The New York Times, the critic Stephen Holden wrote, “Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.” Mr. Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in January 2006.

Mr. Ledger met the actress Michelle Williams while filming ‘’Brokeback Mountain.” The two actors fell into a romance and moved to Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, where their comings and goings were widely noted by the celebrity press. They had a daughter, Matilda Rose, who was born on Oct. 28, 2005. The couple separated last year.

In an interview in London for an article published in November, Mr. Ledger told The New York Times, ‘’I feel like I’m wasting time if I repeat myself.” He said in the interview that he was not proud of his latest role, in Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There,” in which Mr. Ledger was one of a half-dozen actors depicting the musician Bob Dylan. ‘’I feel the same way about everything I do. The day I say, ‘It’s good’ is the day I should start doing something else,” he said in the interview.

Mr. Ledger had been cast as The Joker in the latest Batman installment, “The Dark Knight,” set to be released this summer.

As news of Mr. Ledger’s death made its way across the Internet, the Police Department issued a fairly terse summary of the death: “ON TUESDAY, 01/22/08, AT APPROXIMATELY 1530 HOURS, IN THE CONFINES OF THE 5 PRECINCT, POLICE RESPONDED TO 421 BROOME STREET AND FOUND A M/W/28 UNCONSCIOUS. THE VICTIM WAS PRONOUNCED DOA AT THE SCENE. M.E.’S OFFICE TO DETERMINE THE CAUSE OF DEATH. INVESTIGATION CONTINUES.”

Calls by The Times to Mara Buxbaum, a publicist for Mr. Ledger, and Steve Alexander, the actor’s agent, were not immediately returned this afternoon.

The building at 421 Broome Street was sold in 1999 to a company called Red Tulip, L.L.C. Calls to a phone number listed for Junia Hissa Neiva, an official at Red Tulip, went to an answering machine that was full and not receiving new messages.

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