Heath Ledger dead at 28

That's a bloody good question.

It's not my knowledge / understanding of this area.

Sheeesh! Not everything you read on the Internet is correct, you know.

I think the horse is dying on that one. Everyone will have an opinion -- even different psychologists or psychiatrists will have a different opinion. The point was that Ledger may have been experiencing a psychotic episode, and that would mean he wasn't in his right mind when he took the medications and perhaps double or triple dosed. Then again, he might just have been trying to sleep. His behavior at the part certainly showed he was disconnected from reality.

Back to the Blabtists:


Aussie baptists denounce Ledger picket

January 26, 2008 12:12pm
Article from: AAP


THE Baptist Union of Australia has moved to distance itself from members of a US church who are planning to picket memorial services for Australian actor Heath Ledger.
The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas said it would protest any memorial held for Ledger in the US because the 28-year-old actor supported homosexuals when he played a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

Baptist Union of Australia president Reverend Ross Clifford said Australian baptists were not associated with the Westboro church.

He said the thoughts and prayers of Australian baptists were with Ledger's family and friends in their grief and sadness.

"The intention of ... Westboro Baptist Church members to picket the memorial services is completely inappropriate,'' he said.

"Their statements are increasingly extreme and counter-productive.''

Westboro parishioner Shirley Phelps told Sydney radio station 2Day FM she would picket services.
"I'm going to picket him in two places,'' she told 2Day FM.

"I'm going to stand outside of any public memorial service that he has here.

"And then the other place I'm going to picket him is when they prop him up to worship his dead, rotting carcass further at the Oscars. I'll be right outside by the red carpet.''

The church has ruled out travelling to Australia for the funeral.

Ledger's family will hold a private memorial in New York today.

A public remembrance has also been proposed for Los Angeles in the coming days.

Details of any services in Australia have not been released.

Oh geez. The family deserves their peace like anyone else would.

It's sad. Any time someone (and he happens to be my age) takes their own life, it is sad.

That's about all the thought I've put into it. Someone I don't know died - took his own life - usual mixed reaction in me at hearing about a suicide of sadness, little bit of anger too.

The anger I think is a bit more this time because he did choose to be a public figure. I feel that since he made that choice, he did have a responsibility to set a certain example and to take his power seriously. And yet, he turned his back on all that and left a mess for other people to work out for him.

His age and his work while he was here, made this final message all the more horrible.

What he did is forgivable, but to me personally - the tragedy is overshadowed by this sense of a life of such indulgence.

He seems very human, is all.

Did I missed something?
Has it been determined that he committed suicide?

No, it's only conjecture. We're just getting off of playing armchair psychiatrist, but like most psychiatry, it's only opinion. This is why doctor's are said to be practicing medicine. Especially with psychological ailments, they are, after all, only practicing. In the end, if Heath was seeing one doctor, those prescription drugs were extremely risky if he was not under psychiatric care and therapy. I don't know any psychologist or psychiatrists who well tell anyone they can "cure" alcoholism or drug addiction (since alcohol is a drug, that is also drug addiction). They can help with the withdrawals if the patient is seriously giving up on those addictions. I just don't believe a GP or any doctor not qualified as at least a psychologist should be despensing those drugs and especially not those mixtures of drugs. Of course, one can get those out-of-the-country without prescriptions.

(Of course, Tom Cruise believes Scientology can cure you of drug and alcohol addiction if you want to believe we all have blood in our veins from aliens from space). The white tennis shoes, cots and being taken aboard spaceships I suppose will come later. If it's the spaceships in "Battlefield Earth" and John Travolta is the pilot in dreadlocks and Carmen Miranda come
f**k me pumps, I would worry.

It's conjecture that he committed suicide?

It seems to be at this point. A lot remains unclear. Some possible scenarios include:

- he took sleeping pills to sleep, then somehow suffocated (found face-down)

- he took sleeping pills to sleep and accidentally combined them with something else that caused a fatal reaction

- he had pneumonia and some combination of this and that caused a fatal reaction


Lots more, but point is from what little we know, nothing is definite yet.

Number one from what we do know is the most believable but all three could have been in play. He was likely still not breathing right because of the bout with pneumonia, although we don't know if he was still taking antibiotics or prescription expectorants. The maid heard him snoring and was not alarmed. I never heard anyone snore sleeping face down so if he rolled over and the pillow was constricting his already poor breathing, he might have died from suffocation.

We're going to have to be patient -- I'm a humanist, probably to a fault, and am concerned about anyone dying, especially so young. I don't care if I didn't approve of his acting (some of it I didn't, some of it I thought was brilliant), his choice of clothing styles (he was, after all, a throw back to the hippie generation) -- it's really what he could have done. I understand from scuttlebutt in the industry from phone calls about Heath's death that he is the most compelling villain in the new Batman film since Hannibal Lector and make Jack Nicholson's turn as The Joker look like a lot of clowning around (which it was).

I was just checking because, from mushypancakes post, it sounded as if it had been somehow determined and I thought that perhaps a note had been found or something.

I'm sorry. My knowledge was obviously incomplete before speaking, eoe!

Thanks for the clue-in, guys.

Yep, no note. Of course, I could be wrong and he was seeing a psychiatrist who prescribed the medication. Just from his personality, I kind of doubt it.
It would help to know if the doctor was in the US or the UK where he was making Terry Gilliam's film and, I believe, was where he contracted the walking pneumonia. Oh, well, foggy London town!

NEWS OF LEDGER's DEATH CAUSES INTERNET MELTDOWN

8:49AM Friday January 25, 2008
By Eveline Jenkin

As news of Heath Ledger's death broke, news sites across the globe reported huge traffic spikes.

As news of Heath Ledger's death broke, news sites across the globe reported huge traffic spikes.

Heath Ledger's death in New York two days ago caused one of the biggest internet frenzies ever, with news websites and search engines experiencing huge traffic spikes.

The news led to the third-highest day of traffic ever for nzherald.co.nz and came on the back of a strong week, with news about Sir Edmund Hillary's funeral and the fluctuations in world stockmarkets dominating the headlines.

On Tuesday, coverage of Sir Ed's death led to the site's second-highest day of traffic ever. Only the All Blacks' loss to France at last year's Rugby World Cup led to a higher number of page views.

Within half an hour of breaking the news of Ledger's death, nzherald.co.nz traffic jumped dramatically.

The story had the second-highest number of hits ever in its first hour on the site, second only to the news of that infamous rugby match last October.

The trend was reflected across the globe, with news sites in Ledger's home country of Australia likening the spikes to those experienced following the shock death of Steve Irwin in 2006.

The Sydney Morning Herald's website reported that unique browsers visiting its website rose almost 250 per cent compared with Tuesday's figures and page impressions jumped a staggering 60 per cent.

Melbourne's theage.com.au also recorded much greater than usual traffic and more than 60 per cent of the traffic on both news sites was from visitors viewing stories or photo galleries of the 28-year-old actor.

The news also caused a sudden jump in searches relating to Heath Ledger.

On nzherald.co.nz there was a 71 per cent increase in search engine referrals, with Heath Ledger related searches making up five of the top 10 searches.

Yahoo reported that four of the fastest moving searches on its Buzz index were related to the actor and searches on the name "Heath Ledger" rocketed a staggering 110,285 per cent.

"A solid 62 per cent of those searches came from women, and the biggest search traffic came from New York, Arizona, and California," Yahoo said.

Similarly, Google's "Hot Trends" list of the 100 fastest rising searches for January 22 contained 25 refering to Ledger, seven of which were in the top 10.

Misspellings of the actor's name were prevalent in the Google list, with entries recorded for "Keith Ledger", "Keith Fletcher", Keith Legend" and Heath Fletcher".

Searches for Ledger's movies and the names of his former partner (Michelle Williams) and daughter (Matilda) were also popular, as was the New York city street address where he was found dead (421 Broome Street).

However a quick look at today's "Hot Trends" list shows how fickle the public can be in its consumption of news.

Searches on the actor have almost completely dropped off the top 100 list, with only one direct reference to the actor in position 31.

That search is: "John Gibson Heath Ledger" and takes people to stories about a Fox News talk show host who has been taken to task for offensive comments he made about the actor's death.

(I hope John Gibson finally gets thrown out on his fat ass -- he doesn't deserve to be in journalism unless it's The National Enquirer).

John Gibson on Heath Ledger

It appears we have some rightwing John Gibsons on this forum as well.

He's always been a slimeball as far as I'm concerned.

Next -- we find out John Gibson is addicted to prescription drugs are is f**king in public bathrooms.

Writing of Gibsons, Mel Gibson had distanced himself from Heath Ledger after accepting the role in "Brokeback Mountain" and went so far as to state that it was "against his faith." Gee, do you suppose Mel did Heath a favor?

Daniel Day Lewis who also played a gay character early in his career when it was even braver in the mid-Eighties during the Reagan gay paranoia and homophobia in the early days of AIDS, accepted the SAG Award last night and dedicated to Heath Ledger:

http://www.thetimes.co.za/Entertainment/CelebZone/Article.aspx?id=693126

Heath Ledger's death may have been natural

By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles and Martina Smit
Last Updated: 2:06pm GMT 29/01/2008

Heath Ledger may have died from natural causes, not a drug overdose, because the amount of drugs in his system was too low to have killed him, it has been reported.

TMZ, the celebrity website that broke the news of the actor's death last Tuesday, quoted sources "intimately connected with the investigation" saying that the 28-year-old may have died from a heart attack.

Overdose may not have killed Heath Ledger
Sources claim that the level of drugs in Heath Ledger's system was too low to cause his death

"It's now appearing that the level of toxicity (from medication) in Ledger's system was low enough that it may not have caused his death. These sources say Heath's heart stopped," the website reported.

Initial tests on the body of the star of Brokeback Mountain proved inconclusive, but Ledger's family has insisted that he would not have taken his own life.

In an article published yesterday, Sarah Lyall, who conducted the last interview with the actor in November, said Ledger "did not seem depressed, or suicidal or whacked out from drugs" when they met.

"What he seemed was exhausted," Lyall told the Observer. "It looked to me like the sort of fatigue you get not from being tired of life, but from being too full of it - too full of plans, too full of self-analysis, too full of noisy thoughts that won't stay quiet."
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The actress Naomi Watts, Ledger's former girlfriend, was reported to have visited the Los Angeles mortuary where his body was being kept. She was also said to have joined Ledger's family and friends in a private memorial ceremony.

His body was expected to be flown to Australia today, where it was thought that a funeral would be held in Perth, his home city.
# Heath Ledger immortalised by internet fans

On Saturday evening a moving tribute by Ledger's father, Kim, in which he remembered his son riding a skateboard through the streets of New York, was read out during an Australian ball at the city's Waldorf Astoria hotel.

"Heath did not become an actor for the fame or fortune," Mr Ledger wrote of his son.

"He loved his craft and he loved helping his friends. He loved chess and skateboarding too. My image of Heath in New York is him with his skateboard, a canvas bag and his beanie. "

"That was Heath to me."

An iconic photo of Ledger, smiling and leaning back in a cowboy hat in Brokeback Mountain, was projected onto a screen as Australia's consul-general to the US, John Olsen, read out the tribute.

"Heath is, and always will be, an Australian," wrote Mr Ledger, who flew to America to escort his son's body back to Perth. "He adored his home. His last two weeks with us over Christmas in Perth were just bliss."

Earlier Daniel Day-Lewis, the British actor, interrupted Oprah Winfrey on her celebrity talk show to pay tribute to Ledger.

Fighting back tears, the 50-year-old Oscar hopeful said he had "marvelled" at Ledger's work. At the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Robert Redford, the veteran actor, talked about the impact of Ledger's death, comparing it to the shock caused by the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

"That's too young to check out. It was a shock," Redford said.

He described Ledger as "one of those actors who was very, very special because he played so many different kinds of roles".

Last night Day-Lewis also dedicated his Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance in "There Will Be Blood" to Ledger.

"In Brokeback Mountain he was unique, he was perfect," Day-Lewis said. "That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I think I've ever seen."

Backstage, Day-Lewis said he never met Ledger but the actor's death was all he had been thinking about recently.

"I thought he was beautiful. I just had a very strong feeling I would have liked him very much as a man," he said. "I admired him very much. I'm absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life.

They Like to Piss on Good (Dead) Men (so fu ck 'em)

Nice things to say about someone who did not overdose huh?

That's a cool downhill longboard he's on. Beautiful deck. Great pic. Thanks

I think that Heath Ledger was one of the greatest actors of this generation. Anyone who acted as well as he did in "Brokeback" deserves that accolade. I understand that his next movie was to have been a remake of "Bang The Drum Slowly" where he was to have played the part of either the pitcher or the catcher.