[kieran]

Just saw a headline that said Heath Ledger was found dead in his NY apartment. No story yet.

He plays Joker in the upcoming "the Dark Knight."

He was young too. I like him as an actor. Actors seem to die too young. I don't get it.

R.I.P Joker.

[Windswept]

Omg!

And Brad Renfro just a few days ago.

[Moogs]

WTF. That's crazy. Any word on suspected illness / foul play / what happened? Too early to know I guess. Well if it was Hollywood vice, I hope the drugs and sex right before he died were really good.

I am beyond jaded. I can barely even feel bad until I know more about what happened. I know it's sad such a relatively young, talented person is dead but... then I am reminded about how many people with everything, willfully throw it away and am left wondering if this is another case.

Like when Amy Winehouse dies; I won't feel even a little bad except for her family maybe. Just too predictable. But can't say this was. Then again I do not follow "celebrity culture" AT ALL, so I'm the last person who would know if they guy had issues.

[Yonzie]

Ouch. I liked Batman Begins and just saw the trailer for The Dark Knight, which seems to go on in the same vein.

[faust]

Sadly it sounds like pills.

He leaves behind a 2 year old daughter.

[PKIDelirium]

CNN's got a full article up now: http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movi...ead/index.html

[iThink therefore iMac]

Ant the NYTimes has an article about it. I'm actually surprised they mentioned his address in the article!

[Xaqtly]

Well The Dark Knight is in post production, so they must have finished shooting. That's crazy, I wonder what happened to him. Oh now somebody just told me he had massive amounts of heroin in his bloodstream... totally unconfirmed though.

[PKIDelirium]

I'm not, addresses are published in the police blotters all the time.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by kieran23kk Actors seem to die too young. I don't get it.

What's there to "get"...a lot of them "die young" from fucking around with substances that can kill you. No real mystery in many of these cases, unfortunately.

Remember River Phoenix? He had the world in his hand, and easily could've been one of the top actors out there. He died on the sidewalk in front of a Hollywood nightclub in the worst way imaginable.



Sad about Ledger. Not sure what the reason was, but let's just say I'll be surprised if it was "natural causes". Maybe I'm wrong, my gut tells me otherwise...

I'm sorry, I just find it such a sad, horrible waste...nobody should die that way.

Horrible news.

[autodata]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 What's there to "get"...a lot of them "die young" from fucking around with substances that can kill you. No real mystery in many of these cases, unfortunately.

Can't be that simple considering the high number of people who do drugs and don't die.

[faust]

Originally Posted by autodata Can't be that simple considering the high number of people who do drugs and don't die.

?

How many people do drugs and die and we just don't hear about it. I'm sure many no-names die each week from drugs.

[digitalprimate]

Feels weird. What a waste of potential.

[thegeriatric]

Sad, So very sad, such a waste.

[electroniccpluralsleep]

You're all missing the bright side of this. Every single guy in the world just moved up one place on the global good looks list. A good deal from where I'm standing.

[murbot]

I was really hoping this was one of those bad joke thread titles.

Damn.

[psmith2.0]

Eh...nevermind.

Just a sad, lousy thing to happen.

[MBHockey]

Jesus fucking christ, this makes me so pissed off and sad at the same time. Poor guy, he seemed genuinely good-hearted. He has a two year old child

[Naderfan]

I'm a bit shocked, in part because I don't follow entertainment news all that much, but more because I just never heard anything about him going nuts and being seen doing crazy stuff or falling apart a la Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears or whatever.

Very sad, at any rate.

[autodata]

Originally Posted by faust ? How many people do drugs and die and we just don't hear about it. I'm sure many no-names die each week from drugs.

Well, on the deadly end of the spectrum a generous estimate of the annual death rate due to overdose for heroin addicts is about 1-1.5% (cigarettes are at about .7-.8%), while on the other end we have drugs like marijuana with an extremely low to non-existent death rate. If you are really interested, I could help guide you in an analysis and comparison of the rates, although I'm not immediately sure whether anyone has compiled data on actor drug usage rates.

It would be interesting to know whether there's a higher overdose death rate among celebrity drug users, whether there is higher hard drug use among celebrities or whether it's just a matter of these deaths being more widely reported. I would guess some sort of combination of all three.

Come to think of it, it would probably be useful to also compare the suicide rates and overall death rates of young actors vs the general population.

[Taskiss]

With a practically unlimited amount of money (for all intents and purposes), I believe extremes in behavior and the consequences that result are inevitable.

I remember a study where rats were allowed to self-medicate with some kind of hard drug (could have been Cocaine) and no attempts were made to control their behavior. All of the rats died.

[Kickaha]

I'm in a coffee shop in Manhattan at the moment, and this is *all people are talking about*. It's like they all knew him personally. I swear to god one girl was weeping.

WTF? I mean jeez, sorry the guy is dead, I feel really pretty damned bad about his family and daughter, that really sucks, but... people. Just because you drooled over him in a magazine does not make you BFF. Srsly.

[Windswept]

Moogs, here's a comment about Heath Ledger from a bbc reader.

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thre...1757#paginator

I worked with Heath Ledger on Four Feathers in 2001, for six weeks he came to the Wychwood Studios, Mursley, Buckingham. When Heath walked in to a room, it was filled with sunshine. A beautiful young man, with a smile that warmed your heart. He always was so happy and had a beauty that radiated from with in. Only the good die young, Sally Fox, Buckingham

She knew him back when he was 21 or so. Back when he was still looking forward to a great future.

I remember liking him back then, in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. He did have a great smile. It would blaze across the screen.

What a shame. As everyone has said, this is such a complete waste of a promising life.

[World Leader Pretend]

Originally Posted by Kickaha I'm in a coffee shop in Manhattan at the moment, and this is *all people are talking about*. It's like they all knew him personally. I swear to god one girl was weeping.

Funny, that's exactly where I am! (different state maybe)

The two girls I was with kept talking about it. No tears though... that would be a bit weird.

[scratt]

I am stunned... Heath Ledger was an exceptionally nice guy. I met him with Mel Gibson several years ago when we were part of a group discussing a possible movie tie in. There are a lot of other people who this kind of thing seems more likely to happen to, and perhaps (IMO) I would rather see this happen to.

Very interested to hear on the drug angle... You have to be pretty dumb, stupid, unlucky, or get really bad shit to die at this age from a drugs overdose. If I think about the number of times in my twenties I went berserk on stupid cocktails of drugs, and then downed half a dozen valium and a couple of liters of some alcohol just to try and sleep.. and still woke up.

One thing I note is that it's always a bottle of prescription drugs found by the bed side.. not some 'works' and a baggie.

RIP Heath. Hated Brokeback, but loved everything else you did..

[Windswept]

A lot of people have *so* much trouble getting a good night's sleep.

I heard one commentator quoting Heath as having said he'd take two Ambiens, and only get one hour's sleep from the two pills.

People get exhausted, yet when they go to bed, they can't sleep; and, in desperation, they'll start trying virtually anything to get some sleep, so they can face their scheduled commitments the next day. Ambien + alchohol.

I think someone should invent a monitor of some kind, that people with sleeping difficulties and taking sleep meds. could wear to bed, that would wake them up with a loud alarm if their heart rate or respiratory rate fell below a certain level during the night.

I mean, two Ambiens might not work at 'all' one night, but might work 'much' too well the next night. The sleeping person has no way of watching over this, unless he's hooked up to a monitoring system of some kind.

I bet Heath would be alive today if such a system had been available to him. The system would have to be easy to use, and small enough for travel.

Maybe it could hook into a hotel's phone system and automatically call the desk for assistance; or, if at home, it could make an automatic 911 call.

'Something' along those lines anyway.

[Taskiss]

Originally Posted by Windswept I think someone should invent a monitor of some kind, that people with sleeping difficulties and taking sleep meds. could wear to bed, that would wake them up with a loud alarm if their heart rate or respiratory rate fell below a certain level during the night.

They have. My mother-in-law uses one.

http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/personal/apnea.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPAP

This public service announcement brought to you by Taskiss. Always wear a seat belt.

And clean underwear.

[LudwigVan]

I heard on a cable show on the night of Ledger's death that the actor was suffering from pneumonia at the time of this death, though to what severity the illness manifested itself wasn't mentioned. Could be a combination of a number of things.

[Wyatt]

This really is tragic. He was a great talent, and he seemed like one of the few Hollywood-types with his head squarely on his shoulders.

What's even more tragic, though, is the parade of assholes saying he deserved to die because of his role in Brokeback Mountain (which I thought was a great film, if any of you haven't seen it). As you might have suspected, those assholes from Westboro are going to protest his funeral.

Originally Posted by MSNBC.com “You cannot live in defiance of God. He (Ledger) got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it's OK to be gay,” said Shirley Phelps in a statement sent out by the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Get the full article here.

[709]

Those WBC people really need to die.


Painfully.