Thursday, January 24, 2008

Heath Ledger



My husband got a text from his friend, first thing on Wednesday morning. Heath Ledger is dead...

I don't know that he was the greatest actor who lived or anything, but I'm sad about it. I thought he was gorgeous, intelligent, funny. Charismatic. His face is like the comic/tragic masks.

I couldn't help but be reminded of how it felt when River Phoenix died. It might have been the night I met my husband, actually, we were all walking from pub to club along the seafront, with a case of Heineken, and raised a toast to him. I felt that loss more keenly, I suppose because he was much more of my generation and we'd grown up with him - Heath Ledger wasn't in Stand By Me after all. But still - I think he could have been. And I think he seemed enough of a - I don't know what the word is - not character, not star, just someone who shone brightly enough that the world will miss him, even just a little.

It's even harder if his overdose was a simple accident, as I've heard suggested (though perhaps I haven't been keeping up with the gossip), if he didn't die through hedonism, or self destruction. And he has a family, though I think he'd recently split up with his wife. How awful for his daughter. How awful to lose someone so remotely, while they're far away and alone in a hotel room.

3 comments:

  1. It's true. I felt River Phoenix's death as a great tragedy. I think he was of the same omni-popular ilk as Johnny Depp but with something extra too. I don't think Ledger was the same but it's still a tragedy. So many drug related deaths these days. I'm just glad Owen Wilson survived.

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  2. As do I. When we all start psychically posting about the same things at the same times then we know there's trouble afoot.

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