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.
