Heath Ledger

Before international attention found him, Heath Andrew Ledger was a boy from Perth, Western Australia, acting in school and following the spark of performers close to home. Born on 4 April 1979 to Sally Ramshaw, a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, a racing car driver and mining engineer, he grew up with English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry and attended Mary’s Mount Primary School and Guildford Grammar School. At ten, he starred as Peter Pan in a school production. His older sister Kate, with whom he was very close, inspired his acting on stage, while his love of Gene Kelly helped lead to successful choreography for Guildford Grammar’s 60-member team at the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge.

Ledger’s ambition arrived early and moved fast. After sitting for early graduation exams at sixteen to get his diploma, he left school to pursue acting. With his longtime friend Trevor DiCarlo, he drove across Australia from Perth to Sydney, returning to Perth for a small role in Clowning Around and later working on the television series Sweat, where he played a cyclist. Through the 1990s he appeared in Australian television and film, including Ship to Shore, Roar, Home and Away, and Blackrock, his feature film debut. In 1998 he moved to the United States to further develop his film career.

His breakthrough came quickly. In 1999, Ledger led the teen romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You and also starred in the acclaimed Australian crime film Two Hands. The early 2000s showed the range that would define his work: supporting roles in The Patriot and Monster’s Ball, then leading or title roles in A Knight’s Tale, The Four Feathers, The Order, Ned Kelly, Casanova, The Brothers Grimm, and Lords of Dogtown. In 2001, he won a ShoWest Award as “Male Star of Tomorrow,” a label that fit the speed and confidence of his rise.

In 2005, Ledger’s portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain brought him some of the strongest recognition of his career. He received “Best Actor of 2005” awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, along with nominations for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, an Actor Award, and the Academy Award for Best Actor. At twenty-six, he became the eighth-youngest nominee in that category. He followed with Candy, opposite Abbie Cornish, and then appeared as one of six actors embodying aspects of Bob Dylan’s life and persona in Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There.

Ledger died on 22 January 2008 from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Several months earlier, he had finished filming the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, describing the character in an interview as a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy.” Released after his death, the film became his first posthumous release, and his performance earned universal acclaim and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, followed in 2009. Across only 20 films, Ledger left a body of work marked by intensity, variety, and nerve. It is easy to hear that same spirit in a line often quoted from him: “Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.”