Tragic end to uplifting story

THE_world went into shock last week at the untimely death of rising star, Heath Ledger, who, it appears, has joined the ranks of River Phoenix, John Belushi and 60s "it girl" Eddie Sedgwick - all enigmatic stars on the rise whose lives were cut short through accidental drug overdoses.

Born in Perth, Western Australia, on April 4th 1979, Heath Ledger's acting life started at the age of 10 in a school production of Peter Pan. In high school, his school's curriculum meant he had to choose between two electives - cooking or drama.

Not seeing himself in the kitchen, he chose drama and while his talent was obvious, the rest of his classmates didn't seem to want to acknowledge it so at the age of 17 he and a friend decided to pack up and try their luck in Sydney.

While he first came to the attention of the world in 1999 as a teen heart-throb in teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, his proclivity for meatier roles, that became so apparent in his later career, was obvious much earlier. In 1996, he was offered the choice of two roles in an Australian programme called Sweat, about a group of Olympic hopefuls. Between swimmer and gay cyclist he chose the cyclist, recognising at a young age that to stand out and be noticed he needed to play the more controversial of the two parts.

A move to Hollywood found him minimal success at first but when Australian director Gregor Jordan gave him the lead in the acclaimed Australian film Two Hands, his talent was finally noticed and he won the role of Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate About You.

It was his 2005 role as gay cowboy Ennis Del Mar (alongside love interest Jake Gyllenhaal) in Brokeback Mountain that finally earned him the acclaim his talent deserved with an Oscar nomination and 'Best Actor of 2005' awards from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle.

Heath had just completed his highly-anticipated role as The Joker in the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, and was in mid-production of the film The Imagination of Doctor Parnassus when the tragedy of his death hit the world last Tuesday.

To be found dead, naked and face down on his bed seems like such an unfitting ending to a man who was famous for being shy and in the words of his father: "...down to earth, generous, kind hearted, life loving, an unselfish individual and extremely inspirational to many".

While the likes of River Phoenix and John Belushi had highly publicised problems with drugs, an early death for them was sad but highly likely. Ledger's appears to be the result of an accidental over dose of sleeping tablets. His split from Brokeback Mountain co-star and mother of his two-year-old daughter, Michelle Williams, along with his professional anxieties had been taking a heavy toll on him and in November he told the New York Times that: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking.

"My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going," adding that he had taken two Ambien pills (sleeping tablets), that only worked for an hour.

If that's true, it's conceivable that the tiredness got so much for him that he just kept taking more tablets each time he woke up without realising how many he was actually taking, resulting in the accidental overdose that his death seems to be.

There are some 250,000 deaths around the world every day and we go about our lives never really hearing about them or taking time out to even consider them. And why would we? We've never heard of the majority of people that have died but when someone like Heath Ledger, whom no of us knew personally but many felt they knew as a result of his public persona, it makes you stop for a minute and think about what is one of the most common, yet often out of mind, occurrences on the planet - death.

And why is it that a person we have never met can affect so many people when he ceases to be? When people die accidental deaths every day why does the death of an actor have a reaction as wide spread and startling as that of Heath Ledger?

There's something about a movie star that rises above the appeal of musicians or sport stars. While rock or pop stars and athletes appeal to fans with one particular taste or another, most actors transcend those barriers and are enjoyed by one and all.

They grow up before our eyes in their successive roles and we follow their careers and personal lives as they unfold in the media.

We like to see the young and the gifted do well for themselves and we like it even more when they are beautiful people to look at.

While athletes and musicians don't need to be physically attractive or particularly charismatic to do well, most actors are, resulting in more mass appeal than any other profession.

No one should ever have to bury their child and while we expect the older generation - who have lived a long and fulfilling life - to eventually die, the young are meant to live forever.

It is the very fact that Heath Ledger had so very much going for him, with a career and star set to rise so high, that makes his death so very tragic.

Joe Queenan of The Guardian had it right when he wrote of the death: "There is something that violated the basic laws of drama. Ledger wasn't supposed to die before Gibson died (reference to their roles in the Patriot), not in a motion picture, not in real life. It's not fair. It's not right. It's a terrible way to end what was otherwise a very uplifting story".