Heath Ledger, the Joker in New Batman the Dark Knight, dead at 28.
Updated, 6:45 p.m. | The actor Heath Ledger was found dead this afternoon in an apartment in Manhattan, according to the New York City police. Signs pointed to a suicide or an accidental overdose, police sources said. Mr. Ledger was 28.
At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived at the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They moved his body to the floor and attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.
The police said they did not suspect foul play. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the office of the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, said that employees of the office were at the apartment and that an autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday. Around 6:30 p.m., city workers rolled Mr. Ledger’s body, in a black body bag on a stretcher, out of the building.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, initially said that the apartment was owned by the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, but later reversed himself and said that was not the case.
A representative of Ms. Olsen said that the apartment did not belong to the actress. “It is not her apartment,” the representative, Annette Wolf, a publicist for Ms. Olsen, said in a phone interview. “She does not own the apartment. She has never owned the apartment. She and her sister have an apartment in New York City but they are not in this building.”
Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born April 4, 1979 to Sally Ledger, a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, an engineer. Named after one of the main characters of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” He and his older sister, Katherine, grew up in Perth, Australia; his parents were divorced when he was about 10. As a student, he joined a local theater company and appeared in a production of “Peter Pan,” which led to his being cast in children’s television programs.
Mr. Ledger’s first Hollywood film was the teenage romantic comedy “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999). He later appeared in romantic-hero roles in films like “A Knight’s Tale” (2001) and “Casanova” (2005).