Actor Heath Ledger’s naked body was discovered at 3:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday by his housekeeper in his apartment in the SoHo area of New York City. She was awakening him for a massage but found him unresponsive, face down on the floor. She and the masseuse dragged his body to the other room in order to revive him. He was unresponsive so they called for help. The discovery of non-prescription and prescription sleeping pills led investigators to speculate that his death was due to an overdose, an accidental one.

Born in Perth, Australia on April 4, 1979, Ledger took up acting because he did not want to take up cooking. Many of his early roles and movies were more miss than hit, until Brokeback Mountain, which spawned many comic spin-offs, as well as earning him a nomination for best actor.

Ledger was not part of the Hollywood glitterati. Today he would certainly not be counted in the highest stellar lineup of male actors and leading men, the likes of Brad Pitt and George Clooney. However, death changes everything. And he may be lionized in death in a manner that was yet to come in life. Those who knew him well said that he was all about acting. So living away from Hollywood seemed to fit his quieter (but partying), more bohemian lifestyle in New York, a town filled with the very rich and famous who aspire to melt into the hustle and bustle of big city life. 

The Dark Night, in which he plays The Joker, was his last film. While discussing this film, which he felt would help his career, he noted that the role made him sleepless.  In one interview he expressed ambivalence toward the role itself. In one way he said it was the most fun, but that his role as the psychopathic Joker left him unable to disassociate himself from it once he got home: “It was an exhausting process. At the end of the day I couldn’t move. I couldn’t talk. I was absolutely wrecked.”

Not only has his (and his fans') reaction to this role been picked up by the media but also by those who knew him. They are not suggesting suicide but perhaps depression. I mean why else would anyone have an arsenal of drugs at age 28 in their possession? If he were not trying to medicate something, legally, then he was medicating something, illegally. And that's a fact. This is where it gets muddled. He has a history of substance abuse; some say he has been clean for years. Did he create a fatal cocktail mix accidentally?