Heath Ledger (Heath Andrew Ledger; 4 April 1979. Perth, Western Australia, Australia - 22 January 2008 Ledger, Ledger, London, USA) was an Australian television and film actor. He worked in Australian television and film in the 1990s, but moved to the United States in 1998 to pursue his film acting career. He has appeared in nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), Monster's Ball (2001), A Knight's Tale (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008). In addition to acting, he has produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
For his role as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger won the 2005 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and the 2006 Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the 2005 New York Film Critics Award. After his death, he was awarded the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award for the film I'm Not There, which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, along with other actors and a director. In the film, Ledger played fictional actor Robbie Clark, one of six characters who embody aspects of Dylan's life and personality. Ledger won many awards for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight, including an Oscar for Best Actor, and the Best International Actor Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards, where he became the first actor to be posthumously honored,[6] in 2008.
He died at the age of 28 due to an accidental "prescription drug overdose". A few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his penultimate film, The Dark Knight, and his death during the editing process overshadowed the subsequent promotion of the $180 million production. By the time of his death on 22 January 2008, he had played about half the role of Tony in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
