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Heath Ledger obituary: An actor of promise

Heath Ledger, who has died aged 28, was one of the most promising actors of his generation, best known for his sensitive performance as one of two cowboys who embark on a homosexual relationship in Ang Lee’s film Brokeback Mountain (2005).
Ledger was Ennis Del Mar to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist, two ranch-hands who meet in Wyoming in the early 1960s.
They are thrown together looking after sheep in a remote mountain range, and fall in love.
When the job comes to an end, they resume life in the outside world, both marrying and having children. Four years later they meet again, and the relationship is rekindled.
Given the theme, making the film at all was considered a commercial risk, but Ang Lee had no doubts.
And he had no doubts about Ledger’s suitablility for the part of the taciturn Del Mar: "He’s the person that’s the best to carry that western brooding mood - elegiac and fearful and violent, all the complexities, all the poetic qualities."
Ledger himself was unsure if he should take the role, but concluded: "I didn’t feel like I had a career to risk."
In the event, critics and audiences alike were delighted, particularly by Ledger’s performance.
Even E Annie Proulx - on whose short story the film was based - remarked: "How did this actor get inside my head so well? He understood more about the character than I did."
The picture won four Golden Globes (including for best dramatic film and best director) and was nominated for eight Oscars, of which it won three (best director, best adapted screenplay and best score).
Ledger, nominated for best actor, lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote.
A young man of considerable charm and refreshing modesty, Ledger thought deeply about his craft and set himself high standards which he sometimes feared he was incapable of achieving.
"I don’t really like to do the same thing twice," he said in 2005. "I like to do something I fear. I like to set up obstacles and defeat them."
Heathcliff Andrew Ledger was born in Australia on April 4 1979, the son of Kim Ledger, a mining engineer, and his wife Sally, who taught French.
His first name was a tribute to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, as was that of his older sister, Katherine.
He was educated privately at Guildford Grammar School, in Perth, Western Australia.
His parents divorced when he was 11. While still a boy Heath joined a local theatre club and was soon appearing in children’s television shows.
In 1992 he was cast in a film, Clowning Around, and the next year was seen in a television series, Ship to Shore.
At the same time he showed promise in other areas, as a junior go-kart racing champion and, aged only 10, as Western Australia’s junior chess champion; he also represented Western Australia at hockey.
Acting, however, was the course he chose to follow.
When he was 16, Heath made his way to Sydney, where he was cast as a gay cyclist in a television series called Sweat.
He also appeared briefly in the soap opera Home and Away.
After another TV series, in which he played a Celtic warrior, he resolved to try his luck in Hollywood.
"I went over there," he later recalled, "with no expectations and all the confidence of youth."
He was soon back in Australia, however, to play a strip-joint bouncer in a film called Two Hands, for which the Australian Film Institute nominated him for a best actor award.
In 1999 Ledger appeared in 10 Things I Hate About You, with Julia Stiles.
Although essentially a lightweight, teen romance, critics were impressed by his performance, and Ledger found himself offered a succession of similar parts, a development that he did not welcome.
For a year he accepted no work, and was reduced to borrowing money from his agent to survive; for much of the time, he claimed, he lived on "noodles and water".
"I’m happy without money," he told one interviewer. "I never did have it, so that was no big deal. And it was fun saying No - because they really don’t like to hear that word in Hollywood."
In 2000, however, Ledger’s career suddenly prospered again when he was offered in a part in The Patriot, the film about the American Revolution starring Mel Gibson.
Ledger, cast as Gibson’s son, delighted the critics, one of whom described him as "smouldering on screen".
In A Knight’s Tale (2001) he played a squire who disguises himself as a nobleman in order to participate in jousting tournaments.
If the film itself was somewhat inconsequential, Ledger again won praise - and now he began to have misgivings about his increasing celebrity, misgivings which were never entirely erased.
After another TV series, in which he played a Celtic warrior, he resolved to try his luck in Hollywood.
"I went over there," he later recalled, "with no expectations and all the confidence of youth."
He was soon back in Australia, how

(Pictures are distorted from camera and cropping all cards are in MINT Condition)
Personal Information
Born July 1, 1977 (age 34)
Edmonton, AB, CAN
Height 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Weight 214 lb (97 kg; 15 st 4 lb)
Position Right wing
Shoots Right

Career
NHL team Calgary Flames
National team Canada
NHL Draft 11th overall, 1995
Dallas Stars
Playing career 1996–present

Honors and Awards
Memorial Cup Championship team 1994, 1995
George Parsons Trophy 1995
WHL West First All-Star team 1996
Four Broncos Memorial Trophy 1996
CHL First All-Star team 1996

NHL
NHL All-Rookie Team 1997
First team All-Star 2002, 2008, 2009
Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy 2002, 2004
Art Ross Trophy 2002
Lester B. Pearson Award 2002
ESPY Best NHL Player 2002, 2004
Second team All-Star 2004
King Clancy Memorial Trophy 2004
NHL Foundation Player Award 2004
Mark Messier Leadership Award 2009

Calgary Flames team awards
Molson Cup 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008
Ralph T. Scurfield Humanitarian Award 2001, 2002
J. R. McCaig Award 2008

International
World Junior First All-Star team 1996
World Junior Best Forward 1996