Friends Open Up About Heath Ledger's Last Days

Actor Heath Ledger from the film 'Candy' poses for portraits in the Chanel Celebrity Suite at the Four Season hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2006 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images)more pics » DON'T MISS

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The latest issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands July 7 and features an unlikely face on its cover: the late Oscar winner Heath Ledger. He passed away in January 2008, but only now are friends and coworkers revealing details about the actor's last days.

Although Ledger died of a prescription drug overdose, cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, who worked on Heath's last film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, claimed he had cleaned up his act. "[He] used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis, like probably 50 percent of Americans," she said, but after it became an issue, he “went clean as a whistle." Vocal coach Gerry Grennell backed up the claim, insisting, "Heath would happily go to the bar, buy a round of drinks for friends, and come back and have a soda or juice, never once drinking alcohol."



Michelle and Matilda in New York (click for larger image).
From the interviews conducted with those close to Heath, it sounds like his failed relationship with Michelle Williams (also mother to his daughter Matilda) led him to rely on sleeping pills to combat his insomnia toward the end of his life. The couple started dating on the set of Brokeback Mountain, but the romance fell apart during Oscar season. "The whole machinery started growing up around them,” said Terry Gilliam, director of Imaginarium. “That was the moment when it changed, when he realized, Uh-oh. We perceive the world differently. He didn’t care about things like those awards." What ensued was a legal battle in which Ledger "was trying to be decent and graceful, give her whatever she wanted," until custody of Matilda came into question.

Then, Heath apparently snapped and stopped sleeping. He would spend nights awake, passing the time by rearranging furniture and relying on sleep medication. Grennell said: Everyone has a different view of how he passed away. From my perspective, and knowing him as well as I did, and being around him as much as I was, it was a combination of exhaustion, sleeping medication … and perhaps the aftereffects of the flu. I guess his body just stopped breathing. And as much as Ledger loved acting, he didn't care much about being a celebrity. He hesitated to accept blockbuster roles and only committed to The Dark Knight, his agent said, because it gave him an excuse to turn down other offers. His deal with the Dark Knight producers ensured he would be paid no matter what, so he could play the Joker however he wanted. Apparently he hoped his take on the character would be so off-the-wall that he'd be fired and able to take a long vacation. Instead, he won an Oscar.

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