Heath Ledger on the August cover of Vanity Fair
If anyone thought Heath Ledger was going to rest in peace and his legacy in the entertainment industry would be allowed to speak for itself, forget it.
The August edition of pop culture Bible Vanity Fair has a cover story on the Academy Award winning actor which dissects his final days and speculates on the break down of his relationship with Michelle Williams. Writer Peter Biskind quotes Ledger’s colleagues who variously claim the 28-year-old once smoked marijuana on a regular basis until it became a problem when he gave it up and became “clean as a whistle”: was addicted to sleeping pills (nothing new there): and had a rapidly deteriorating relationship with the mother of his child from whom he had already split.
No doubt the comments about the relationship with Williams are going to have the biggest impact. What will she make of the public vivisection of her failed relationship with her Brokeback Mountain co-star and subsequent custody and settlement battles as portrayed by VF?
Take a look at this excerpt from Vanity Fair, which quotes Terry Gilliam, the director of Ledger’s final film Doctor Parnassus, and another “source”:
“He was trying to be decent and graceful, give her whatever she wanted—the house, every fucking thing. But once it started going south, it went very quickly. He was overwhelmed by lawyers, and there were more and more of them, as if they were breeding. I said, ‘This is bullshit. Heath, just end it. Get out—it’s bad. You’ve got to just walk away from it.’ The stakes kept going up. He wouldn’t listen to any of us.”
As Ledger’s relationship with Williams unraveled, and the pair started dealing with lawyers and custody issues, according to Gilliam, Ledger fell apart. “The thing that really made Heath snap” was legal wrangling over his daughter, Matilda, Gilliam says. “He said, ‘Just fuck all of you! I’m not giving Michelle anything.’???” Recalls another source, when it came to Matilda’s care, “there were definitely heated conversations, and emotions were high.” (Ledger’s lawyer declined to comment on any aspect of the separation or custody dispute.)
“I’m not giving Michelle anything”? Do you really think Ledger would resort to such tough tactics? Is anyone worried that revelations over his wrangling with Williams about Matilda and property might damage Ledger’s legacy and reputation?
I interviewed a then teenaged Ledger back in 1997 for US magazine, TV Guide. The magazine wanted to know all about this young Aussie was who had scored a big break on American TV with the Shaun Cassidy (remember him?) produced series, Roar. Back then, Ledger was a shy bloke who seemed genuinely surprised that he had been hand-picked by a US producer for the series, which was shot on the Gold Coast. Cassidy was extremely prescient: he said the young Australian was a stand-out in his auditions and as history tells it, Cassidy’s early talent spotting was proved right.
Oh, and Ledger was a decent young man.
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