I'm pretty sure you have read this news elsewhere as well, but I felt the need to post about it anyway: One of my favorite actors, the insanely talented Heath Ledger, has passed away last night. I was flicking channels in front of the TV last night, ready to go to bed, when I fell into a news flash on one of the Dutch channels. It was the end of the piece, and all I caught were the words: "...the star of Brokeback Mountain was only 28 years old". Immediately I sat up straight and began to frantically search for 24 hour news channels that might have more info. I found that on Sky News, which hade a live feed from New York, and which had the words stamped all over the screen: Heath Ledger is dead.
I was stunned. Speechless. Of course, people die, and actors are only people too, but when somebody who is only 28, on the brink of the release of maybe the biggest movie in his career (The Dark Knight), is taken away just like that, it hits home. Hard. I had forgotten my sleepiness and just sat there in front of the television watching the front door of Ledger's apartment building, while news reporters were interviewing dozens of people, all telling how great an actor Ledger was.