Cause of Ledger's death won't be known for 10 days · 2008-01-24 16:43
The cause of 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger's death will not be known for about 10 days, a spokeswoman for New York's medical examiner said.
An autopsy on the body of Australian actor Heath Ledger, who has died aged 28, has been found to be inconclusive.
"We have to do additional testing which will include toxicology and tissue testing," the spokeswoman said.
Police said they found prescription pills at Ledger's apartment in New York. The Brokeback Mountain star died there on Tuesday, BBC informs.
The Australian died naked, alone and surrounded by prescription drugs.
Heath Ledger hated the attention, self-marketing and rootlessness that his profession demanded.
According to his family, the latter had contributed to the ending, a few months ago, of his engagement to Michelle Williams, mother of his two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose.
Little more than a year before, Ledger, in a rare public utterance about his private life, had eulogised their small family.
Andrew Ledger was born and brought up in the city of Perth, Western Australia.
His sister was named Cathy, after the Wuthering Heights heroine.
His mother taught French while his father was a mining engineer and sometime racing driver.
The boy took an interest in acting only because the alternative to drama class at his private school was cookery. His first lead was aged ten in a production of Peter Pan.
That same year his parents divorced and the rest of his childhood was spent alternating between their two homes.
While his father wanted him to go into motor sport, Ledger had other ideas and left school at 16 to pursue an acting career.
With a best friend he drove across Australia to Sydney, arriving with only a few cents in his pocket.
There he began to pick up roles in films and TV series including that staple of budding Aussie thespians, Home and Away. "I had to eat," he quipped.
A lead role in a high-camp swordsandsandals epic attracted Stateside attention and Ledger's breakthrough came in 1999, when he moved to LA.
He was given his first lead role in A Knight's Tale, a curious medieval romp with a rock "n' roll soundtrack. It was a hit and a star was born, Daily Mail reports.
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