Oscar winning and 1x nominee actor Heath Ledger graces the cover and pages of Vanity Fair August issue in their posthumous coverage of his supposedly “final days”. The issue hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 1 and nationally Tuesday, July 7. Here are excerpts from the article:
How Ledger cleaned up: Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, who worked with Ledger on his last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, says Ledger used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis, like probably 50 percent of Americans. But after it became an issue, Ledger went clean as a whistle. And vocal coach Gerry Grennell, who worked and lived with the actor during the filming of The Dark Knight, says Ledger even stopped drinking: 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.
How chronic insomnia may have led to his death: Ledger’s use of sleeping medication to combat chronic insomnia at the end of his life was of more concern to Grennell. I’d say, ‘If you can possibly bear it to stop taking the medications, do, because they don’t seem to be doing you any good.’ He agreed. It is very difficult for me to imagine how close he came to not taking them.
Ledger would typically spend night after night awake, diverting himself with time killers, Biskind reports, such as re-arranging the furniture in whatever space he happened to be living in at the moment. Grennell coached him in the Alexander Technique, which helped him to sleep for a few hours at a time, but he still struggled.
Everyone has a different view of how he passed away, Grennell tells Biskind. 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.
You can see additional pix and read the full article @ vanityfair.com. var addthis_pub=”reserveresult”;
