Remembering Heath Ledger - 'he was so physical and beautiful and strong and masculine'

Today, 4 April 2008, if all had been right with the world, should have been Heath Ledger's 29th birthday. But, because things are broken in a way that is impossible to fathom, Heath isn't here. Speaking as someone who was not fortunate enough to have met Heath in person, but as just a movie-lover, changed forever by Heath's embodiment of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, today's words for Heath are better coming from someone who was lucky enough to have had that privilege. This is what Brokeback screenwriter Diana Ossana said about Heath in the March 11 issue of Advocate:



'Heath was an old soul in a young man's frame, extremely masculine, extremely competent in all things, and yet sensitive beyond belief. In person Heath was animated and kinetic and full of life, far different from the character he portrayed in Brokeback Mountain. He was always disheveled, unconcerned with his appearance, because - like my writing partner, Larry McMurty - Heath lived in his head. Heath was a pure actor, much like Larry is a pure writer, and I was moved by the similarities between these two seemingly very different men.'



'One of my most endearing memories of working with Heath on set was the day we filmed the final scene in Brokeback. Before the first take, Heath walked over to me, a big smile on his face, and said, "I think you're going to like what I've done with this scene." Then he headed inside that bleak little trailer house, and the cameras rolled. I watched the monitor as Ennis opened his tiny closet door and revealed the two shirts he had found hidden inside Jack's childhood bedroom, like skins, one inside the other... and realized that Heath, as Ennis, had chosen to reverse the order of those shirts, with his on the outside, embracing Jack's. Such was Heath's commitment to the truth of our story and to the rawness and depth of his portrayal. Afterward our grizzled and thoroughly macho first assistant director marched over to me, bent down, and whispered in my ear, "Diana, I've worked in this business 50 years. This is the first time an actor's brought a tear to my eye."'


'Heath was generous and dear, painfully shy and gifted, and I will miss him for the rest of my days.'


Michelle Williams was quoted in the April issue of Interview: 'I think that the interesting thing about Heath, which maybe people have only really fully discovered in his death, is how vulnerable he was. You can pick up on it in his performances, but it's easy to overlook because he was so physical and beautiful and strong and masculine. But there was always that underlying sensitivity. That's who he was.'



To mark Heath's birthday, and a TV showing of Brokeback Mountain, a New Zealand site today listed 'Ten things you didn't know about Brokeback'. One of them was new to me: 'After completion of the movie, Brokeback writer Annie Proulx sent both lead actors an original, autographed copy of her story. When she signed Jake's copy she wrote "To Jake...", but when she signed the copy for Heath, she accidentally wrote "To Ennis…" After continuing her personal message, she realized her mistake - but decided to leave it there. In a private screening later in Hollywood, she reflected that she left his signed copy that way because she felt Heath Ledger had embodied Ennis in every way she had wrote him.'


Includes pictures from The Advocate and IHJ.