Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 - 22 January 2008) was an Australian television and film actor. After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career. in the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan’s life and persona. A few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his penultimate performance, as the Joker in The Dark Knight, his death coming during editing of the film and casting a shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $180 million production.

Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 – 22 January 2008) was an Australian television and film actor. in the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan’s life and persona. The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust is named after his great-grandfather.

In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan’s life and persona. Ledger died in January 2008, from an accidental “toxic combination of prescription drugs”. Ledger attended Mary’s Mount Primary School, in Gooseberry Hill, and later Guildford Grammar School, where he had his first acting experiences, starring in a school production as Peter Pan at age 10. His parents separated when he was 10 and divorced when he was 11. With Trevor DiCarlo, his best friend since he was three years old, Ledger drove across Australia from Perth to Sydney, returning to Perth to take a small role in Clowning Around (1992), the first part of a two-part television series, and to work on the TV series Sweat (1996), in which he played a gay cyclist. From 1993 to 1997, Ledger also had parts in the Perth television series Ship to Shore (1993); in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company fantasy-drama Roar (1997); in Home and Away (1997), one of Australia’s most successful television shows; and in the Australian film Blackrock (1997), his feature film debut. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn.” in a review in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers states: “Ledger’s magnificent performance is an acting miracle. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack’s closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost.” After Brokeback Mountain, Ledger costarred with fellow Australian Abbie Cornish in the 2006 Australian film Candy, an adaptation of the 1998 novel Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction, as young heroin addicts in love attempting to break free of their addiction, whose mentor is played by Geoffrey Rush; for his performance as sometime poet Dan, Ledger was nominated for three “Best Actor” awards, including one of the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards, which both Cornish and Rush won in their categories.

After performing roles in Australian television and film during the 1990s, Ledger moved to the United States in 1998 to develop his film career. For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger won the 2005 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and the 2006 “Best Actor” award from the Australian Film Institute and was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor as well as the 2006 BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Posthumously he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I’m Not There, which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Ledger died in January 2008, from an accidental “toxic combination of prescription drugs”. Heath Ledger was born in Perth, Western Australia, the son of Sally Ledger (née Ramshaw), a French teacher, and Kim Ledger, a racing-car driver and mining engineer, whose family established and owned the Ledger Engineering Foundry. The Sir Frank Ledger Charitable Trust is named after his great-grandfather. His parents separated when he was 10 and divorced when he was 11. Heath’s and Kate’s other siblings include two half-sisters, Ashleigh Bell (b. 1989), his mother’s daughter with her second husband and his stepfather Roger Bell, and Olivia Ledger (b. 1997), his father’s daughter with second wife and his stepmother Emma Brown.