Heath Andrew Ledger was an Australian actor. After playing roles in several Australian television and film productions during the 1990s, he moved to the United States in 1998 to further develop his film career. His work consisted of 20 films in a variety of genres, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Casanova (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Candy (2006), I'm Not There (2007), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), the latter two of which were posthumously released. He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, he received nominations for the BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the eighth-youngest nominee in the category at that time.
In 2007, he played a fictional actor, Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Bob Dylan's life and persona in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There.
Ledger died in January 2008 from an accidental overdose as a result of prescription drug abuse. A few months before his death, he finished filming his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight; the performance brought him praise and popularity, and numerous posthumous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
