Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and other prescription drugs, the New York City medical examiner said Wednesday.
The cause of death was “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine,” spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.
The drugs are the generic names for the painkiller OxyContin, the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, and the sleep aids Restoril and Unisom. Hydrocodone is a widely used prescription painkiller.
Borakove wouldn’t say what concentrations of each drug were found in Ledger’s blood, or whether one drug played a greater part than another in causing his death.
“What you’re looking at here is the cumulative effects of these medications together,” she said.
The ruling comes two weeks after the 28-year-old Australian-born actor was found dead in the bed of his rented SoHo apartment. Police found bottles of six types of prescription drugs, including sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication, in his bedroom and bathroom.
Ledger was discovered by his masseuse on Jan. 22 after she arrived for an appointment that afternoon. She entered his bedroom to set up for the massage and found him unresponsive, and proceeded to call Mary-Kate Olsen three times over the next 9 minutes before dialing 911. Ledger had been dead for some time, and police say no foul play occurred.
Ledger, nominated for an Oscar for his role in “Brokeback Mountain,” had returned to New York from London days before his death, where he had been filming a $30 million Terry Gilliam film. He said in a November interview that his most recent completed roles in the Batman movie “The Dark Night” and Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There” had taken a toll, saying he couldn’t sleep.
Sounds like another case of doctors prescribing medication, without finding out what the patient is currently taking and the warning of the risks when combining said medications. Completely senseless.
source: Ledger’s Death an Accidental Overdose [associated press]
Ledger, 28, was well known for his role in “Brokeback Mountain,” and he stars in the upcoming “The Dark Knight” Batman movie as the Joker.
He split last year from wife, Michelle Williams, with whom he has a daughter, Matilda.
His apartment was strewn with sleeping pills and it was unclear if it was an intentional or accidental death.
His housekeeper tried to wake Ledger up for a massage appointment and found him unresponsive at 3:20 p.m.
She then called paramedics at 3:26 p.m. and father of one was pronounced dead at 3:35 p.m.
Ledger’s early career as an actor was marked by small roles in several independent features in his home country of Australia.
He broke onto the international movie scene in 1999 with his turn as the brooding high-school heart-throb who captures Julia Stiles’ attention in “10 Things I Hate About You.” After starring roles in “The Patriot,” “A Knight’s Tale,” and “The Brothers Grimm,” Ledger earned critical acclaim with his poignant performance as a gay cattle rancher in director Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2007, he appeared in the independent film “I’m Not There,” as one of many incarnations of Bob Dylan. He recently wrapped filming on ‘The Dark Knight,’ the sequel to ‘Batman Begins,’ in which he plays the villainous Joker. His most recent role was in director Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,’ which is listed as still “in production” on imdb.com.
Ledger’s love life earned him as many headlines as his acting career. He has been romantically linked to such A-list starlets as Naomi Watts and Heather Graham. He has a daughter, Matilda Rose, with actress Michelle Williams. The couple, praised for their down-to-earth lifestyle in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens, announced their split earlier this year.
UPDATE– Here’s the video:
Here’s the last photo taken of Ledger before his untimely death:
Bob Dylan, currently on the ‘Never Ending Tour’ where he’s been since 1988, won’t play without the Oscar statue he won in 2001 for Best Song. Dylan’s ‘Things Have Changed’ from the movie ‘Wonder Boys’ earned him the golden trophy, and now he insists on taking it with him whenever he’s on the road.
I find it a little odd because when I think of Dylan I don’t think of a guy with a lot of keepsakes. But I’m not judging. If I won an Oscar I’d find a sweet chain and roll Flava Flav style with that thing around my neck saying “hey, wanna see my Oscar?”
Rolling Stone has compiled a list of Rock’s Top 25 Songs With a Secret, which they describe as “tracks the meanings of which have inspired lots of debate.”
1. “Louie Louie” – The Kingsmen: Though the song was originally written by Richard Berry, the Kingsmen’s version was a huge hit and inspired an equally huge controversy when rumors spread the virtually inaudible lyrics were super dirty. The FBI even investigated the potentially un-American nastiness of the song’s message (their theories on what they lyrics say are hysterical) but ultimately it was concluded that the song was not bound to defile an entire generation of young minds. 2. “Lola” – The Kinks: Thought to be about a beautiful woman, actually inspired by an incident in which Kinks’ manager Robert Wace spent a drunken night dancing with a transvestite he mistook for a woman. 3. “Born in the USA” – Bruce Springsteen: Misperceived as a nationalistic anthem, is really a dark portrait of post-Vietnam life. 4. “One” – U2: Depending on who you ask, this song is about everything from a young man trying to tell his father about his HIV-positive status, to buffalos, but the track is widely believed to have been inspired by Bono’s relationship with his own father. 5. “Rainy Day Women #12 & #35” – Bob Dylan: With its lyrical proclamation, “everybody must get stoned” the song was embraced as a stoner’s anthem, but the song is actually about the literal throwing of stones. 6. “Please Please Me” – The Beatles: Thought to be a cute little teenage love song, is actually about oral sex. 7. “Alison” – Elvis Costello: Yeah, it’s a song about betrayal and misery directed at a member of the opposite sex, but it’s not about murder, as many have speculated. 8. “One I Love” – R.E.M.: Thought to be about the one he loves, is actually meant to be ironic. 9. “Edge of Seventeen”- Stevie Nicks: Thought to be about teen angst and or drug addiction, is actually about the deaths of John Lennon and Nicks’ uncle. 10. “Pictures of Lily” – The Who: Thought to be a sweet love song, is actually about a young boy’s obsession with a porn star. 11. “Polly” – Nirvana: Misunderstood by frat boys to glorify rape, was actually inspired by a true story in which a rape victim escaped from her captor. 12. “She Bop” – Cyndi Lauper: Thought to be a charming and innocent song about a girl dancing around, is actually about masturbation. 13. “Hey Jude” – The Beatles: Some suspect the song is about taking heroin, it was actually written by Paul McCartney for John’s son Julian. 14. “Pretzel Logic” – Steely Dan: Mistakenly thought to be about Adolf Hitler. 15. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – Tommy James & The Shondells: The song was misunderstood to be about making crystal meth, when the actual inspiration was a description of Heaven in “The Book of Revelation.” 16. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” – The Beatles: Though this song is widely assumed to be about LSD, the official statement is that the song was inspired by Julian Lennon’s drawing … which John Lennon was looking at while high on LSD. Just kidding. The song has nothing to do with drugs (officially). Seriously. Drawings. Not drugs. Got it? 17. “Harder to Breathe” – Maroon 5: Originally this song was thought to be about a troubled romance and or stalker-like-tendencies of a particularly pissed off lover, but Levine says it was inspired by record company pressure to write more singles. 18. “Pennyroyal Tea” – Nirvana: Thought to be inspired by many things, including a tea Kurt drank to ease his stomach pain, was actually inspired by an herbal remedy meant to cause an abortion. 19. “In the Air Tonight” – Phil Collins: Widely thought to be about a drowning incident, is actually about divorce. 20. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”– Green Day: Misperceived as a love song, is really about a bitterness-filled breakup. 21. “Take Me Out” – Franz Ferdinand: Fans have speculated that the song is about a troubled couple who just can’t get their adolescent hearts together, it’s actually inspired by the assassination of Austria-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 22. “Some Candy Talking” – Jesus and Mary Chain: Though every other Jesus and Mary Chain song ever written seems to have a trippy theme and or feel, the band insists this song is not, as many believe, about heroin. Not. About. Drugs. Officially. 23. “Girl” – Beck: Thought to be a love song, is actually about nefarious seduction that ends in murder. 24. “Drain You” – Nirvana: Thought to be just another song about heroin, is actually about a case in which one twin baby stole the nutrients from its twin while in the womb, resulting in one stillbirth. 25. “Dier Eir von Satan” – Tool: Thought to be about something to do with Satan, the lyrics, which are all in German, actually consist entirely of a repeating recipe for hashish cookies.
Johnny Cash ’s longtime lakeside home, a showcase where he wrote much of his famous music and entertained U.S. presidents, music royalty and visiting fans, has been destroyed by fire.
Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived in the 13,880-square-foot home from the late 1960s until their deaths in 2003. Barry Gibb, a former member of the Bee Gees, purchased the home in 2006 and had hoped to remodel it and eventually write songs there with his wife.
One firefighter was injured in Tuesday’s fire, authorities said.
“So many prominent things and prominent people in American history took place in that house - everyone from Billy Graham to Bob Dylan went into that house,” said singer Marty Stuart, who lives next door and was married to Cash’s daughter, Cindy, in the 1980s.
Stuart said the man who designed the house, Nashville builder Braxton Dixon, was “the closest thing this part of the country had to Frank Lloyd Wright.”
When Cash moved there, the road was a quiet country lane that skirted Old Hickory Lake. Kris Kristofferson , then an aspiring songwriter, once landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to pitch him a song. Roy Orbison was his next-door neighbor for a while.
Parts of the landmark video for Cash’s song “Hurt” was shot inside the house.
“It was a sanctuary and a fortress for him,” Stuart said. “There was a lot of writing that took place there.”
Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys lives on the same road. “Maybe it’s the good Lord’s way to make sure that it was only Johnny’s house,” Sterban said.
Dixon built the three-story house in 1967 for his own family, but Cash fell in love with it. Dixon was reluctant to sell, but Cash kept after him.
“It was a very, very unusual contemporary structure,” said Cash’s brother, Tommy Cash. “It was built with stone and wood and all kinds of unusual materials, from marble to old barn wood. I don’t think there was a major blueprint. I think the builder was building it the way he wanted it to look.”
The younger Cash said many holidays and family get-togethers were spent at the house. And while Johnny and June also owned a house in Jamaica and a second house in Tennessee, they considered this to be their home.
“Johnny and June lived there the entire time they were married,” Tommy Cash said. “It was the only house they lived in together until they both passed on.”
Todd Leopold offers CNN.com’s top 10 entertainment stories of the year:
1. The ubiquitous YouTube, MySpace, etc. Time magazine may have overstated the case with its Person of the Year, but certainly these Web sites are redefining who makes entertainment, when it’s available (whenever you want) — and what it is, for that matter. Not bad for that series of tubes called the Internets.
2. Britney Spears. Didn’t she used to sing?
3. Major deaths: James Brown, Ahmet Ertegun, Robert Altman. All incredibly influential, all deserving of more due. The world is a lesser place with their losses.
4. Mel Gibson. His drunken, racist tirade made him the center of attention in July. "Apocalypto" put him on top of the box office in December.
4a. Race and rants. Gibson’s outburst (and others, notably Michael Richards’) started talk about race, ethnicity and prejudice, but whether the discussion was enlightening or simply a frenzy of yelling is an open question. (a certain reporter.
7. Steve Irwin. The "Crocodile Hunter’s" death in September shocked the world.
8. Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen’s clever Kazakh character topped the box office and started discussions on the value of satire. High-five!
9. Celebrities and Africa. Some attracted cameras (George Clooney in Darfur, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Namibia), some appeared to invite them (Madonna). Regardless of the reasons, perhaps the exposure will do some good.
10. The old folks still have it. In an entertainment world, where youth is deified, Bob Dylan (65) topped the album charts; Clint Eastwood (76) made two of the best movies of the year; Judi Dench (72) earned raves for "Casino Royale" and "Notes on a Scandal"; and that’s not to forget Peter O’Toole (74), Helen Mirren (61) and that whippersnapper Meryl Streep (57).
What about the TomCat phenomenon? People obsessed for months on when and if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes would get married, when their baby would be born, what its name would be, when the first pictures would come out, why they were seen around town without said baby (Suri), and so forth.
At least in the online world, “crotch shots” and its variants would be high on the list, with Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton all having well publicized (and searched) incidents. Ditto “beauty pageant scandals,” with the drunken behavior of Miss USA Tara Conner and Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees getting so much attention over the last couple of weeks. Of lesser note would be the Scarlett Johansson phenomenon, with the starlet suddenly appearing at the top of all the hot celebrity superlative lists.
James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured “Godfather of Soul,” whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said. Copsidas said the cause of death was uncertain. “We really don’t know at this point what he died of,” he said.
[...]
Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid- footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie’s “Fame,” Prince’s “Kiss,” George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Sing a Simple Song” were clearly based on Brown’s rhythms and vocal style.
If Brown’s claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.
“James presented obviously the best grooves,” rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. “To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one’s coming even close.”
His hit singles include such classics as “Out of Sight,” “(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and “Say It Out Loud _ I’m Black and I’m Proud,” a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.
“I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black,” Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. “The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society.”
He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (best R&B recording) and for “Living In America” in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.
His personal life was much less stellar than his career. He left behind an impressive body of work, though.
PEOPLE surveyed several Hollywood celebrities and got their picks for the year’s best books, movies, music and TV shows. Here’s what they found:
TV SHOWS
Ashlee Simpson: Desperate Housewives – “It’s one of those shows like Sex and the City – every girl likes it.”
Monique Coleman: Grey’s Anatomy – “Even though there’s huge issues, at the end of the day we’re still concerned about the characters – that’s good TV.”
Macy Gray: Nip/Tuck – “It’s over-the-top-
drama. It’s crazy. I don’t know who thinks of that stuff.”
John Stamos:South Park – “The show is so timely. If something happens, in like two weeks it’s parodied on there.”
Nicky Hilton:The Girls
Next Door – “I just think they’re so funny.”
MOVIES
Josh Groban: The Prestige – “Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman are awesome. And I’ve loved magic since I was a kid. That it’s a murder mystery with twists based on magic makes it amazing.”
Jaime Pressly: The Departed – “It was amazing. It’s a brilliant film. Everyone in it was great.”
Anjelica Huston: Borat – “I don’t know if it’s the best movie, but it’s the funniest. I have never laughed so
hard in a movie. I’ve never laughed so
hard, period.�
Mike Myers: The Fountain – “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. All the performances were great. It was transformative.”
Clay Aiken: The Queen – “Helen Mirren looks just like Queen Elizabeth. Acted like her! I thought it was very good.”
MUSIC
Anne Hathaway: Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat – “You can just listen to it start to finish and it tells a story. It’s beautiful, funny and very subversive. I really love it.”
Chris Cornell: Bob Dylan, Modern Times – “I think it’s fantastic. There’s a lightness to it that doesn’t normally come from him. When I say lightness, like a happiness.”
Zach Braff: Joshua Radin, We Were Here – “It’s just the greatest music. He’s a really talented guy. He’s like the new Paul Simon.”
Katharine McPhee: Christina Aguilera, Back to Basics – “I really like her record. I think she brought some cool old-school
stuff to it, and amazing vocals.”
BOOKS
Terrence Howard: Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho –”It teaches you to enjoy each moment.”
Ben Affleck: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond – “I’m reading a lot
of nonfiction. . . .This is really good right now.”
Jennifer Connelly: In the Land of Magic Soldiers by Daniel Bergner – “That was the last one I read – it was actually about Sierra Leone, where Blood Diamond takes place. It was really fantastic.”
Queen Latifah: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith – “I love it. It’s a whole series.”
Patricia Heaton: The Tiny One by Eliza Minot – “It’s about a girl who loses her mother, and she chronicles the whole day before she finds out her mother died. She’s exactly the age I was when my mother died. I’d read a few pages and then start sobbing.”
The cause of death was “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine,” spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.
Ledger, 28, was well known for his role in “Brokeback Mountain,” and he stars in the upcoming “The Dark Knight” Batman movie as the Joker.
1. “Louie Louie” – The Kingsmen: Though the song was originally written by Richard Berry, the Kingsmen’s version was a huge hit and inspired an equally huge controversy when rumors spread the virtually inaudible lyrics were super dirty. The FBI even investigated the potentially un-American nastiness of the song’s message (
Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived in the 13,880-square-foot home from the late 1960s until their deaths in 2003. Barry Gibb, a former member of the Bee Gees, purchased the home in 2006 and had hoped to remodel it and eventually write songs there with his wife. 
, but certainly these Web sites are redefining who makes entertainment, when it’s available (whenever you want) — and what it is, for that matter. Not bad for that series of tubes called the Internets.
