Custody Battle 'Made Heath Ledger Snap'

PopEater
posted: 34 DAYS 22 HOURS AGO
comments: 357
filed under: Gut Reactions, Movie News
PRINT|E-MAILMORE
Text SizeAAA
New light has been shed on Heath Ledger's last days. The actor's mentor Terry Gilliam told Vanity Fair that as the romance between Ledger and Michelle Williams began to unravel, it was the custody battle "that really made Heath snap."
Skip over this content

Heath Ledger -- Vanity Fair

    Heath Ledger on the August 2009 cover of Vanity Fair, on newsstands July 7.

    Vanity Fair

    Heath Ledger in the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair.

    Vanity Fair

    Heath Ledger in the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair.

    Vanity Fair

"Because he's a much nicer person than I am, he really thought he could do the right thing. He was trying to be decent and graceful, give [Williams] whatever she wanted--the house, every f***ing thing. But once it started going south, it went very quickly. He was overwhelmed by lawyers, and there were more and more of them, as if they were breeding," Gilliam said in the August issue of Vanity Fair, on newsstands July 7.
Despite friends' advice to end things with Williams, Ledger wouldn't listen. "I said, 'This is bulls***. Heath, just end it. Get out--it's bad. You've got to just walk away from it.' The stakes kept going up. He wouldn't listen to any of us," Gilliam added.
'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' cinematographer Nicola Pecorin saw that Ledger was devoted to keeping his daughter safe and did everything he could to stay together with Williams -- even though he slowly started to unravel. "Heath was always blaming himself, asking, 'What did I do wrong?,'" Percorin said.
Skip over this content

Michelle and Matilda Ledger

    In her first statement after Heath's death, Michelle Williams was quite accurate when she called their daughter Matilda (seen here in August 2008) "the spitting image of her father." Williams went on to say her heart was "broken," but together she and Heath created "the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl."

    Bauer-Griffin.com

    In the same statement, Williams said: "All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day. His family and I watch Matilda as she whispers to trees, hugs animals, and takes steps two at a time, and we know that he is with us still."

    Bauer-Griffen.com

    Michelle and Matilda are seen here in New York City in September 2008.

    Bauer-Griffin.com

    Williams and Matilda continue to live in New York, where they've lived since Matilda was born.

    Christopher Peterson, BuzzFot o / FilmMagic

    Speaking to Newsday in November, Williams opened up about how she's handled Heath's death. "I just wake up each day in a slightly different place-grief is like a moving river, so that's what I mean by 'it's always changing'."

    Chris Pizzello, AP

    In the Newsday interview, Williams teared up before saying: "It's a strange thing to say because I'm at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It's just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone. In some ways it gets worse. That's what I would say."

    Jemal Countess, WireImage

    In an Interview magazine article, Williams said that Heath "had uncontrollable energy. He buzzed ... His mind was turning, turning, turning -- always turning."

    Michael Loccisano, FilmMagic

Vanity Fair Exclusive: Ledger's Friends & Mentors Speak Out
Photo Feature: Vanity Fair's Heath Ledger Slideshow
How chronic insomnia may have led to his death:
"Everyone has a different view of how he passed away. 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." -- Gerry Grennell, a vocal coach who worked and lived with Ledger during the filming of 'The Dark Knight'
Why Ledger tried to tear down his career:
"He was a private person, and he didn't want to share his personal history with the press. It just wasn't up for sale. He wasn't motivated by money or stardom, but by the respect of his peers, and for people to walk out of a movie theater after they'd seen something that he?d worked on and say, 'Wow, he really disappeared into that character.' He was striving to become an 'illusionist,' as he called it, able to create characters that weren?t there." -- Steven Alexander, Ledger's agent
His pure devotion for his career:
"He would arrive in the morning completely knackered. By the end of the day he was beaming, glowing with energy. It was like everything was put into the work, because that was the joy; that's what he loved to do. The words were just pouring out. It was like he was channeling." -- Terry Gilliam, the director of 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'
Skip over this content
Follow Us on Twitter Friend Us on Facebook
2009 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved.
2009-06-29 15:08:17
PRINT|E-MAILDIGGAIMMORE