Heath Ledger Remembered By Fans & Friends On 14th Anniversary of Death

In 2008, Heath Ledger‘s demise, this very day 14 years ago, rocked not just Hollywood but all of Ledger’s fans.

Today, fans and friends remember the actor and the person once again, paying homage to all that he stood for on social media, and otherwise.

In 2008, on January 22, Ledger was found unresponsive on the bed by his housekeeper. She called emergency and tried to revive him while the paramedics were on the way but he was soon pronounced dead, aged only 28.

The official cause of death was listed as an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, as Ledger had struggled with insomnia over the years. At the time, Ledger has just wrapped up “The Dark Knight”, where he played the Joker against Christian Bale‘s Batman. He was involved with Michelle Williams and the two shared a two-year-old daughter, now 16.

It became a pop culture thing to think of Ledger being so involved in his dark role that it destroyed his identity in the process and turned toward the darkness. Yet, his sister feels this was not so. While he struggled with insomnia, she recalled him being very excited about working with Bale, Christopher Nolan, and Gary Oldman. He was upbeat about his role and the new things he was working on, in fact, she spoke to him the night before and remembered him upbeat.

So his death was all the more shocking was his family.

Andrew Garfield worked with Ledger in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” and called him a”gift to the world”. He also said that he liked to speak about Ledger because this is one way of keeping him around. Said the “Tick Tick… Boom” actor, “When anyone dies, we want the beauty of keeping their memory alive by talking about them and by repeating stories over and over again. I think especially with someone who died so young — I remember feeling it with Heath.”

Ledger was still filming for “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” when he died, and at the time, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell stepped in to complete the movie.

The one thing that stuck with Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred with Heath Ledger in “The Brokeback Mountain” was how Ledger could not stand jokes about the movie.

Said Gyllenhaal, “He was extraordinarily serious about the political issues surrounding the movie when it came out. A lot of times people would want to have fun and joke about it, and he was vehement about being serious, to the point where he didn’t want to hear about anything that was being made fun of.”

Fans have taken to remembering their fallen hero today on Twitter, and it’s a veritable sob fest as people come together to celebrate Heath Ledger. Gone but never forgotten, echoes Twitter.

Another Twitter user wrote, “Another year without a genius performer. On January 22nd, 2008, Heath Ledger passed away at the age of 28. As every year goes by, I take a moment to reflect on his career that may have been short but was legendary regardless. After 14 years, still we miss you. #RIPHeathLedger“

And here’s another one, not about his death, but the day Ledger received his Academy Award, posthumously.