What do you do with a trophy when the winner is no longer around to accept it? That’s just the dilemma the Academy Awards is facing this Sunday when the Best Supporting Role is announced. The late, great Heath Ledger (we finally saw him in The Dark Knight – a creepy and amazing performance) is up for the award, but since his death last January, this has been a nagging question for all involved.

Heath, who died from an accidental overdose of prescription meds, was NOT married, and therefore the normal procedure of giving a posthumous award to one’s spouse won’t work. The next step is to give the golden statue to the winner’s oldest child. Ok, but Heath’s oldest and only child, Matilda Rose, is just three years old. Minor glitch right? But wait there’s a catch. A contract must be signed and while Matilda may be as brilliant as her mum and dad some day, she’s simply too young to sign. Here’s more from Yahoo:

Academy tradition calls for a posthumous statuette to go to the spouse, or, if there is no living spouse, to the oldest child. Ledger wasn’t married, and Matilda is his only child .

Yet because she is only 3, Matilda is legally unable to sign the winner’s agreement — a contract required of all nominees that says the recipient will not resell his or her Oscar without first offering it back to the academy for $1. The agreement is the academy’s way of limiting what might otherwise be a lively secondary market in Oscars.

“From our point of view, somebody has to sign the winner’s agreement, and a 3-year-old can’t do that,” says Davis. “Nor can a parent sign any kind of legal document that obligates a child to do something once they turn 18. I didn’t know that before we looked into it, but it’s a good law.”

After conversations with Williams and with Ledger’s family in Australia, the academy hit on a solution: “In the event that Heath Ledger should be selected as the supporting actor recipient, the statuette will be held in trust for his daughter by her mother, Michelle Williams , until Matilda reaches the age of 18,” says Davis. “At that point, she may execute what we call an heir’s agreement and keep the statuette forever — or, if she chooses not to do that, it will return to us.”

In other words, the Oscar statuette can spend the next 15 years with Matilda, but her mother, who has signed the academy’s agreement, will be the legal custodian. When Matilda is old enough, she can claim ownership by signing the agreement. If she does so, she’ll become the official owner and will be legally bound not to sell her Oscar; if she opts not to sign, the statuette will revert to the academy without any payment.

As for who would accept the award, that — like many other aspects of the ceremony — is a matter that show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon are keeping under wraps. Davis will only say that tradition calls for a posthumous Oscar to be accepted either by a close relative or “an artist who was close to the nominee, and who can speak credibly for him or her.”

There’s little doubt Matilda, under the watchful eye of her protective mother, will sign the contract and keep her dad’s statue safely secure, IF he wins. And chances are good he will, with experts and the public giving him an 83% chance of picking up the Oscar. Here are the nominees for Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin – Milk, Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder, Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight, Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road, Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt

While this Oscar dilemma may be temporarily resolved, we still don’t know who will actually accept on behalf of Ledger should he win. I’d put my guesses on Michelle or someone closely affiliated with the film, maybe even Christian Bale (a long shot, especially after his recently revealed F-bomb tirade) or perhaps director Christopher Nolan. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

Glosslip plans to do some live-blogging this Sunday of the Oscars, stay tuned for more info.

The estate of actor Heath Ledger has been tied up for some time now, with legalities and family squabbles and such, but it seems a decision has finally been reached.  Heath’s family have decided to donate the whole estate to his daughter Matilda:

Two years before his little girl was born, the Dark Knight star – who died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in January – signed a will leaving his fortune to his parents and sisters.

But Ledger’s father, Kim, says they have decided that all the money should all go to 2-year-old Matilda (the actor’s daughter with ex-girlfriend Michelle Williams).

In fact, he tells PEOPLE, that was the plan “from the moment my boy passed away.”

It’s been a while now since the family promised that Matilda would be taken care of, and it was thought that perhaps she wouldn’t receive her fair share, especially with the familial infighting that was going on between Heath’s father and his brother.  However, it seems good has won, and while his millions will never bring this little girl’s daddy back, perhaps it will at least secure her future so her mom wouldn’t have to worry about it.  He and Matilda’s mother, actress Michelle Williams, remained close even after they separated, by all accounts he doted on his daughter, and I think it was what Heath would have wanted.

Mary-Kate Olsen is off the hook for now.  It seems that the investigation into how Heath Ledger obtained the cocktail of drugs found in his system after his death is closed:

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had been overseeing a Drug Enforcement Administration probe into whether the painkillers found in Ledger’s system were obtained illegally. But the prosecutors have bowed out “because they don’t believe there’s a viable target,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no charges have been filed.

The decision comes after recent reports that actress Mary-Kate Olsen was demanding immunity before answering questions about the startling death of her close friend and his drug use. Authorities say she was the first person called by a masseuse who found the 28-year-old “Dark Knight” actor’s lifeless body in his Manhattan apartment.

The DEA had obtained a subpoena that could have forced Olsen if she continued to hold out. But the subpoena, issued in April, is no longer valid because it was contingent upon prosecutors pursuing the case, the official said Wednesday. The official added that the case could still be revived if evidence of a crime emerges.

They were investigating what he had in his system, why it was there, and how he obtained it to start with:

DEA investigators suspect the painkillers found in Ledger’s system, oxycodone and hydrocodone, were obtained with phony prescriptions or other illegal means. Oxycodone is sold as OxyContin and hydrocodone as Vicodin. [...]

Other drugs taken by Ledger, including anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills, were prescribed legally by doctors in California and Texas.

Mary-Kate has insisted she does not now how Heath obtained the drugs.

I don’t know.  If I was a friend of someone who died in this manner, and if I were the first person called after the death, and if I had nothing to hide, speaking to the police about it would not be a problem.  But, while perhaps she didn’t have anything to do with the drugs found in his system, maybe it’s her own, unrelated activities that night which the police would have found suspicious…maybe she was covering her own skinny butt, but not in the way we think.

In any case, the investigation is closed unless they find something which pries it open again.  This death did not have to happen.  Please, people, pay attention to what you’re doing, and keep a network of people around you if you’re having problems.

The reviews for The Dark Night are coming in, and the reviews for Heath Ledger’s performance are overwhelmingly positive.  Some people even say that his portrayal of The Joker could very well win an Oscar:

Critics have described the performance as ’spellbinding’ and say it is his best ever.

The Dark Knight received the rave reviews after critics were shown a preview of the new blockbuster at the weekend.

The Australian actor died of an overdose in his New York apartment soon after shooting the film, in January this year. [...]

Heath was nominated for an Oscar following his performance in Brokeback Mountain in 2006 but missed out on the award to Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In Rolling Stone magazine, critic Emmanuel Levy described Heath in his Dark Knight role: ‘ can only speak superlatives of Ledger, who is mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker.

‘It’s typical of Ledger’s total commitment to films as diverse as Brokeback Mountain and I’m Not There that he does nothing out of vanity or the need to be liked.

‘If there’s a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976’s Network, sign me up.’

Now, I’m going to say something, at the risk of being totally skewered.  I agree that Heath was an extremely talented actor and he probably deserved more accolades for his talent than he received during his short life.  But there are a lot of other talented actors out there who deserve the same thing.  I haven’t really heard much buzz on who might be nominated, but there’s no doubt that the Oscar field will be packed with talent…people just as talented, or perhaps more so, than Heath.

Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect.  I haven’t seen the trailer, but if Heath’s portrayal truly deserves to win then I sincerely hope it does.  From everything I’ve read, it’s the best of the Batman movies thus far, and Heath’s performance is a huge part of making it so.  But I don’t want him to win because it was his last completed role and because of sympathy or sentimentality…I want him to win because he deserved it, because anything else would cheapen his memory.

(On another note, does that picture give anyone else the total creeps?)

Heath Ledger’s family has been stunned by new revelations that he may have fathered a secret love child when he was just seventeen years old:

Ledger was a 17-year-old schoolboy when he had an affair with an older woman who is thought to have only discovered she was pregnant after their relationship ended.

The woman was living with another man at the time of the alleged affair.

Yesterday, Ledger’s uncle, Hadyn Ledger said: “There is a very real possibility that Heath was the father.”

If it is confirmed that Ledger is the girl’s biological father, it could split his multi-million dollar estate between his two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose with Hollywood actress Michelle Williams, and his secret love child. [...]

Heath was still at school at Guildford Grammar when he began the affair with the woman, then aged 25.

Yesterday another family source said: “She had the baby. Everyone lived under the assumption that she was the daughter of the mother’s boyfriend and that is how she has been brought up.” The woman is now married with a young family.

Heath’s will was drawn up in 2003 and does not mention either Michele or Matilda, who was not born yet. It lists only his father, mother, sister, and half-sisters as beneficiaries, although his father Kim has said that Michelle and Matilda will be taken care of.

The battle over Heath’s estate has highlighted a long-simmering feud in the Ledger family between father Kim and his brothers, stemming from his handling of their father’s estate:

The family feud began when Kim became executor of their grandfather, Sir Frank Ledger’s estate over 20 years ago. He borrowed heavily against the $2 million estate, leaving it heavily in debt before he was removed as executor by the WA Supreme Court in 1994.

It’s interesting that rumors of this love child pop up now, after his death and while his estate is being settled, and not while he was alive. Could there have been tension between Heath and the mother? Could she totally be bluffing? Only a DNA test will tell for sure. Couldn’t they have quietly done a DNA test before releasing this to the media?  That way, if it were not true, life could go on for this child as normal.  Of course, this child (now around ten years old) will undoubtedly hear all about it, and have to readjust from thinking one man is her father to thinking of another man as her father. That’s a big thing for a kid to have to handle. I see a tell-all exclusive interview with the mom in the future, complete with a nice check.

This could have been handled in private. Why can’t people think before they open their big mouths?

Despite reports to the contrary, Heath’s father Kim says that even though Heath’s will did not specify it, his former lover and daughter will be taken care of financially:

It emerged this weekend that Heath’s will had not been updated since 2003 meaning lover Michelle Williams and their two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose were never included.

And Ledger’s uncles spoke out about their fears that neither Matilda, nor Michelle would get a share of the estate because the Brokeback Mountain star left all his money to his parents and sisters.

The two uncles, Mike and Haydn Ledger, said Matilda was not included in the will because it was written before her birth and not updated.

“I’m concerned for Matilda,” said one of the uncles, Hadyn Ledger. “I have concerns about the distribution of funds.”

But the actor’s father Kim Ledger dismissed those claims insisting Heath’s ex-fiance, actress Michelle and daughter, would be well looked after no matter what legal papers instructed.

“Matilda is our absolute priority and Michelle is an integral part of our family,” Kim Ledger said in a statement.

“They will be taken care of and that’s how Heath would want it to be.”

These two uncles are described as “estranged”, which makes me wonder just what their motivation is for speaking out now.  By all accounts, Michelle and Heath’s family share a close bond, and I can’t see his father not taking care of the two of them.  Even though Heath and Michelle had split up at the time of his death, it seems that they both still cared deeply for each other.

It is a good lesson for us all, however…make sure your affairs are in order, just in case something should happen (God forbid, but you never know).

Two doctors are being investigated in the death of actor Heath Ledger.  Federal drug authorities are looking into the drugs prescribed, because Heath’s death was blamed on an accidental mixture of prescriptions:

The doctors – one in California, one in Texas – are believed to have supplied the “Brokeback Mountain” star with the powerful painkillers Oxycontin and Vicodin, law enforcement sources said. Authorities want to know if the drugs were prescribed illegally. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” a law enforcement source told The News Tuesday. “It’s not clear if there was any wrongdoing.”

The revelation came more than a month after the 28-year-old Australian heartthrob’s naked body was found in his SoHo loft.

The city’s medical examiner ruled Ledger died on Jan. 22 of an accidental overdose of six prescription drugs, including the two painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has subpoenaed the medical examiner’s findings as part of its probe into the doctors, the sources said.

Do they always have to say he was found naked?  Like that in and of itself is some sort of crime or weirdness.  Lots of people sleep naked.

It may or may not be that these doctors are guilty of any wrongdoing.  However, it is only prudent of physicians to check what prescription or OTC medications a patient is already taking, and writing new prescriptions accordingly or advising patients on the safety of taking one medication with another.  Heath may or may not have told his doctors of any other medications he was taking.  It may come out that he purposefully obtained the prescriptions without the doctors knowing of each other.  Or, it might be as simple as he just didn’t realize the dangers of taking one with the other.

Heath had fought a long battle with drug use, but by all accounts he was trying to get clean when he died, and illegal drugs played no part in his death.  He also suffered from severe insomnia, which led him to take a prescription sleep aid that turned out to be not much help to him.  Plus, at the time of his death, he was suffering from pneumonia, which undoubtedly weakened his immune system.

Always check with your doctor before mixing any sorts of medications, and make sure you know what you’re taking and what it does to your body.

UPDATE:  These two doctors have been cleared:

Federal officials have ruled out two L.A. and Houston-based doctors as the providers of the OxyContin and Vicodin that played a part in the accidental overdose of Heath Ledger, reports the New York Post.

After questioning the docs, the Drug Enforcement Agency found they had prescribed the Brokeback Mountain star other medications, just not the heart-stopping drugs that resulted in the 28-year-old death in NYC on January 22.

I really don’t want to dwell on the tragic details of Heath Ledger’s death. More than enough attention had been paid to those details and not nearly enough to his accomplishments or for the respect of his family to grieve in peace.

The toxicology reports have confirmed what most everyone suspected shortly after Heath’s tragic death at age 28, the actor died of an accidental overdose from prescription medications. The toxic mixture of Valium, Oxycontin, sleep aids, painkillers and anti-anxiety meds were at the root cause of Heath’s death.

His family wishes to be left alone, the mother of his only child wishes to be left alone — and honestly — that’s good enough for me.

R.I.P Heath, I look forward to a moving tribute in your honor at the Oscars and I will happily pay homage to watching your last films.

 

A sad story just gets sadder.  Actress Michelle Williams, mother of Heath’s daughter Matilda, has released a statement:

“Please respect our need to grieve privately. My heart is broken. I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. 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. She will be brought up with the best memories of him.”

Reportedly, Heath and Michelle broke up because she could not handle his drug-taking, and there were whispers of another woman.  Heath, for his part, was attempting to kick drugs, which leads me to the second part of this story.

Entertainment Tonight and The Insider paid big bucks (I’ve heard upwards of $200,000US) for a grainy video showing Heath allegedly engaged in drug use while at a party.  They’ve already shown a teaser, which didn’t tell the whole story:

A behind-the-scenes campaign happened aggressively on Wednesday to pressure the shows not to broadcast that Heath Ledger video everyone was talking about.

Several top publicity companies threatened to never give the shows access to their star clients again. They caved.

However, we’re told that many are still upset because ET and The Insider made it seem like Heath was doing drugs in the video.

He was not, a person who has seen the full clip tells us.

Additionally, when the shows aired a preview of the video, they showed a clip of Ledger saying, “I used to smoke five joints a day for 20 years.”

However, what they didn’t show you was that afterwards, he said , “and that’s why I got this tattoo [an M, for daughter Matilda] to remind me never to smoke weed again.”

It’s sad that these shows would feel the need to use this man’s death as a reason for ratings, but I guess that’s the nature of the show business beast…I went into my local Blockbuster a couple of nights ago, here in the middle of 40th and Plum, and they had a display at the checkout area.  I took a closer look, and it was a selection of movies Heath had been in.  For rental or purchase, own a piece of a dead man!

I did not partake.

 

Through the magic of sleight of hand and CGI, Heath Ledger’s final movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is scheduled to continue shooting:

Despite earlier reports that the director might shelve the $30 million production, Gilliam, whom [co-star Christopher] Plummer describes as “terribly saddened” by Ledger’s death is “trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI…

“Terry was a very good friend [of Heath's],” adds Plummer. “He very wants to go on with the movie, and I can very much understand why. Because he wants to dedicate it to Heath, of course.”

Plummer goes on to say that Heath possibly contracted walking pneumonia while on set due to the combination of rigorous shooting schedule and nasty weather:

Confirming earlier reports that Ledger hadnt been feeling well on set, Plummer says, “we all caught colds because we were shooting outside on horrible, damp nights. But Heath’s went on and I don’t think he dealt with it immediately with the antibiotics.…I think what he did have was the walking pneumonia.”

On top of that, “He was saying all the time, ‘dammit, I can’t sleep’…and he was taking all these pills [to help him].”

As well as the damp cold and lack of sleep, Plummer describes the shoot as rigorous. “We had to shoot every second we were out there…there was hardly any time to go into the tent or the car to keep warm. We just kept shooting…boom, boom, boom…there was no pause. It was very, very hard work.”

The cynic in me wants to think that perhaps the reason for the continuation of filming is because of two reasons…one, that there would be a ton of money down the toilet if the film were to be shelved now; and two, because it was his last role, that is almost certain to bring in big bucks at the box office and in DVD sales.  But the other part of me wants firmly to believe that it is being done in the spirit of friendship and out of a respect for the actor and his talent.  I suspect, however, that it is some combination of all those things.

And I can’t say as I blame the people behind the movie for wanting to make some money.  After all, movies nowadays, especially one such as this, are multimillion dollar projects.  To shelve a project for sentimentality’s sake doesn’t make fiscal sense.  Plus, I personally think that if one puts so much of oneself into a role, that one would want the show to go on, no matter what happened.

I think it would be a nice tribute if they can believably pull it off.

Oh, and the reports that Johnny Depp was going to step into the role?  Probably not so, because they are saying that he’s been in no official talks and he is currently working on another movie.