The August issue of Vanity Fair has a fascinating article about Heath Ledger called “The Last of Heath”, all about his insomnia and sleeping pill usage, his own thoughts about his career, and his relationship with Michelle Williams and daughter Matilda. The issue went to print before Michael Jackson died, and Page Six is claiming that the stuff about Heath’s prescription drug usage is in poor taste, but I don’t really see it. Page Six pulled some of the most tabloid-friendly quotes, but reading the full excerpt on Vanity Fair’s site, it seems more like a tribute to Heath’s life, and an attempt to tell the real story about what Heath was going through in the last years of his life. Here are some of the most interesting parts:

Heath Cleaned Up His Act: Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, who worked with Ledger on his last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, says Ledger “used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis, like probably 50 percent of Americans.” But after it became an issue, Ledger “went clean as a whistle.” And vocal coach Gerry Grennell, who worked and lived with the actor during the filming of The Dark Knight, says Ledger even stopped drinking: “Heath would happily go to the bar, buy a round of drinks for friends, and come back and have a soda or juice, never once drinking alcohol.”

Insomnia, Flu and Sleeping Pills: Ledger’s use of sleeping medication to combat chronic insomnia at the end of his life was of more concern to Grennell. “I’d say, ‘If you can possibly bear it to stop taking the medications, do, because they don’t seem to be doing you any good.’ He agreed. It is very difficult for me to imagine how close he came to not taking them.”

Ledger would typically spend night after night awake, diverting himself with time killers, Biskind reports, such as re-arranging the furniture in whatever space he happened to be living in at the moment. Grennell coached him in the Alexander Technique, which helped him to sleep for a few hours at a time, but he still struggled.

“Everyone has a different view of how he passed away,” Grennell tells Biskind. “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.”

Relationship with Michelle Williams and daughter Matilda: Terry Gilliam [says] that the romance between Ledger and [Michelle] began to unravel during the Oscar campaign for Brokeback Mountain. “The whole machinery started growing up around them,” Gilliam says. “That was the moment when it changed, when he realized, Uh-oh. We perceive the world differently. He didn’t care about things like those awards.”

According to Pecorini, “Heath was always blaming himself [about the relationship], asking, What did I do wrong?” Adds Gilliam, “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 her whatever she wanted—the house, every f-cking 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. I said, ‘This is bullshit. 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.” As Ledger’s relationship with Williams unraveled, and the pair started dealing with lawyers and custody issues, according to Gilliam, Ledger fell apart. “The thing that really made Heath snap” was legal wrangling over his daughter, Matilda, Gilliam says.

Heath’s Ambivalence Towards Stardom, Playing The Joker: Ledger’s friend and agent, Steven Alexander, tells Biskind that Heath “was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices.” According to friends of Ledger’s, one of the reasons he agreed to do Dark Knight was that the unusually long shoot would give him an excuse to turn down other offers. Alexander tells Biskind that Ledger had a pay-or-play deal on The Dark Knight—meaning he’d get compensated no matter what—so he felt he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted as the Joker. According to Pecorini, Ledger hoped his performance would be so far-out he’d be fired, and thus become the beneficiary of a lengthy, paid vacation.

[From Vanity Fair]

I found the Michelle Williams stuff interesting, but I have some nit-picking with Vanity Fair. Throughout the piece, they refer to Michelle as Heath’s wife, which she never was. They were engaged, but never married. That simple fact doesn’t limit their relationship, or make their split any more or less of a factor in Heath’s state of mind in his last year. The report seems to indicate that Michelle really had strong feelings about how much time Matilda spent with Heath – which makes me suspect Michelle had serious concerns about Heath’s state of mind. Even though I think it’s nice that so many of Heath’s friends and colleagues gave interviews about Heath, it’s interesting that Michelle was not interviewed. I’d imagine her take on that time period would be a lot different.

Heath Ledger is shown on 9/4/07 and 3/4/06. Credit: PRPhotos