quote:Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
He's got cool hair though. Check it out. I wonder what he uses for gel?
My guess is semen.
25th January 2008 05:07 PM
mojoman
quote:gypsy wrote:
My guess is semen.
probably. he's a prick
25th January 2008 05:11 PM
gypsy
quote:mojoman wrote:
probably. he's a prick
and probably a closet homo
25th January 2008 05:15 PM
sirmoonie
quote:mojoman wrote:
probably. he's a prick
quote:gypsy wrote:
and probably a closet homo
and probably posts here
25th January 2008 06:39 PM
gypsy
quote:sirmoonie wrote:
and probably posts here
and is probably of German origin
1st February 2008 11:39 AM
Factory Girl
Debating whether or not Heath has done drugs in the past is not contructive, especially since he's not around to set the record straight.
Most of us have done some drugs at one time or another.
Lets focus on his talent, and a young man gone too soon.
1st February 2008 03:36 PM
gypsy
quote:Factory Girl wrote:
Debating whether or not Heath has done drugs in the past is not contructive, especially since he's not around to set the record straight.
Most of us have done some drugs at one time or another.
Lets focus on his talent, and a young man gone too soon.
I agree. There's also a little girl without a father.
Also, a lot of people on this board seem a bit prude when it comes to dabbling in drugs. I mean, isn't this board about sex, drugs and rock & roll?
1st February 2008 04:15 PM
texile
quote:Factory Girl wrote:
Debating whether or not Heath has done drugs in the past is not contructive, especially since he's not around to set the record straight.
Most of us have done some drugs at one time or another.
Lets focus on his talent, and a young man gone too soon.
that is so true,
it's true in the case of anyone is has had substance abuse issues, including brad renfro, and has passed away.
It doesn't matter WHY or HOW they died....it's a loss to those who loved them and should be respected as such, but i suppose that's too much to ask of the entertainment media...
these deaths become about the most sensational aspects of their lives - not the loss itself.
they are human, it's not any different than anyone's family member dying.
these entertainment outlets are relentless in their quest to diminish what is real and genuinely tragic.
last weekend, I watched an early heath ledger movie, two hands, and candy, one of his last; then i watched brad renfro in a little movie i remember loving at the time, Telling Lies in America with kevin bacon, and then apt pupil -
just remember them through their talent, because, ultimately - that's all we, as viewers, have to honor them.
just turn off E! and ET.
1st February 2008 04:16 PM
Factory Girl
quote:gypsy wrote:
I agree. There's also a little girl without a father.
Gypsy, I agree with you 100%. And part of the tragedy is that she's too young too grasp her tragedy.
1st February 2008 11:49 PM
MrPleasant
R.I.P.
6th February 2008 05:07 PM
Factory Girl
Autopsy report says Heath Ledger death was not suicide
Staff and agencies
Wednesday February 6, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
I mean, isn't this board about sex, drugs and rock & roll?
that's what i always thought
but it has gone a bit weird round here in the last six
months or so
if you know what i mean...and i'm fairly sure you do
6th February 2008 08:26 PM
GotToRollMe
quote:gypsy wrote:
Also, a lot of people on this board seem a bit prude when it comes to dabbling in drugs. I mean, isn't this board about sex, drugs and rock & roll?
No kidding! Sex, drugs and rock & roll - the original unholy trinity!
8th February 2008 07:28 AM
speedfreakjive
nice Heath Ledger dedication by the legend Daniel Day Lewis at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
8th February 2008 08:25 AM
TampabayStone
Here's the thing. I don't give a fuck about your morale conundrums you meat-headed shit sack.
8th February 2008 09:28 AM
mojoman
Medical Examiner Rules Ledger’s Death Accidental
By JAMES BARRON
Published: February 7, 2008
The actor Heath Ledger died accidentally “from the abuse of prescription medications” — specifically, six kinds of painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs — a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner said on Wednesday.
Mr. Ledger, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the 2005 movie “Brokeback Mountain,” died of “acute intoxication” caused by the combined effects of the six drugs, the spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said in a statement.
Mr. Ledger was found dead in his rented SoHo apartment on Jan. 22, when a masseuse tried and failed to awaken him for an appointment. Before calling 911, she placed three calls to the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, who she knew was a friend of his. Ms. Olsen sent over private security agents, who arrived at about the same time as emergency medical personnel.
An autopsy was performed the following day. Ms. Borakove said then that the results were inconclusive and that the cause of death would not be determined until toxicology tests had been conducted, which she said would take about 10 days.
Among the drugs found in Mr. Ledger’s system were two widely prescribed narcotics: oxycodone, the main ingredient in the prescription drug OxyContin, and hydrocodone, the principal pain reliever in the prescription drug Vicodin.
Also in Mr. Ledger’s system were three anti-anxiety medications: diazepam, the generic name for Valium; alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax; and temazepam, which is sold under the brand name Restoril and is often prescribed as a sleep medication.
The drug doxylamine was also found in his system. It is an ingredient in some over-the-counter sleeping pills, and is also marketed in some nonprescription cold medicines that contain decongestants.
The medical examiner’s office provided only the generic names of the drugs found in Mr. Ledger’s bloodstream, so it was not known what forms of the drugs he took before he died. In a telephone interview, Ms. Borakove would not say how much of each drug turned up in Mr. Ledger’s bloodstream. She said such concentrations were not normally made public, although the amounts are included in the information given to a person’s family after an autopsy.
She also would not say whether any one drug had contributed more than the others to his death.
“It’s the combination of the drugs that caused the problem, not necessarily too much of any particular drug,” she said in the interview. “All these drugs have a cumulative effect on the body.”
Mr. Ledger’s father, Kim, released a statement through Mr. Ledger’s publicist that said “no medications were taken in excess,” echoing Ms. Borakove’s comments about the medications’ being taken together.
“We learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy,” Mr. Ledger said. “Heath’s accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage.”
There had been rumors about drug use, in part because the police said they had found a rolled-up $20 bill near Mr. Ledger’s body. The police also said they found no evidence of foul play and no suicide note.
In the wake of the medical examiner’s findings, some psychiatrists speculated on Wednesday that Mr. Ledger’s use of the prescription drugs had gone beyond abuse to addiction.
“There’s a possibility that different physicians prescribed these medications, and there’s a possibility that they were not misused,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, vice chairman of psychiatry at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. “Sometimes patients try to take them as prescribed and there’s an accidental overdose — I think that’s unlikely. I think what’s more likely is if someone dies of an overdose like this, that person was suffering from addiction.”
Dr. Kolodny continued, “I can tell you that if I presented a case of an overdose death with a toxicology report that appears like his did, my assumption would be the individual suffered from addiction.”
Dr. Vatsal Thakkar, a psychiatrist at New York University Medical Center and the author of the 2006 book “Addiction,” said another concern was that some of the drugs that Mr. Ledger had taken could build up in the body.
“If someone walked into my office on these six medications and I could verify that these were legitimately given, I’d explain to that person and then try to do the best I could in terms of streamlining or tapering some of these medications,” he said. “There are equally or more powerful alternatives that are often safer.”
Lori Brown, a pharmacist who is the manager of clinical services with Kerr Drug, a regional pharmacy chain in North Carolina and South Carolina, said the list of drugs should have been enough to have raised concerns.
“He was taking what I think any pharmacist would recognize as a potentially lethal, likely harmful combination of agents,” she said. “They all had a risk of sedation, and by combining all these medications, the sedation was substantial enough that it was lethal.”
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating where the drugs came from and has issued subpoenas to the medical examiner’s office for information about Mr. Ledger’s case, according to a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified because the investigation was continuing.
As it does whenever there is a death by drug overdose, the federal agency is seeking to determine whether the drugs were legally prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition or if any were illegally dispensed. The law enforcement official said the agency was also working with the police to obtain the original police reports about the death.
Mr. Ledger had become a familiar figure in his SoHo neighborhood. He moved there after breaking up with the actress Michelle Williams, who played his wife in “Brokeback Mountain” and with whom he had a daughter, Matilda, 2. Newspapers in Australia reported that Ms. Williams and her daughter arrived in Perth on Tuesday, apparently for Mr. Ledger’s funeral. Ms. Williams was dressed in black, and Matilda was carrying a stuffed rabbit.
8th February 2008 03:09 PM
GhostofBrianJones
Sometimes a person will go to more than one physician for meds and not
tell the doctor what other medications they are taking so as to get what
they really want. I can't say this for Heath, but since this was a lethal dosage
someone might of caught it if he went to the same pharmacy. If he did not,
then it could be no one caught the drug interactions. Senior Citizens who
end up being overmedicated sometimes do this as well due to forgetting
what they are taking so they don't tell each physician they see for whatever
reason. This is just a possibility, I hope they find more as time goes on.
He was a brilliant actor and will be missed greatly.
8th February 2008 03:14 PM
Factory Girl
quote:GhostofBrianJones wrote:
He was a brilliant actor and will be missed greatly.
I have Brokeback on DVD, but haven't been able to watch it.
Too raw, too soon.
8th February 2008 03:55 PM
glencar
The anal starts about 30 minutes in!
8th February 2008 04:08 PM
TampabayStone
quote:glencar wrote:
The anal starts about 30 minutes in!
Luckily Joey has FF on the remote.
8th February 2008 04:22 PM
texile
i know this is primarily a heath ledger thread,
but i was saddened by this article about renfro.....
it's long, but it makes a good point about how hollywood and the media measures different deaths on a scale of hierarchy, or whose death matters more.
Death spiral
Actor Brad Renfro's sad death, despite efforts to lift him from substance abuse, was saddening but not surprising in a town that calls to the troubled as well as the talented.
By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 10, 2008
BRAD RENFRO had insisted over the phone that he was clean. That's what the teen actor, hot from his performances as a troubled youth with sad eyes in such films as "The Client" and "Sleepers," told director Larry Clark. Clark, one of America's foremost chroniclers of teenage desperation, had just cast Renfro as the lead in "Bully," his true-life tale of a bunch of pot-smoking Florida teenagers who murder the local bully.
But then Clark met his 18-year-old star.
The director, who'd once battled heroin addiction himself, stopped by Renfro's Knoxville, Tenn., home on the way to the film's Florida location. It was the summer of 2000, and Renfro emerged from the house that he shared with his grandmother with blood streaming down his arms. He was bloated and looked 35. And so continued a painful, downward spiral -- one of the most excruciating Hollywood has seen of late.
"I said, 'What the [hell] are you doing?' " recalls Clark. "He'd been banging coke. He has tracks running down both arms. He looks horrible. I just saw the whole movie going down the drain." (Financing was contingent on Renfro's participation.)
Clark spent the next three days with Renfro. They talked. The young actor cried a lot, and continued to shoot up cocaine. Clark hatched a plan to get him clean for production.
"I kidnapped him," says the director. The pair jumped in the car one day, on the director's pretense of going somewhere, and Clark just "gunned it" for Florida. "He kicked in the car. He had a seizure. There's nothing you can do. It doesn't last that long."
In Florida, the production hired a trainer and a minder for Renfro. Clark took Renfro to 12-step meetings. Still, in the evenings, Renfro would manage to finagle alcohol.
Clark adds, "I've been around a lot of addicts and alcoholics, and I remember thinking at the time, this is one of the worst cases I've ever seen."
Brad Renfro died Jan. 15, 2008. He was 25.
A week later, 28-year-old Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment. He died of a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs -- among them medications that go by the brand names OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Restoril and Unisom.
Saddening, not surprising
THE cycle of destructiveness seems to have accelerated. It was shocking in 1993 when River Phoenix overdosed from heroin and cocaine at age 23, shocking because of his youth. Now we live in a time when the Associated Press is pre-writing Britney Spears' obituary. Has Hollywood become an incubator of abuse or a mirror of society? Or are we all just more aware of its troubled denizens because of the hyper 24/7 coverage?
Renfro's death saddened those who knew him, but did not surprise them. Many in Hollywood had tried to help him, but his addiction torpedoed relationships and his career. There were small obits, much smaller than his last high-profile appearance in the press, a photograph of Renfro in handcuffs on the front of The Times, arrested during a 2005 raid of skid row for trying to buy heroin.
In contrast, Ledger's passing provoked an outpouring of public grief about talent cut short before its full blossoming. The fiercely talented Ledger certainly did not seem like a man in self-destruction's grip. Yet after his death, tabloids ran stories of the Oscar nominee's supposed double life. Unnamed sources talked about his use of cocaine, heroin and other drugs, which were said to have contributed to the dissolution of his relationship with girlfriend Michelle Williams and subsequent despair.
Still, unlike Renfro, Ledger had spent the last year of his life working frantically, hurling himself into a multi-continent shoot as the crazed Joker in "The Dark Knight," and then plunging into Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
All through January, Ledger worked despite having a bad cold that turned into pneumonia. He told the New York Times in November, "Last week, I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted and my mind was still going."
In his professional drive, Ledger was different from the members of young Hollywood who usually end up in the tabloids and the police blotters. Paparazzi have been bolstering their bottom lines with an endless array of women in distress -- pretty twentysomethings such as Lindsay Lohan and Spears. Who knows whether women are actually suffering more than men? It's just that the tabloid-fashion-restaurant industries depend on pretty girls to sell magazines, clothes and trendy clubs.
"Drug abuse is so much more underreported than anyone realizes," says one former studio chief, who declined to be named, adding, "I think they [actors] all take a lot of drugs."
Just in recent days, which included Spears' midnight motorcade to the hospital, starlet Eva Mendes checked into rehab. The hit list of young actors with onetime substance abuse problems includes Balthazar Getty, Ben Affleck and Juliette Lewis.
"I just think what we see in young Hollywood is reflective in what we see happening in young America -- the pandemic of drug addiction," says Dr. Drew Pinsky, who appears in VH1's "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew." "Where we're losing ground is pharmaceuticals drug addiction."
According to a 2006 survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, while illegal drug use remains steady, pharmaceutical drug abuse is going up among young adults. Pinsky reels off some popular culprits: Valium, Ambien, Vicodin, OxyContin, Ritalin.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdoses kill more people than guns, second only after car accidents. In the most recent data, accidental poisoning deaths (primarily from prescription drugs) rose 62.5% from 1999 to 2004. Indeed, the New York medical examiner declared Ledger's death an accident, caused by the "abuse of prescription medications."
Pinsky sees a higher incidence of drug use among celebrities because Hollywood is a magnet for the troubled: "People who come from traumatic backgrounds gravitate toward the solution of becoming a celebrity."
And the environment doesn't help. "A lot of people who get into trouble with drugs are also people who feel emptiness in their day-to-day lives. They seek drama," says Southern California psychotherapist and addiction specialist Jim Conway. "For actors who do features, they have this huge circus environment for a few weeks. Then it's over and they're empty."
It's notoriously hard to control an addicted celebrity and sometimes the only reliable checks seem to be the insurance companies and the police. The insurance companies can refuse to insure substance abusers. A representative for Fireman's Fund Insurance, which covers most studio films, says about 10% of productions have actors with these issues.
Once an actor has a brush with the law, it can become much harder to get insured. In the recently published "Conversations With Woody Allen," the director bemoans how he'd wanted to cast Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder in "Melinda and Melinda" but couldn't get them covered. Downey had spent a stint in jail on drug charges; when authorities busted Ryder for shoplifting in 2001, they found eight different painkillers in her purse. "We were heartbroken because I had worked with Winona before and thought she was perfect for this."
Yet one lawyer who deals frequently with insurance issues points out that all kinds of deals can be made for a superstar, like daily drug testing or furnishing a sober companion, but "as someone's star begins to fall, there's a lot less will to justify the hoops."
A key break
BRAD RENFRO'S whole career started, improbably enough, because as an 11-year-old fifth-grader he'd been difficult in a Drug Abuse Resistance Education class taught by a retired policeman. "He was absolutely your problem child," says Dennis Bowman. "The very first day, I kicked him out of class." Bowman grew to like Renfro, but "he was still a piece of work as far as being out of control."
By many accounts, he came from a troubled background. His dad, a factory worker, and his mom split up when he was a toddler, and his mom deposited him on the Knoxville inner-city steps of his paternal grandmother. Says Bowman, "The grandmother was trying her best to raise a kid who was taking advantage of the situation and creating a lot of stress on her."
At the time, the late casting director Mali Finn was conducting a search for a kid to star in "The Client," the movie version of the John Grisham legal thriller about a Southern trailer-park kid who winds up embroiled in a Mafia hit. "We wanted that kid in the principal's office. That endearing, mischievous boy that may be lying to you, may not be telling you the truth, but you're still charmed by him," says casting director Emily Schweber, Finn's associate at the time. When one of Finn's letters describing their search arrived at the Knoxville Police Department, Bowman immediately thought of Renfro.
After auditioning him in her hotel room, Finn called Schweber and said, "I found him." Renfro and his grandmother later flew to California to screen-test. They'd never been on a plane or stayed in a hotel.
"He was really fun, really charming, a little bit wild, and amazing in the scenes. Where he learned how to do this, I don't know. Some kids really enjoy role-playing and acting," says Schweber. "He had a lot of energy but sometimes he did have dark moods."
Both Finn and Joel Schumacher later called J.J. Harris, who now manages such stars as Charlize Theron, to check out their child lead. Harris flew to the North Carolina set to watch Renfro work and was charmed. "You just wanted to take care of this boy. He was a gorgeous little boy. Rough-and-tumble. Very self-aware," she says. "He'd say things like 'Nobody can put up with me 'cause I'm too hot to handle.' " Adds Harris, "He was just obviously screaming for someone to establish some kind of boundaries for him, something that never happened in his life."
When Bowman finally saw "The Client," he thought Renfro "wasn't acting. Brad played himself. He had these street smarts and the swagger of a 19- or 20-year-old. If you met somebody like that now, your first reaction would be, 'What a punk.' But you scrape away all these layers, you think this is a 12-year-old trying to act tough."
Launching a career
EVEN back then there were signs of addiction issues. Renfro could be sneaky. As one who knew him well noted, any bottles of booze would invariably disappear when Renfro was around. Still, he managed to launch his career, flying from Knoxville to Los Angeles, often by himself, for auditions. The assistants at his agency, United Talent Agency, would drive him to meetings with casting directors, and the rest of the time he'd mostly cruise the agency halls and flirt with all the women. "This wasn't a bad kid -- this was a really emotionally abandoned person," says Harris.
His vulnerability combined with a tough persona entranced Hollywood. He was cast as a compassionate roughneck who befriends a kid suffering from AIDS in "The Cure," and as Huck Finn in "Tom and Huck." "He was exactly what you would expect -- a brooding, intense, rebellious fellow," says "Tom and Huck" producer Larry Mark. "He got a kick out of not going the straight and narrow."
In "Sleepers," Barry Levinson's drama about four neighborhood kids who are abused by sadistic guards in juvenile prison, he played the younger version of Brad Pitt's character. Knowing of his wildness, Levinson mandated that Renfro be accompanied by a minder 24 hours a day. Levinson later told a reporter, "He was fraught with demons and needed help."
Harris admits that initially she didn't realize the depth of Renfro's problems -- in part because so many child actors she dealt with came from chaotic families. Indeed, bouncing around UTA at the same time were both Drew Barrymore and Bijou Phillips, very young actresses who've both gone public about their teenage problems with substance abuse. "I just tried to have a sense of humor and be there for them," she recalls.
In "Apt Pupil," Renfro's last major studio movie, he played a compassionless A-student entranced by a former Nazi commandant -- played by Ian McKellen -- living incognito in the suburbs. "I knew he'd been wrestling for years with different problems," says director Bryan Singer. "But on workdays, he was always focused and into it. Quite professional." And good, particularly in his mad tango with the British pro McKellen. "You could see moment by moment them learning from each other and a lot of mutual respect."
But off-screen, there could be a manic energy and a radiating neediness. "You could tell he didn't have any sort of adult guidance. People couldn't help themselves but become unofficial guardians of him. There were a lot of people on the crew -- everyone from costumers to electricians -- always trying to support him," says producer Don Murphy.
Through the legal system
IN 1998, the year "Apt Pupil" was released, Renfro was busted for cocaine and marijuana, and began what became a long odyssey through the legal system, with a half-dozen arrests.
Although Clark had a minder staying with Renfro during the "Bully" production in the summer of 2000, the actor climbed out a second-story window and stole down to a nearby marina. According to Clark, Renfro "met some coke dealer and got [messed] up." He hot-wired a yacht and gunned it -- except he forgot to untie the boat. Renfro was arrested and charged with grand theft. He ultimately pleaded out and was sentenced to a fine and two years' probation.
"Bully" had to shut down for a day, and when the young actor got out of jail, he had to go straight to shooting a scene in which he emerges from the ocean and impresses a raft of girls with his youthful charisma. "He's all dehydrated and feels terrible," recalls Clark. "But he could just do stuff like that and he was young. He was a very natural actor. He didn't study his lines. I doubt he read the whole script, but when you turned on the camera, he was magic.
"He was so good you would kind of forgive him for being a [screw]-up." He pauses. "For a minute."
Yet, after causing a delay on "Bully," it became hard for Renfro to get insurance, says Harris, and hence harder for him to land parts. "It got to a place where I ran out of options," says the agent, who'd seen him through two stints at rehab and numerous futile conversations about staying clean. "He'd either get really angry, laugh it off or change the subject," she says, remembering how Renfro used to come into her office, lie on the couch and complain about what seemed like alcohol poisoning. " 'I'm nauseous. I can't see straight. I feel like my heart is palpitating,' and then he'd usually fall asleep.' "
To those in Hollywood, he inevitably seemed worse when he returned from his home in Knoxville. Or when he wasn't working, and there wasn't a Hollywood-designated minder watching over him.
"He wasn't good at that going-home bit, going back to his life" after the social activity of a movie set, adds Guy Ferland. As an associate producer on "The Client," Ferland would help keep Renfro healthily occupied in off hours with activities like trips to an amusement park. He later helped get him into a Knoxville Montessori school (Renfro dropped out within weeks) and directed him in "Telling Lies in America." "I'm not sure Brad really liked being alone. There was always some party, whatever he needed to do to keep the energy going."
Renfro quit J.J. Harris around 2001 and never spoke to her again, although he continued to work on smaller films, little seen, sometimes low-rent indies such as "Deuces Wild" and "The Job."
In 2006, he spent 10 days in jail for DUI and heroin possession. "He was very conscious that he was alone in the world and didn't have the kind of family and support system that others had," says his former lawyer Blair Berk.
As recently as last June, a judge declared he'd violated his probation by not enrolling in a long-term drug-treatment program, which he subsequently did. "We thought he turned the corner over the last six months. He'd been clean," says another of his lawyers, Richard Kaplan.
What caused Renfro's death is still unknown. The police have not released autopsy results. Apparently, Renfro had been drinking heavily the night before, and a Los Angeles roommate found him dead in his bed. Two days earlier, he'd had an obscene tattoo applied to his chest.
Even when plunging into the darkness, Renfro always tried to maintain his bad-boy bravado. On his MySpace page, on which he last posted in 2005, he described his career highlights and wrote, "When I started I didn't have any experience but now I would say I'm your typical Marlon Brando. . . . My friends sometimes say that I have the attitude of Eminem on Prozac but at the same time I also have a caring but loving side 2 me as well. . . ."
Bowman, who still lives in Knoxville, remembers telling his wife when Renfro landed "The Client," "This will be either the best thing that happened to Brad Renfro or the worst." In retrospect, Bowman's not sure that Hollywood made any difference in Renfro's fate. Neither is anyone else. "I think he was troubled before he got to Hollywood," says Singer, who went on to launch the "X-Men" franchise. "I think that when there's enough drugs involved it has less to do with the pressures of Hollywood and more to do with the pressures of life."
