How Heath Ledger’s Daughter Matilda Has Enjoyed a Private Life With Mom Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams went through the unimaginable, and then she proceeded to accomplish the impossible.
The actress’ now 15-year-old daughter Matilda Ledger was only 2 when her father, Heath Ledger, died of acute drug intoxication on Jan. 22, 2008, an autopsy later finding a cocktail of prescription medication in his system.
Heath was 28. The movie he would posthumously win an Oscar for the following year, The Dark Knight, was still months away from its theatrical release. And not just one but a trio of actors were enlisted to fill his shoes in what would be Heath’s final screen appearance, Terry Gilliam’s then-unfinished The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
But while Hollywood was devastated by the loss, and people started to dig into what the actor was doing in the months, weeks and days before his death in the hunt for some sort of traceable route from A to B, it was the loved ones left behind whose lives changed forever.
Michelle, in particular, was positively radiant—not least because they were in the midst of becoming a family of three at the time—and every chance she got she talked about how proud she was of Heath’s performance.
“It’s just deserved,” she told E! News in December 2005, two months after Matilda was born. “It’s sort of obvious after you see what he does. I forgot he was my boyfriend when I was watching it, I really did.” And Heath was equally congratulatory, saying about Michelle, “She’s a phenomenal actress. It’s boring to say she’s at a turning point—she’s always been turning a corner and she’ll continue to turn corners.
“She’s incredibly talented and beautiful, and her performance in this movie is incredibly controlled and deep, and full of emotion. I’m incredibly proud of her.”
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