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Heath Ledger: Cowboys, Junkies, and Maniacal Clowns · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:15
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger are insane. He was taught how to shoot
0:19
Speaker 1: up by an aging Australian junkie with a stolen prosthetic arm.
0:23
Speaker 1: In fake Blood, he was baited with cocaine by two
0:27
Speaker 1: paparazzi intent on getting revenge. He fell so deep into
0:31
Speaker 1: the dark psychology of his on screen characters that he
0:34
Speaker 1: got Batman to kick his ass for real. He was
0:38
Speaker 1: so good at disappearing into movie roles that he eventually
0:41
Speaker 1: disappeared beyond the point of no return, which is a
0:45
Speaker 1: shame because Heath Ledger was a great actor who made
0:49
Speaker 1: great movies. Unlike that loop I played few at the
0:53
Speaker 1: top of the show that wasn't from a great movie.
0:57
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my melotron called Tuno
1:00
Speaker 1: Madness Mk. Two. I played with that luke because I
1:05
Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to Crack a Bottle by Eminem
1:08
Speaker 1: Doctor dre and fifty cent. Why would I play you
1:12
Speaker 1: that specific slice of let your Body Wattle Cheese? Could
1:15
Speaker 1: I afford it? Because that was the number one song
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Speaker 1: in America on February twenty second, two thousand and nine,
1:24
Speaker 1: and That was the day that Heath Ledger beat such
1:26
Speaker 1: luminaries as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Downey Junior to
1:31
Speaker 1: win a posthumous Academy Award for his iconic portrayal of
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Speaker 1: the Joker on this episode Stolen prosthetic Arms, vengeful paparazzi,
1:43
Speaker 1: a dark Knight, ass kicking body, wattle cheese, Posthumous Oscars,
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Speaker 1: and Heath Ledger, I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland.
2:22
Speaker 1: Heath Leedger got to Prague early, more like an over
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Speaker 1: anxious kid on his first date than Hollywood's next leading man.
2:29
Speaker 1: Columbia Pictures wanted him to take horseback lessons, and it
2:33
Speaker 1: wasn't until he got to Prague that Heath revealed that
2:36
Speaker 1: he grew up on a farm outside of Perth. It
2:39
Speaker 1: was half bullshit, half swagger. Heath was a prep school brat,
2:44
Speaker 1: grew up playing hockey, performing Shakespeare. But Americans didn't know
2:48
Speaker 1: the first thing about Australia. They were dazzled by anything
2:52
Speaker 1: he said in his lifting up speak that turned every
2:55
Speaker 1: sentence into a potential question. He pulled out a fucking
2:58
Speaker 1: digeridoo at his audition and the director looked at him
3:01
Speaker 1: like he was some Aboriginal shaman. Heath told his friends
3:05
Speaker 1: back home it was the ditch that got him to roll.
3:10
Speaker 1: It was the summer of the year two thousand. Prague
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Speaker 1: had only opened its doors to capitalism ten years before.
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Speaker 1: Half a million protesters brought a peaceful end to four
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Speaker 1: decades of one party rule. So peaceful they called it
3:24
Speaker 1: the Velvet Revolution. The new president was a dissident poet.
3:29
Speaker 1: Everyone in Prague was a poet, or an artist or
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Speaker 1: a musician, and the whole city was drunk on cheap
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Speaker 1: freedom and cheap beer too, twelve cents American for a
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Speaker 1: stein the size of a bucket. It was a dream
3:41
Speaker 1: city for a twenty one year old kid, and Heath
3:44
Speaker 1: had it all to himself. It was a shame that
3:47
Speaker 1: he had arrived before his co stars. He wanted to
3:49
Speaker 1: share the experience with them, So Heath Ledger did what
3:53
Speaker 1: he always did when he was alone. He called up
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Speaker 1: his mates back in La a massive apartment that served
4:01
Speaker 1: as a landing pad and flophouse for any ossi that
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Speaker 1: came to California looking to hit big. People came and
4:08
Speaker 1: went crashed on couches overnight or for months, on end.
4:12
Speaker 1: When new Ossi actors showed up at Hollywood auditions, casting
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Speaker 1: directors asked, so are you one of the ones staying
4:18
Speaker 1: at Heath's place. It was the kind of stardom he thought.
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Speaker 1: He wanted something he could share. He grinned through parties
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Speaker 1: of friends and strangers, but often retreated to take his
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Speaker 1: spot behind the turntables. He played Nick Drake Covers on
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Speaker 1: guitar while other Ossi actors paced the hallways running lines
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Speaker 1: from Prague. He phoned the flophouse in la He told
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Speaker 1: his friends to come over like he was at the
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Speaker 1: bar down the block, and not halfway across the world.
4:46
Speaker 1: Come now, it's cheap, everything's practically free. He phoned Columbia
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Speaker 1: Pictures and got phone numbers for his co stars on
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Speaker 1: A Night's Tale, the movie he was in Prague to shoot,
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Speaker 1: most of whom he hadn't met yet. He called them
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Speaker 1: up to He's about a group of friends, he said,
5:01
Speaker 1: let's get together, get to know each other. Easy for
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Speaker 1: him to say. The other actors were all scraping by,
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Speaker 1: and none of them was getting the kind of money
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Speaker 1: Heath was for this job. It's cheap, he said, everything's
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Speaker 1: practically free. If their definition of practically free was different
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Speaker 1: from his, so be it. He would buy them all
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Speaker 1: plane tickets, and that's exactly what he did. Refusing to
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Speaker 1: take no for an answer, the entourage landed in Prague.
5:27
Speaker 1: Heath booked the whole floor of a hotel for next
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Speaker 1: to nothing. They ran through the streets by night until
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Speaker 1: the bars kicked them out at closing. American coins rattled
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Speaker 1: in their pockets. They could have been kids on a
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Speaker 1: gap year fuck about in Eastern Europe with all the
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Speaker 1: time in the world, but Heath had a sense of
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Speaker 1: urgency when he left Perth at age nineteen to break
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Speaker 1: big in Hollywood. He told his dad it had to
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Speaker 1: be now because he wasn't going to be here long.
5:55
Speaker 1: Wasn't sure how he knew, but he did know that
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Speaker 1: this movie, A Night's Tale would be huge, and it
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Speaker 1: wouldn't just make him the star. His co stars they
6:05
Speaker 1: were going to be big too. Saturday night, before the
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Speaker 1: rest of the crew arrived, Heath and company had dinner
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Speaker 1: at a family pizza place off in Rootova Street. A
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Speaker 1: rosy cheeked check girl not two years younger than Heath,
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Speaker 1: brought them bread and endless bottles of Hungarian wine. Sugary,
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Speaker 1: sweet stuff Heath knew he'd feel in the morning. The
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Speaker 1: girl's mustachioed father grinned toothly from the kitchen, drenched in
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Speaker 1: sweat from the one hundred year old brick oven. Other
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Speaker 1: patrons paid their bills and left, some out the front
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Speaker 1: door and some down a dark staircase in the corner
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Speaker 1: of the restaurant. The Hollywood entourage called for more wine,
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Speaker 1: and the chipmunk cheek girl brought it as she wished
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Speaker 1: she could sit down with them, follow them out into
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Speaker 1: the night, into all that cheap freedom. She kept hearing
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Speaker 1: about her mother, a woman built to survive harsh winters,
6:55
Speaker 1: grunted at her from the corner. As the restaurant emptied,
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Speaker 1: He kept watching that staircase in the corner, where one
7:02
Speaker 1: of his friends caught him looking. There's a burlesque club
7:05
Speaker 1: in the basement, she told him, straight up kitch, like
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Speaker 1: the Weimar Republic, like stepping into caparet. They all looked
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Speaker 1: to Heath, even the waitress standing ready with another bottle.
7:15
Speaker 1: Heath was the youngest, but he was also the one
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Speaker 1: who put this gang together, and the one who held
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Speaker 1: them together. His hotel room was a miniature or the flophouse.
7:24
Speaker 1: People came and went, slept on the floor, fucked in
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Speaker 1: the bathroom, did lines off the coffee tables. They came
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Speaker 1: by just to be around Heath, and people told him
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Speaker 1: he was an old soul, and he smiled cryptically. If
7:35
Speaker 1: he had it on him, he would have pulled out
7:37
Speaker 1: his Dijerido like a fucking mystic and make it drone
7:40
Speaker 1: in its weird song. Americans ate up that assy bullshit.
7:45
Speaker 1: Let's go, then, he said, and they're out down the
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Speaker 1: stairs for group bonding. Pg. Thirteen Times strip teases and
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Speaker 1: upa bands. Except that the burlesque show was on weeknights,
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Speaker 1: Saturdays were a different show. It wasn't some straight out
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Speaker 1: of cabaret nudge nudge wink. This was a full on
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Speaker 1: sex show, the kind of thing that made Michael Corleoni
8:08
Speaker 1: squirm in the Godfather part too. It was this even legal?
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Speaker 1: Did the poet president allow this on his watch? Everyone
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Speaker 1: looked at Heath, but Heath was inscrutable, a zen monk
8:20
Speaker 1: with a beatific grin. It was cool by him. He
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Speaker 1: and his friends were exactly where they were supposed to
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Speaker 1: be as long as they were in it together. And
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Speaker 1: the next morning the first day of shooting, the actors
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Speaker 1: showed up on set exhausted, hungover. The crew of Hollywood
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Speaker 1: vetts side eyed them. What do these nobody kids think
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Speaker 1: they were the fucking brat pack. Heath would have said, No,
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Speaker 1: we're something new. We're going to be huge, all of us.
8:46
Speaker 1: They stayed tight after the shoot back in La. Heath
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Speaker 1: stayed friends with everyone, even exes, of which there were
8:53
Speaker 1: already several. He couldn't be mad at him, even when
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Speaker 1: he fucked up and had too much or went too far.
8:59
Speaker 1: Publicity nights Tale ramped up and posters and billboards appeared
9:03
Speaker 1: all over La. Instead of using photos, they took together
9:06
Speaker 1: as a group of prague. The billboards had only Heath's face,
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Speaker 1: twenty feet high, stern and Hollywood handsome. He will rock you,
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Speaker 1: the tagline read. Heath was horrified. This wasn't the movie
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Speaker 1: they made, This wasn't who he wanted to be. He
9:21
Speaker 1: called his friends to apologize, but none of them were pissed.
9:24
Speaker 1: They were proud of him. They knew what their roles
9:26
Speaker 1: had been in the movie. They were merely support for
9:29
Speaker 1: the so called White Knight so he could make it big.
9:32
Speaker 1: And he was about to, and before long, his face
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Speaker 1: would be everywhere. The couple was happy, and the paparazzi
10:01
Speaker 1: were sick of it. Storybookshit didn't sell papers, and Heath
10:07
Speaker 1: Ledger and Michelle Williams were in a fairy tale. They
10:11
Speaker 1: had met on the set of Broke Back Mountain in
10:13
Speaker 1: the Canadian Rockies, a meet cute captured on film, and
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Speaker 1: now they were taking their very public victory. Love gushingly
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Speaker 1: in love in that way that made other couples uncomfortable.
10:24
Speaker 1: Broke Back Mountain was a revolutionary Hollywood movie, a love
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Speaker 1: story about two gay cowboys. Gus van Zant was attached
10:32
Speaker 1: to direct, but couldn't cast the tense job repressed lead role,
10:36
Speaker 1: and Brad Pitt passed, and Dido for Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon,
10:40
Speaker 1: Mark Wahlberg, and Joaquin Phoenix. They passed too, so van
10:44
Speaker 1: zandt dropped out and the project fell to Ag Lee,
10:47
Speaker 1: whose red hot success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had
10:50
Speaker 1: cooled off considerably after his follow up flop with The Hulk.
10:54
Speaker 1: The Gay Cowboys script found its way to Heath, who
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Speaker 1: loved it. He'd been playing small parts, weird part since
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Speaker 1: A Knight's Tale. Anxious to avoid being typecast as nothing
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Speaker 1: more than a pretty face. Heath saw an opportunity to
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Speaker 1: make a bold move like River Phoenix, playing a narcoleptic,
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Speaker 1: gay hustler in Van Zandtz My own Private, Idaho, shedding
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Speaker 1: his pretty boy persona and establishing himself as a real actor.
11:19
Speaker 1: After they made the movie, Heath and Michelle moved in
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Speaker 1: together in Brooklyn, of all places, not the hipster loft
11:25
Speaker 1: scene in Williamsburg, the quiet row houses of Borham Hill.
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Speaker 1: No one in boram Hill gave a shit if you
11:31
Speaker 1: were famous. Brooklyn was in La. Brooklyn left you alone.
11:36
Speaker 1: Keith and Michelle got married at City Hall in secret,
11:39
Speaker 1: and they never referenced the rings on their fingers at
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Speaker 1: Premiers or at Galas than that October, three months earlier.
11:46
Speaker 1: They had a baby, little Matilda. Heath was over the moon.
11:50
Speaker 1: He said Broke Back changed his life, and he wasn't
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Speaker 1: talking about his breakthrough performance or the award nominations the
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Speaker 1: movie brought him. Michelle gave him his baby daughter. That's
12:00
Speaker 1: the best thing that ever happened to him. But at
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Speaker 1: that moment, Heath and Michelle weren't in Brooklyn. They were
12:06
Speaker 1: in La at the Shrine Auditorium for the Screen Actors
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Speaker 1: Guild Awards, facing off against paparazzi who had no time
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Speaker 1: for that bridge and tunnel shit. Heath and Michelle were
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Speaker 1: far from home and there were scores to settle. Australian
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Speaker 1: tabloids had infamously dubbed the couple surly and surly. Heath
12:25
Speaker 1: regularly threw eggs at the photographers who camped outside his
12:28
Speaker 1: house back in Australia. Just one year prior, in Sydney,
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Speaker 1: a photographer shouted flashed as he snapped a picture during
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Speaker 1: a take on the set of Candy, the first film
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Speaker 1: Heath had shot in Australia in four years. The photographer
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Speaker 1: didn't give a fuck that he just ruined the scene.
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Speaker 1: Got you a Ledger, he screamed, I'll see you at home.
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Speaker 1: Heath broke character and took off after the photographer all
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Speaker 1: the way down the street, so far down the street
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Speaker 1: that the two of them were the only witnesses to
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Speaker 1: what happened next. The photographer ended up with a scraped
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Speaker 1: knee and busted elbow. He went to the police, said
13:00
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger tackled him for no reason. According to Heath,
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Speaker 1: the poor bastard fell in the chase with no one
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Speaker 1: else there to see it, and the cops didn't press
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Speaker 1: charges Candy. The film Heath had been shooting when the
13:12
Speaker 1: photographer made his move was about two heroin addicts. The
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Speaker 1: Aussie rags made sure they portrayed Heath as an actor
13:18
Speaker 1: who did a little too much research for his role.
13:21
Speaker 1: The stories Heath told were strange enough. He and co
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Speaker 1: star Abbe Cornish met an old junkie at a Sydney
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Speaker 1: narcotics anonymous meeting who took them back to his apartment
13:31
Speaker 1: and the attic took out a rifle case. Inside was
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Speaker 1: a prosthetic arm with a bag of fake blood attached
13:36
Speaker 1: at the shoulder. The blood bag ran into two tubes
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Speaker 1: that ran into two fully functional veins that ran the
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Speaker 1: length of the arm. It was an educational prop for
13:47
Speaker 1: nurses to learn to draw blood. The junkie had lifted
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Speaker 1: it from a hospital and used it to show newbies
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Speaker 1: how to shoot up safely, how to shoot up right.
13:56
Speaker 1: He slided the needle up the vein, and don't go
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Speaker 1: poking yourself like a fuck amateur, he showed Heath salivating
14:03
Speaker 1: and Pavloonian response. When Heath sunk the needle into the
14:06
Speaker 1: prosthetics arms vein fake blood shooting up the dropper's neck.
14:12
Speaker 1: Heath got so good at it that he figured he'd
14:14
Speaker 1: be able to do it for real, maybe even without flinching,
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Speaker 1: not that he actually would. It was one thing to
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Speaker 1: disappear into a roll and another thing to disappear completely.
14:24
Speaker 1: But no matter how many rolls there were to disappear into,
14:27
Speaker 1: the paparazzi didn't forget the Heath Ledger used to throw
14:30
Speaker 1: eggs at them from his porch that he allegedly tackled
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Speaker 1: one of their own, and they certainly didn't forgive. When
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Speaker 1: Heath Michelle went back to Sydney for the Broke Back premiere,
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Speaker 1: paparazzi sprayed them with super soakers. They apologized to Michelle,
14:46
Speaker 1: but not to Heath. They claimed it was payback, but
14:50
Speaker 1: the biggest payback was about to come Los Angeles two
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Speaker 1: thousand and six. After the screen actors killed ceremony at
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Speaker 1: the Shrine Auditorium, Heath Michelle went back to the Chateau MArmand,
15:04
Speaker 1: where they'd left their daughter with a sitter. Michelle went
15:07
Speaker 1: up to the room to see the baby and get
15:09
Speaker 1: some sleep. Heath mingled in the lobby. He was wound up, anxious,
15:14
Speaker 1: not much for sleeping. The Chateau Marman on Sunset Boulevard
15:18
Speaker 1: was legendary. Harry Cohne, co founder of Columbia Pictures, told
15:22
Speaker 1: William Holden, if you must get into trouble, do it
15:25
Speaker 1: at the Chateau Marman. James Dean jumped out of Chateau
15:28
Speaker 1: Marman window to quote unquote audition for Rebel without a Cause.
15:32
Speaker 1: John Belushi wrote a speedball injection out of this World
15:35
Speaker 1: in Bungalow three. And those were just the stories you
15:38
Speaker 1: heard about. The chateau kept its secrets. If you must
15:42
Speaker 1: get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marman. Darren
15:47
Speaker 1: Banks and Eric Mann were photographers for Splash News and
15:50
Speaker 1: Picture Agency, a global network of paparazzi. They came to
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Speaker 1: the Chateau Marman with cocaine, which they had bought with
15:58
Speaker 1: the news agency's money, and they were there with Banks,
16:01
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, a reporter for People magazine who'd be listed
16:05
Speaker 1: as Jane Doe, and the legal proceedings that came later,
16:09
Speaker 1: and they zeroed in on Heath wandering the crowd edgy
16:12
Speaker 1: and listless alone without his storybook wife or his fairy
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Speaker 1: tale baby, and they had revenge on their minds. Tough
16:21
Speaker 1: loss tonight, Banks said he was incognito. He didn't tell
16:24
Speaker 1: a Heath what he did for a living. Yeah, yeah,
16:27
Speaker 1: said he thanks. He'd forgotten about the award show. He
16:30
Speaker 1: didn't give a shit about awards. The whole process ground
16:33
Speaker 1: on him, made him wish he'd never taken the part.
16:36
Speaker 1: He felt the gravity of his wife and his daughter
16:38
Speaker 1: pulling at him from upstairs, but something kept him down
16:42
Speaker 1: here in the muck of this party, a lead ghost
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Speaker 1: of an old self that he couldn't shake. You want
16:47
Speaker 1: to get out of here at Banks house. My girlfriend's
16:49
Speaker 1: got a room. Heath did want to get out of there.
16:52
Speaker 1: He needed to get back to his wife and daughter,
16:55
Speaker 1: back to Boorham Hill, where no one gave a fuck
16:57
Speaker 1: who he was. He was too visible in La even
17:00
Speaker 1: though everyone pretended so hard not to see him. This
17:03
Speaker 1: town used to be fun, back when he had the
17:05
Speaker 1: massive apartment that served as a landing pad for friends.
17:09
Speaker 1: That was five years ago. He looked around the party
17:12
Speaker 1: and all he saw were dead eyes, plastic smiles, all
17:16
Speaker 1: of them pretending to have fun, but underneath they were
17:19
Speaker 1: all so serious. Upstairs, Jane Doe watched as Banks and
17:27
Speaker 1: mun carved the coke into lines and presented it to
17:30
Speaker 1: Heath like he had won an award. Fuck, he was
17:33
Speaker 1: going to get serious shit for Michelle. He shouldn't even
17:36
Speaker 1: be here in the one place where people famously went
17:39
Speaker 1: to get into trouble. The undercover paparazzi gave Heath nudge
17:43
Speaker 1: and showed off that quality coke purchased just for him.
17:47
Speaker 1: Heath dove into old habits, dove into those lines like
17:50
Speaker 1: he woke up from his fairy tale life and he
17:52
Speaker 1: had been in the Chateau Marman the whole time. Mound
17:55
Speaker 1: excused himself to unpowder his nose. He went around to
17:59
Speaker 1: the bellk he crouched down with a camera. Jane Doe
18:03
Speaker 1: saw him do it. She hadn't signed on for this shit.
18:05
Speaker 1: Maybe she bought his good husband, good dad stick and
18:08
Speaker 1: maybe she got suckered by that smile, and she wouldn't
18:11
Speaker 1: be the first. Jane Doe knew the paparazzi wanted to
18:14
Speaker 1: revenge on Heath, she just didn't think it was right.
18:18
Speaker 1: She demanded the Mon and Banks tell Heath exactly who
18:20
Speaker 1: they were. Banks approached Heath, hands up and palms out
18:24
Speaker 1: like he would a rabbit, an animal, because Heath no
18:27
Speaker 1: longer looked like the goofball new dad right now, he
18:30
Speaker 1: now looked like the guy who had chased down and
18:32
Speaker 1: tackled a photographer just last year in Sydney. It's cool,
18:36
Speaker 1: said Banks. I'm gonna go get us some more a
18:39
Speaker 1: peace offering and no more pictures, a promise. He didn't
18:43
Speaker 1: mention that his partner had been shooting video. Heath calmed
18:47
Speaker 1: down a little. Banks made a call, scored them some
18:49
Speaker 1: more on the company's tab. Before too long, it was
18:52
Speaker 1: a party again. But every few lines Heath remembered the
18:56
Speaker 1: setup and lost his shit all over again. Man attempted
18:59
Speaker 1: to calm Heath down. He was going to destroy the photos,
19:02
Speaker 1: Swear to God they would never see the daylight. Mon
19:05
Speaker 1: went out to his car. He swapped the memory card
19:08
Speaker 1: for one in his glove box, one containing red carpet
19:10
Speaker 1: shots and he had could take. He snapped the red
19:13
Speaker 1: carpet card in half, shut the glove compartment, and went
19:16
Speaker 1: back upstairs. See, he said, showing off the broken memory card.
19:20
Speaker 1: All gone. The video never did see daylight while Heath
19:26
Speaker 1: was alive. Anyways, Banks and Mon knew he'd come back
19:29
Speaker 1: at them, make them look like the assholes. Plus Heath
19:33
Speaker 1: Ledger wasn't news, not yet anyway, He retreated to Borham Hill.
19:37
Speaker 1: People got cell phone shots of him with his daughter
19:40
Speaker 1: on his shoulders, and the photos ended up in the
19:42
Speaker 1: back of People magazine and the celebrities who were just
19:45
Speaker 1: like a schlock filler, not the shit that sells magazines.
19:48
Speaker 1: Heath was a stay at home dad and he loved it.
19:51
Speaker 1: He passed up roles on the regular just so he
19:53
Speaker 1: could spend more time with his daughter. But one more
19:56
Speaker 1: role was waiting, one that would take his Hollywood smile
20:00
Speaker 1: and twist it, and it would lead Heath Ledger to
20:03
Speaker 1: a dark place. We'll be right back after this word
20:10
Speaker 1: were where Christian Bell surveyed the wreckage. He had to
20:19
Speaker 1: pivot on the heel of his boot, and the neck
20:21
Speaker 1: wasn't as stiff as the one Michael Keaton wore, and
20:24
Speaker 1: the suit didn't have fucking nipples, thank god, but it
20:26
Speaker 1: was limiting enough. Bell couldn't keep his head on a swivel.
20:30
Speaker 1: He took a slow three sixty rotation. Broken glass, up
20:34
Speaker 1: ended steel table, ceramic tiles, shattered. Shit, Bell thought, did
20:39
Speaker 1: I do this. If he was in a throwdown that
20:42
Speaker 1: did this much damage, he ought to know about it.
20:45
Speaker 1: He'd have his knuckles dusted, a coppery tang of blood
20:47
Speaker 1: in his mouth. Fuck a room up this bat. There
20:50
Speaker 1: should be scars, bruises, a memory of what happened. He
20:54
Speaker 1: ran gloved fingers over the jagged edge of a broken
20:57
Speaker 1: tile and maybe the director rigged a detonator or made
21:00
Speaker 1: the tile implode. Didn't make sense, didn't seem possible. Christopher
21:05
Speaker 1: Nolan was a master of physical effects. They leave the
21:08
Speaker 1: CGI to amateurs, let the hack directors fix shit and post.
21:12
Speaker 1: Nolan wanted it on camera. Bail had bruises and scrapes
21:16
Speaker 1: to prove it, and they hadn't talked to explosives and rehearsal.
21:19
Speaker 1: And Nolan wasn't the kind of director who sprang shit
21:22
Speaker 1: on you to get some authentic reaction, not like Hitchcock
21:25
Speaker 1: turning the shower ice cold. So Janet Lee's shock was
21:28
Speaker 1: authentic when the knife came down, down, down. Lee never
21:32
Speaker 1: forgave Hitchcock, but you can't argue with the results. The
21:36
Speaker 1: complex stunts and physical effects Nolan used required trust from
21:40
Speaker 1: his actors. Pulling tricks wasn't his bag. A shard of
21:45
Speaker 1: ceramic about the size of a baby tooth came loose
21:48
Speaker 1: and clattered on the concrete next to Bale's boot. We
21:51
Speaker 1: did this, he thought. The details came back to him fuzzy,
21:55
Speaker 1: like waking up in a stranger's bed and piecing together
21:57
Speaker 1: the night before. He remembered going through the fight choreography
22:01
Speaker 1: in rehearsal, a careful, exacting dance of violence. He and
22:05
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger went over it again and again until they
22:07
Speaker 1: had the steps right. But in rehearsal, Heath didn't do
22:11
Speaker 1: the voice. He did a voice, of course, and like Bail,
22:15
Speaker 1: he's drowned his accent in store brand American ketchup. For
22:18
Speaker 1: most parts, He's landed on something midwestern, Chicago generic, and
22:24
Speaker 1: he was good at it. His voice blended into any
22:26
Speaker 1: Friday night crowd at the Clark Street Bars in Wrigleyville.
22:29
Speaker 1: In rehearsal, his voice was average, aggressively normal. Bail growled
22:35
Speaker 1: his lines a rasp that left his throat shredded, left
22:38
Speaker 1: him sucking mouthfuls of lozenges after every take. Heath held
22:42
Speaker 1: something back until the cameras rolled. Then he came at
22:46
Speaker 1: Bail with that nasal fucking whine, that sound that crept
22:50
Speaker 1: under Bale's skin, that needled at him. Why so serious, Christian?
22:55
Speaker 1: With that voice, that fucking voice itching away at his brain.
22:59
Speaker 1: All the choreograph violence, all the practiced dance steps of
23:03
Speaker 1: the fight, burned away in red rage. Bail had smacked
23:06
Speaker 1: his forehead onto the metal desk, banged it like a gong,
23:09
Speaker 1: and Heath laughed a WHEELI he he he hit me,
23:13
Speaker 1: he said, gone hit me. He kept talking in that voice,
23:18
Speaker 1: that fucking voice. Only he wasn't a Heath Ledger anymore.
23:21
Speaker 1: He was a demon, an agent of pure chaos. Bail
23:25
Speaker 1: had to get answers, had to beat the answers out
23:27
Speaker 1: of him. He picked Heath up by the kelly green
23:30
Speaker 1: vest and slammed his back against the tile wall, hard
23:33
Speaker 1: enough to smash the tiles. He grabbed a fistful of
23:35
Speaker 1: that greasy, hot topic dyed hair and slammed he face
23:39
Speaker 1: into the two way glass, leaving a spider web shattered pattern.
23:42
Speaker 1: The violence was real, and Heath laughed the whole fucking thing,
23:46
Speaker 1: never crying off, never calling cut as Bail flipped him
23:49
Speaker 1: onto the metal table tossed his body around like a
23:51
Speaker 1: rag doll, and the whole time laughing that laugh that
23:55
Speaker 1: made Bail want to hit him again harder. Belle looked
24:01
Speaker 1: over at Heath, sitting in a corner smoking a cigarette.
24:04
Speaker 1: Before the next take, Heath was buried in a book,
24:08
Speaker 1: the journal he had with him on set at all times,
24:10
Speaker 1: with the joker written on the front above a picture
24:13
Speaker 1: of a woman in a sun hat feeding an elephant.
24:16
Speaker 1: It was a diary in a scrap book cut out
24:18
Speaker 1: comic book panels photos of Tim Curry as Pennywise, the
24:22
Speaker 1: demonic Clown and John Wayne Gacy, the all two real
24:26
Speaker 1: killer clown who performed at birthday parties in children's hospitals,
24:30
Speaker 1: but also who killed at least thirty three young men
24:33
Speaker 1: and boys. Paintings by Francis Bacon of medieval popes reduced
24:38
Speaker 1: to screaming skeletons, dead birds, and rotting slabs of beef
24:43
Speaker 1: old playing cards. In a photo of Malcolm McDowell leering,
24:47
Speaker 1: grinning in a bowler hat and eyeliner as a clockwork
24:50
Speaker 1: oranges charismatic psychopath Alex Hyenas and handwritten dialogue. Bell could
24:56
Speaker 1: go all in on a roll. He tanned himself like
24:59
Speaker 1: leathered of play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. He survived
25:03
Speaker 1: on cigarettes, whiskey and black coffee to get into the
25:05
Speaker 1: body of a strung out insomniac and the machinist one
25:08
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty pounds on his six foot frame. He
25:11
Speaker 1: put on one hundred pounds of muscle before we'd donned
25:13
Speaker 1: the batsuit. Like cgi, sculpted rubber pecks were for amateurs. Heath,
25:19
Speaker 1: on the other hand, locked himself away for a month
25:22
Speaker 1: in a London hotel room, reading old Batman comics and
25:25
Speaker 1: improvising leering grins and nails on a chalkboard voices until
25:29
Speaker 1: he got them right and that fucking voice. The month
25:33
Speaker 1: of seclusion fucked with. Heath permanently messed up with Circadian
25:37
Speaker 1: rhythms until he was only sleeping two hours a night.
25:40
Speaker 1: Christian Bale put all those lost pounds back on every
25:43
Speaker 1: ounce he starved off himself for one role, returned as
25:47
Speaker 1: muscle for this one. Heath Ledger. Didn't go into isolation
25:50
Speaker 1: to lose something. He went to find something, and he
25:54
Speaker 1: came back with that journal Bye bye, written ominously on
25:57
Speaker 1: the last page. Aware he was being watched, Heath looked up,
26:03
Speaker 1: he smiled, his broad movie star smile framed by a
26:06
Speaker 1: horror show. A rictus of makeup and prosthetics. Heath helped
26:10
Speaker 1: design the look the scars. He's sure as shit didn't
26:13
Speaker 1: want to look like Caesar Romero, who wouldn't even shave
26:16
Speaker 1: his stash before they layered on the grease paint. And
26:18
Speaker 1: he didn't dare look like Jack Nicholson, who was already
26:21
Speaker 1: complaining in the press that no one had even asked
26:23
Speaker 1: him to reprise the role. And the scars were based
26:26
Speaker 1: on an old British mob movie called The Chelsea Grin.
26:29
Speaker 1: He slid a guy's cheek from the corner of his
26:31
Speaker 1: lips to the back of his molars. Shit, never heals right.
26:35
Speaker 1: Ugly for life, Heath licked his lips. He did it
26:40
Speaker 1: constantly to keep the prosthetic scars from coming on glued,
26:44
Speaker 1: the necessity becoming part of the performance. He gave Bail
26:47
Speaker 1: a cheery wave, twiddling his fingers in the air, and
26:50
Speaker 1: went back to his journal and his smoke. And there
26:53
Speaker 1: are rumors Heath Ledgers stayed in character while shooting The
26:56
Speaker 1: Dark Knight, that he was the joker all the time,
27:00
Speaker 1: that noise for Jared Leto. The truth was even scarier
27:04
Speaker 1: how easily Heath turned it on and off. Once the
27:08
Speaker 1: cameras rolled, he was no longer Heath Ledger. He became
27:12
Speaker 1: the joker. He spooked Maggie Gillenhall, who'd known him for years.
27:16
Speaker 1: He spooked Michael Kane, which is no easy feat. This
27:19
Speaker 1: is a guy who lived through the Nazi bombing of London,
27:21
Speaker 1: who went drink for drink with Peter O'Toole, who co
27:24
Speaker 1: starred with Lawrence Olivier and Sean Connery, and who defined
27:27
Speaker 1: badass British coal in the nineteen sixties as Harry Palmer,
27:31
Speaker 1: a spy who made James Bond look like a fucking
27:34
Speaker 1: door to door salesman. Michael Kine stammered and botched his
27:37
Speaker 1: lines when he had to stare into Heath Ledger's leering
27:40
Speaker 1: lipstick smeared muck, and the second Nolan called cut, he
27:44
Speaker 1: was Heath again, sweet, funny kind. But the thing that
27:49
Speaker 1: he created in that hotel room was still inside him,
27:53
Speaker 1: ready to be let out when they called action. It
27:55
Speaker 1: lived inside him now and it wouldn't let him sleeper.
28:26
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger wasn't sleeping. It was barely dawn. He decided
28:30
Speaker 1: to go for a chess game in Washington Square Park
28:33
Speaker 1: in the rain. He was thinking about a break from
28:36
Speaker 1: acting for the first time in forever. Heath felt like
28:39
Speaker 1: he had time to play the long game, if you
28:41
Speaker 1: could just get some fucking sleep. It was two thousand
28:44
Speaker 1: and eight. The players in the park respected heat game
28:48
Speaker 1: as much as they did his movies. He played speed
28:50
Speaker 1: chess against the early morning regulars, a stalemate, two losses.
28:55
Speaker 1: He couldn't see the whole board, its future, its possibilities.
28:59
Speaker 1: His brain felt reinslick and jagged. Heath shook hands and
29:03
Speaker 1: went home. But Heath wasn't going back to the storybook
29:07
Speaker 1: apartment in Boreham, Hell. He and Michelle had split months earlier.
29:12
Speaker 1: In the silence about the reasons for the breakup, the
29:15
Speaker 1: tabloids assumed Heath was back on drugs. Cocaine tape from
29:19
Speaker 1: the Chateau MArmand hadn't gone public, but its existence was
29:23
Speaker 1: a shared secret among paparazzi, and they never bought Heath's
29:27
Speaker 1: hole mister Mom routine to begin with, and they knew
29:30
Speaker 1: the real Heath. He was living on Broome Street in Soho,
29:33
Speaker 1: like what the Aussie flophouse in La years ago. His
29:36
Speaker 1: mates were once again welcome and made regular visits, some
29:40
Speaker 1: longer term than others. Unable to keep Heath away from drugs,
29:44
Speaker 1: they kept drugs away from Heath, chastising people who brought
29:48
Speaker 1: coke to parties. Put that shit away. Heath can't see that,
29:52
Speaker 1: and they comforted him about the split about being away
29:55
Speaker 1: from his daughter and fatherhood was the only thing Heath
29:58
Speaker 1: knew he was good at without an audience to t
30:00
Speaker 1: tell him. So he missed his daughter like a limb,
30:04
Speaker 1: and the housekeeper let herself into heath soho pad around
30:07
Speaker 1: noon that day. She knew to always expect guests, aussy
30:11
Speaker 1: boys passed out on the couch, a supermodel making herself
30:14
Speaker 1: tea in the kitchen, But on this day, heath door
30:17
Speaker 1: was closed. Maybe he's getting some rest, she thought. At
30:23
Speaker 1: two thirty in the afternoon, He's massage therapist came by,
30:27
Speaker 1: and neither the therapist nor the housekeeper wanted to wake him,
30:30
Speaker 1: but Heath needed the massage treatments. Back pain was constant.
30:34
Speaker 1: A good massage many could skip some of the pills.
30:38
Speaker 1: When Heath didn't respond and they worried. It took both
30:41
Speaker 1: of them to force the door open and they found
30:43
Speaker 1: him naked on the floor, unresponsive, and the housekeeper told
30:47
Speaker 1: the massage therapist to call an ambulance, but they both
30:50
Speaker 1: knew the things the papers wrote about Heath. If there
30:52
Speaker 1: weren't paparazzi outside the apartment already, sirens would drive them
30:56
Speaker 1: like flies to shit, and Heath would wake up as
30:59
Speaker 1: the punchline of a tabloid scandal. And to spare him embarrassment,
31:03
Speaker 1: his massage therapist called the first number on his speed dial.
31:06
Speaker 1: She got Mary Kate Olsen in the spotlight. Since she
31:11
Speaker 1: was nine months old, Mary Kate Olsen was one half
31:14
Speaker 1: of America's most notorious set of child star twins. She
31:18
Speaker 1: claimed she and Heath were just friends, although anyone who's
31:21
Speaker 1: had to pick nine, ride or dies to put on
31:23
Speaker 1: speed dial might suspect it was more significant. She was
31:27
Speaker 1: in la when she got the call from Heath's massage therapist,
31:30
Speaker 1: but rather than say hang up the phone and call
31:32
Speaker 1: a fucking ambulance, she told him she would send her
31:35
Speaker 1: security guy in New York. He'd be there in no
31:37
Speaker 1: time and get everything taken care of, and Mary Kate
31:40
Speaker 1: hung up. The massage therapist called back and stressed that
31:45
Speaker 1: Heath was unconscious. Mary Kate assured her the guy is
31:49
Speaker 1: on his way. The massage therapist started to think they
31:52
Speaker 1: were beyond damage control. Heath Ledger didn't seem to be breathing.
31:55
Speaker 1: The massage therapist looked at the naked body on the floor.
31:59
Speaker 1: She wasn't thinking about tabloid headlines. She was thinking what
32:01
Speaker 1: the cops would do if she let Heath Ledger die
32:04
Speaker 1: while she waited for Mary Kate Olson's guy to come over.
32:07
Speaker 1: As she finally called an ambulance and then called Mary
32:09
Speaker 1: Kate back to let her know. And by the time
32:12
Speaker 1: Mary Kate's guy got there, the paramedics had already called it.
32:16
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger was dead. At twenty eight three hundred strangers
32:22
Speaker 1: stood on Broome Street, phones in the air as the
32:24
Speaker 1: body bag came out. Stories spun out in real time.
32:28
Speaker 1: A suicide, an overdose. Darren Banks and Eric mong dug
32:32
Speaker 1: up the video they'd taken at the Chateau MArmand and
32:34
Speaker 1: started shopping it to the highest bidder, and they got
32:37
Speaker 1: a million for it before Banks's axe Jane Doe, hit
32:40
Speaker 1: them with a lawsuit. Director Terry Gilliam saw the news
32:43
Speaker 1: on the BBC. He figured it was a delibered Hoak
32:46
Speaker 1: stage by Warner Brothers in order to promote The Joker.
32:49
Speaker 1: The studio had engaged in weird viral marketing for The
32:52
Speaker 1: Dark Night since before Christmas. Christopher Nolan was still editing
32:56
Speaker 1: the film, which earned Heath Ledger a posthumous oscar. A
32:59
Speaker 1: year after his death at a restaurant in London. Somebody
33:03
Speaker 1: told Jack Nicholson. I warned him, Jack said, he refused
33:07
Speaker 1: to elaborate. It took weeks, but the medical examiner labeled
33:12
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger's death an accidental overdose of prescription medication, classic
33:17
Speaker 1: death by misadventure, a cocktail of anti anxiety drugs, sleeping
33:22
Speaker 1: pills and painkillers. Investigators tracked down heat stalktors and accounted
33:27
Speaker 1: for most of the meds. But the oxy codone that
33:30
Speaker 1: was in that cocktail of anti anxiety drugs shouldn't have
33:33
Speaker 1: been in the mix. Nobody should have ever prescribed Heath
33:37
Speaker 1: Ledger oxy codone, not with everything else he was taking
33:40
Speaker 1: just to keep a shit together. And the cops had questions,
33:43
Speaker 1: and so did the DEA. Where did the drugs come from?
33:47
Speaker 1: Given the party traffic in and out of his house,
33:49
Speaker 1: The suspect list would need to include most of Lower
33:52
Speaker 1: Manhattan and Brooklyn. Why they wanted to know did Mary
33:56
Speaker 1: kay Olsen's security guys show up on the scene at
33:58
Speaker 1: the same time as the parents medics. Was he there
34:01
Speaker 1: to help or was he there to clean up a mess?
34:04
Speaker 1: They wanted to talk to the child star turned tabloid regular.
34:07
Speaker 1: Mary Kate's lawyers said she wasn't sitting down for a
34:10
Speaker 1: chat without guaranteed immunity, and that shit might have sound
34:13
Speaker 1: acute in her adorable full house days. But the DEA
34:16
Speaker 1: wasn't charmed. They issued a subpoena that would force her
34:19
Speaker 1: to testify in front of a grand jury where they
34:21
Speaker 1: could ask her anything. Had she ever done illegal drugs?
34:25
Speaker 1: Had she ever shared prescription medication with anyone? Mary Kate
34:29
Speaker 1: was in the middle of a legal minefield. Asking for
34:31
Speaker 1: immunity in advance was smart, even if it made her
34:34
Speaker 1: look shady as fucked to folks who wanted someone to
34:36
Speaker 1: blame for Heath's death. In the end, the US Attorney's
34:40
Speaker 1: Office deemed there was no viable target, which is not
34:43
Speaker 1: the same as saying no one was guilty. A year
34:50
Speaker 1: after his death, Keith's parents and his sister walked onto
34:54
Speaker 1: the stage of the Kodak Theater in Hollywood to accept
34:57
Speaker 1: the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. On He Behalf
35:01
Speaker 1: behind Them, an image of Heath Is the Joker stared
35:04
Speaker 1: out at the audience twenty feet high. The sloppy black
35:08
Speaker 1: paint around his eyes bleeding into the white paint on
35:11
Speaker 1: his face, his lips, blood red, scraggly swamp green hair,
35:17
Speaker 1: and that smile, the smile he'd created in a hotel room,
35:22
Speaker 1: the smile that lived inside him and never let him
35:25
Speaker 1: sleep again. Truly a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this
35:34
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is
35:52
Speaker 1: produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode
35:55
Speaker 1: can be found on the show notes page at disgracelambpod
35:58
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36:02
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36:07
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36:12
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