When Heath Ledger breathed his last, his daughter was devastated as she could not find him. But his presence was not the only thing she would miss out on. The actor had not included her in his will. Worried about her welfare, three of Ledger’s costars gave up their salaries for her.
Heath Ledger was well recognized for playing The Joker, a psychopathic criminal mastermind with a warped sense of humor, in the superhero film “The Dark Knight.”
In addition, the actor also played many other roles, including in “Lords of Dogtown” and “I’m Not There.” In 2004, during the filming of “Brokeback Mountain,” the actor met and fell in love with Michelle Williams. A year later, they welcomed their baby girl, Matilda Rose Ledger.
Unfortunately, in 2007, the pair broke up, but Ledger’s love for his daughter remained as strong as ever. Director Terry Gilliam would say that the actor would put his daughter in his backpack, get in the tube and go to his house to talk about a movie they were working on.
Sadly, in 2008, when Matilda was only two, Ledger passed on accidentally at his New York Apartment. Little Matilda could not understand her father’s sudden absence and constantly bombarded her mother with questions about him that Michelle did not know how to answer. She would always ask:
“Where’s my daddy?”
Heath’s Costars Financially Rescue His Daughter
Right before he met his tragic death, Ledger was in the middle of filming “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” The film is about a traveling theatre troupe whose leader, having made a bet with the Devil, presents his audiences with a choice between self-fulfilling enlightenment or gratifying ignorance.
Upon his death, the director, Terry Gilliam, did not know whether to scrap the film or replace Ledger. With a little convincing from his daughter, he settled on the latter. He chose Hollywood A-listers Jude Law, Johnny Depp, and Colin Farrell to replace Ledger in the film and play the remainder of the parts. Gilliam said:
“Nobody asked how much they would be paid or if the part was right for them. They were all Heath’s friends, and they wanted to make sure the film was finished in his memory.”
Other A-list celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, offered to take over Ledger’s part, but Gilliam turned them down because they did not know Ledger well.
While Gilliam worried whether replacing Ledger with three actors made financial sense, the three were concerned about something else — Ledger’s daughter.
In the act of extraordinary generosity, the three actors worked for nominal pay and took none of the payment to themselves, instead donating all their salary to Matilda. It would turn out that Ledger had not included his two-year-old daughter in his will.
