Heath Ledger, the Australian-born actor whose breakthrough role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain" earned him a nomination for an Academy Award and comparisons to the likes of Marlon Brando, was found dead Tuesday in an apartment in New York with sleeping pills near his body, the police said.
The police said Ledger, 28, was found naked on the floor near the bed in an apartment in SoHo that he had been renting. The chief police spokesman, Paul Browne, said the police did not suspect foul play.
"There was no indication of a disturbance," he said, adding that there were no signs that Ledger had been drinking. Nor were any illegal drugs found in the loft, which neighbors said Ledger had occupied for several months.
Police officials said that a bottle of prescription sleeping pills were found on a nearby night table, but that they did not know whether the pills had anything to do with Ledger's death. Officers who checked the apartment found other prescription medications in the bathroom. A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office said an autopsy would be conducted on Wednesday.
Browne said no obvious indication of suicide, like a note, was found in the bedroom.
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