Ledger, who became one of Hollywood's hottest young stars with "Brokeback Mountain," had become a familiar figure in the neighborhood — and something of a fixture in gossip columns — since moving there after he broke up with the actress Michelle Williams. He had clashed with paparazzi in Australia and had partied in New York, but unlike some stars, he was not remembered as a difficult celebrity.
"He was always really polite and nice," said Paul Sevigny, an owner of the Beatrice Inn, a West Village club that Ledger frequented. There is no shortage of problem-causing partygoers in New York, Sevigny said, "but he certainly wasn't one of them."
The police first said that the apartment, at 421 Broome Street between Crosby and Lafayette, belonged to the actress Mary-Kate Olsen, one of the waiflike twin stars of "Full House." Later Browne, the police spokesman, said it was not Olsen's.
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