Another one bites the dust

Heath Ledger : 1979 - 2008

What is it about celebrities and their fondness for drugs, booze, sex and all things taboo? Are they so bored with their day jobs (cos mine doesn't pay me million-dollar paychecks as opposed to, oh say, Reese Witherspoon just to play a character over a two-month period!?!), or depressed/mentally unstable that resorting to drugs would somehow help them overcome their boredom/depression?

This morning's shocking news about Heath Ledger's death was - simply shocking. As with the late River Phoenix, I didn't expect Heath Ledger to go down the way he did. Yes, he seemed like a 'bad boy' - so much so like his character Patrick Verona in my all-time favourite Heath Ledger flick 10 Things I Hate About You - but when he hooked up with Michelle Williams (and later had a daughter) and received an Oscar nomination for that you-know-what movie, all thoughts of him being a 'bad boy' disappeared. I guess that's the advantage of being an actor - you can still 'act' in real life.

The next few days will be filled with all sorts of reports, anaylses, thoughts about the incident. Suicide..drug overdose..depression..you name it. And while all this is going on, the world will temporarily forget about the far more deserving hundreds of innocent losses in Kenya, the Gaza Strip, Iraq ...