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SYDNEY (AFP) — Heath Ledger’s two-year-old daughter Matilda Rose will inherit the late Australian actor’s entire estate, estimated to be worth 20 million dollars (16.6 million US), a report said Sunday.

The 28-year-old actor, who died in New York in January from an accidential overdose of prescription drugs, had named his parents and sisters as the beneficiaries in his will, Perth’s Sunday Times reported.

The will, which has been probated behind closed doors at the Supreme Court in Perth, was made before Matilda was born, and there had been speculation that the child’s mother, actress Michelle Williams, would lodge a claim.

But Ledger’s father Kim has put an end to such speculation, revealing that Matilda will inherit the lot.

“There is no claim. Our family has gifted everything to Matilda,” he told the News Ltd paper.

Ledger’s will listed just 145,000 Australian dollars in assets and cash when it was drawn up in 2003, but the Hollywood star’s estate is now believed to be worth more than 20 million dollars, the Sunday Times said.

The Perth-born actor gained international stardom and was nominated for an Oscar for his role as a gay cowboy in the 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain”.

Critics have hailed his performance as the deranged Joker in the recent Batman film sequel, “The Dark Knight”.

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IT WAS supposed to be the Brooklyn bar where Heath Ledger would be most comfortable — a place that the late actor not only invested money in but helped conceive.

Only those who knew him well would discern the “Heath touches”: the engraved, granite-topped bar tables were his idea, as it was to have his favourite tattooist, Scott Campbell from nearby Williamsburg, do the engravings.

It was Ledger who wanted one table engraved as a chessboard: he played the game his father taught him at a nearby chess club and often beat the hustlers, although he declined to take their money, his business partner, Jud Mongell, said.

On the chessboard table is engraved a scrawled heart, replicating one Ledger left on a note to a friend not long before his death in January this year.

The nautical theme — the space is furnished with deckchairs and fitted with a steel, bow-shaped bar to create the impression of being at sea — was an idea Mongell and Ledger devised together. The name — Five Leaves — is a Ledger family decision, recalling the album by Nick Drake and a reference to the warning near the end of a packet of Rizla cigarette papers.

Next week the bar Ledger planned will open, not as a tribute but as a place where he would belong.

“We’re 50-50 partners still,” Mongell said. “Heath is still my partner. He was fingerprinted for a liquor licence … he was going to DJ, bartend; he was not like some removed investor. At one point he put a bid in on the whole building. He was going to live upstairs.

“Heath was a very good chess player. He wanted a chessboard or two in here, so we could never not do that. So that’s Heath’s chessboard.”
The project was completed because the actor’s father, Kim, agreed to see through a project his son began to support a friend. Continue Reading »

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Wednesday dealt a serious, but possibly temporary, blow to a lawsuit filed by a celebrity magazine reporter who has accused a paparazzi agency of secretly filming Heath Ledger doing drugs in her hotel room.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John S. Wiley Jr. tentatively dismissed 11 of 12 claims filed against the agency and two photographers, saying most of the allegations lacked legal standing.

He allowed attorneys to file an amended complaint that could restore some of the claims.

The woman, identified in court documents only as “Jane Doe,” sued Splash News & Picture Agency and two of its photographers in April, alleging fraud, intrusion, unjust enrichment and other claims over the filming of Ledger in 2006.

The woman was on assignment for People magazine at the time.

According to the lawsuit, the tape was made after the Golden Globe awards in January 2006 and wasn’t revealed until after Ledger’s death from an accidental prescription drug overdose earlier this year. “Entertainment Tonight” and its sister show, “The Insider,” had planned to air the footage, but canceled those plans after feeling pressure from publicists and other Ledger supporters.

The video later surfaced online.

The lawsuit states the video was shot from a balcony of the reporter’s hotel room, and that Ledger became upset when he realized he was being taped. The photographers placated Ledger by telling him they would destroy the tape, the suit claims.

Ledger — who has been celebrated this summer for his role as the Joker in “The Dark Knight” — was already an established actor when the tape was made. Indeed, the suit claims the video was shot hours after Ledger appeared at the awards show, where he was nominated as best actor for “Brokeback Mountain.”

The lawsuit claims the video shows Ledger doing cocaine and that some of the drugs were supplied by the photographers. It also shows Ledger saying that he was “going to get serious (word bleeped) from my girlfriend” for being in the hotel room and rolling cigarette paper and saying “I used to smoke five joints a day for 20 years.”

The reporter’s likeness is blurred on the video.

That element, and the woman’s assignment for People, were key reasons for Wiley’s decision to remove most of the claims from the suit.

“Jane Doe is as far as the Heath Ledger public is concerned, a complete unknown,” Wiley said. “She’s not a feature. She’s some blurry bystander.”

Wiley also noted that the reporter had dated one of the photographers, and that the alleged intrusion of her privacy took place in a hotel room she had apparently rented to conduct interviews in. “It’s a professional setting, not a personal setting,” Wiley said.

The judge sided with defense attorneys, who argued that the woman could not make many of her claims on behalf of Ledger. “The tape’s valuable because of Heath Ledger, not because of Jane Doe,” Wiley said.

Neville Johnson, who is representing the reporter, told Wiley his client was also harmed by the video.

“It ruined her,” he shouted at one point during the hearing. “She didn’t get a story out of it.”

The woman’s suit claims her inclusion on the tape has damaged her ability to work.

“Just because she’s a member of the press, she has the same rights as anyone else,” Johnson said.

He said afterward Wednesday’s hearing that he thinks a revision of the lawsuit will restore many of the reporter’s claims.

An attorney for Splash News and its photographers declined to comment after the hearing.

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