MAN ABOUT TOWN

Heath Ledger, the young Australian actor best known for his Academy Award-nominated role in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain was found dead this morning at 9:30am Melbourne time in a New York City apartment. He was 28. I never knew him. I never met him. And yet I am incredibly saddened by this news. It seems such a terrible loss; of a life, of a talent, of a future. Tonight, when I get home from work, I think I will re-watch Brokeback Mountain , and cry.

A flurry of rumours about a sequel to the multi-award winning Brokeback Mountain have been quashed following a denial from the studio that made the film. Britain ’s OK! Magazine last week claimed that Australian actor Heath Ledger was in negotiation to reprise his role as closeted cowboy Ennis Del Mar, in a sequel to the acclaimed film about two star-crossed lovers in the American Midwest. “It will follow the nasty process of being openly gay in 1963 Wyoming ,” the magazine quoted an insider as saying. “Not true,” a representative for Focus Features, which produced Brokeback Mountain , has told PerezHilton.com, an infamous celebrity gossip website. The 2005 film, which co-starred Jake Gyllenhaal, is ranked eighth among the highest grossing romantic-dramas of all time.