Heath Ledger: The Life & The Death. :( (Heath Ledger - His Beautiful Life and Mysterious Death - John McShane)

Member Name: DixieChick101

Product:	Heath Ledger - His Beautiful Life and Mysterious Death - John McShane
Date:	11/01/09 (177 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The quotes made me cry at the end

Disadvantages: Everything really, badly written, badly structured, badly edited

I myself can't believe that in the next couple of weeks, it's the first anniversary of one of the most talented actors I've ever known's death.

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The Life of Heath Ledger
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Born Heath Andrew Ledger in 1979 in Perth Australia, it wasn't long before Heath picked up the acting bug. He had many different stints in TV shows including Home & Away but it wasn't until his first Hollywood film '10 Things I Hate About You' which was a film based loosely on Shakespeare's play 'Taming Of The Shrew' that Ledger was known.

After 10 Things, he went on to make a total of 15 films, all of which were loved by people around the globe. He has stared across some of the best names in Hollywood, from Mel Gibson, Kate Hudson, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Caine .

Despite being well known from films like A Knights Tale and The Patriot, it wasn't until his 2004/2005 film that people began to talk about this man's acting talents, this film caused controversy all around the world, this film was Brokeback Mountain, a film about two gay cowboys.

After this film, he was on his high, his films after that, even if they didn't get critical acclaim were brilliant and in 2007/2008 he took on a role that some people say ended his life, but it was to be his best performance yet.

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The Death of Heath Ledger
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On January 22nd 2008, I woke up to hear that one of my favourite actors had died from an overdose of prescription pills. The tragedy was that this man was only 28 and had left behind a 2 year old daughter that would never know her father.

Ledger never got to see the reception of his best performance to date when he played the Joker in the Dark Knight and this film may even win him an Oscar it was that good.

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The Book- His Beautiful Life and Mysterious Death
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I am a fan of biographies, and I found this cheap in HMV the other day and brought it. From the get go, I almost felt guilty. This book was not written by Heath Ledger like it should have been, he should still be alive writing his own biography in 10-20 years, no, John McShane was one of many journalists to see the potential of the money behind writing about Ledger's life and death.

I thought I'd give the book a chance, I wish I had read other reviews before buying it, but you can't really go wrong with £3.

The book begins the prologue, a glimse into who the book is about and small bit of information about how he died. From this chapter I felt cold and uncomfortable reading this book. McShane was obviously not going to be the best journalist for this book and his writing style from the start was awful.

The book really does follow a lot of his childhood, this is nice to see, but sometimes you wonder how much of the information is correct, I don't think he ever talked to the family, as I'm sure he would have put that into the book, so talking about what posters' Ledger had on his wall at 11, just seemed a bit like guess work.

The book then begins to talk about his acting career and for me this is where it makes the worst mistakes. Not only are a lot of the words grammatically incorrect, but the way he sets it out the book. He uses quotes throughout and they just seem to disappear into the pages and the bits which are truly Ledger speaking disappear.

Not only does this book have spelling mistakes, it uses a lot of rumours not facts. I know there is another book out there by another journalist called 'A Family's Tale' and I put this down when I saw it wasn't actually from the family, but some lame journalist, but I'm sure his has a lot more facts in it than this one did as some of the things I find myself going, did this really happen, this is something that only the family members would know, not the journalist that wants money from this poor man's death.

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The Bad Points
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I've talked about this already but there are so many mistakes in this book its ridiculous. A lot of things annoyed me during this book, not only did it seemed rushed but on one occasion he doubles up the quotes used, did he not get this book edited before release? If so, he should fire his editors as there are way too many spelling mistakes and too many mistakes in quotes and stuff like that.

Everything does seemed rushed, I don't know how soon after Ledger's death he released this book, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was released just after the funeral happened, as it does seem like a cold book, and a book where the journalist is getting money out of someone. It is way too rushed and he doesn't seem to care about the man he's talking about.

Other things that I had problems with were the fact that he talked about each film that Ledger was in. I found this quite nice as he was talking about the films and how they impacted his life however I was in shock when explaining about The Patriot he rips the rug from out of you and tells you the end of the film.

This happens all the way through the book and it became so bad, I almost had to skip reading about films like Casanova and I'm Not There, both of which I have not seen all of yet but if you don't skip it you will find out the ending of every movie.

Other problems include when he talks about different people's Ledger has worked alongside; McShane gives them their own little biography, even giving Ned Kelly a 4 page biography. This really felt like he was filling the book, I understood if he gave a biography about Michelle Williams who was the mother of his daughter, but who cares about Mel Gibson. If I wanted to know where he was born I would look on the Internet, not in a book which is supposed to be about the life and death of a movie star.

I know a lot of biography books do this, but with this book, it felt wrong. There are 3 chunks of pages of pictures throughout the book, which are lovely to look at, this is a strong point about the book, and however the pictures following his death, which included even the picture of his body bag, are stuck in between the bit, where his little girl had just been born. These pictures should have been at the end of the book at least not half way through what was a great point in his life.

Finally the quotes given by people after his death, could have been set out differently, they seem almost hidden behind the rest of the book and me struggling to read the book because I was so uncomfortable, nearly missed them.

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The Good Points
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The book despite having so many problems did get me in tears at the end, I do find myself crying at everything, but I seriously was in tears when he wrote the quotes down that famous people and his family had said after his death. Strange that one of the only good points about the book, was not even written by the author, these were things that people close to Ledger had said when they were grieving.

The book only took me 2 hours to read, it was a very brief read and it doesn't take too much time to read at all. I wouldn't call it enjoyable however I do think it could have been a bit more personal than it actually was, he really seemed cold towards Ledger and I'm sure when writing it, all he saw was the pound signs flashing in his eyes.

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The Book- Cover
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The front cover is a gorgeous picture of Heath Ledger with his name written in red/gold lettering. The picture is a still taken from Brokeback Mountain and shows Heath in a happier time. They could have used a better picture but it was still nice.

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The Pictures
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The pictures in the book range from his first acting stint in the TV show Sweat, to promotional pictures, to pictures of him with girlfriends throughout the years and then him with his wife and daughter and then the final cluster are pictures which show Ledger's body bag, the funeral and everything like that.

They are very nice pictures however I think the last cluster which follow his death should have been at the end as they are situated in the part where he is talking about Ledger's wife and daughter.

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Final Opinion
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I didn't hate the book, it was not enjoyable and it made me uncomfortable, but I don't hate it with a passion like I thought I would. The pictures are great throughout, however everything else just doesn't work. I don't think McShane is a very good writer, and his editors should be sacked as they missed so many grammatical errors its ridiculous.

I did almost feel guilty giving this man my money, how dare he take money from this poor guys death, I'll bet you a lot of money, that none of the profits go to Ledger's little girl.

I can't believe it's been a year nearly since Heath Ledger accidentally overdosed as he is always on my screen and I'm sure a lot of other people's screens as well. Ledger was at his peak when The Dark Knight came out and I think he would have been one of the best actors ever, I have always thought he was brilliant, but he was on his way to being magnificent.

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Details
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Pages: 279
Chapters: 19 including Epilogue and Prologue
Price: £3 from HMV

Hope this helps, if you really want to read it, go on EBay. :D

Summary: Not a very good book, this guy wanted profit from a poor guys death. x