Heath Ledger 1979-2008

After a brief stint on Home and Away, plus a few low-budget dramas, Perth-born Ledger had his breakthrough role on 1999's 10 Things I Hate About You, a high school take on The Taming of the Shrew. He impressed as the class rebel who asks Julia Stiles to the prom for a bet - only to wind up declaring his undying love over the school tannoy Photograph: PR

Ledger went on to play second fiddle to Bill Bob Thonrton and an Oscar-winning Halle Berry in Monster's Ball, a fevered death row drama from director Marc Forster. Still, the actor made the most of a brief role as a troubled prison warden, breaking down and vomiting when he leads a man to the chair Photograph: PR

Ledger earned warm reviews for his star turn as the legendary bush-ranger Ned Kelly, leading a band of brigands through 1880s Australia. But the period romp failed at the box office, earning just $6.5m and delaying his ascent to the A-list Photograph: PR

Audacious and exasperating in about equal measure, Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm paired Ledger with Matt Damon as the eponymous yarn-spinning siblings. The actor was working with Gilliam on another film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, at the time of his death Photograph: PR

Ledger looks destined to be most remembered for his devastating performance in Brokeback Mountain, starring as a taciturn ranch-hand who 'ain't queer' but who neverthless falls in love with Jake Gyllenhaal's wannabe rodeo star. It was a role that captured the public imagination, brought an Oscar nomination and prompted director Ang Lee to compare the 26-year-old actor to the young Marlon Brando Photograph: PR

Following his success with Ang Lee, Ledger went on to give another peerless performance in a lesser-seen Australian film. Candy cast him as a dissolute poet, romancing Abbie Cornish's art student and viewing the world through an increasing haze of drug addiction. "The future was a thing that gleamed," he says. "The present was so very good" Photograph: PR

Todd Haynes's cut-up, Brechtian biopic of Bob Dylan cast no fewer than six actors as the music legend. Ledger was called on to portray the dark side of Dylan: 'selfish, reactionary, misogynist', in the opinion of Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw. Released last year, I'm Not There impressed reviewers and won an Oscar nomination for co-star Cate Blanchett Photograph: PR

Heath Ledger will next be seen as the Joker, bedevilling Christian Bale in the next instalment of the Batman franchise. Where Jack Nicholson played the role as a portly, theatrical raconteur, Ledger appears to be going for something more fluid, acrobatic and anarchic. Set for release in the summer, The Dark Knight is already being tipped as one of the biggest films of 2008 Photograph: PR

Heath Ledger was found dead at his Manhattan apartment at around 3.30pm, Tuesday January 22nd. He is survived by his two-year-old daughter, Matilda Photograph: Ian West/PA