The Australian actor would have been 35 today. Rest In Peace mate.
1) He grew up in what he called "the most isolated city in the world", Perth, Western Australia.
2) His first starring role was in a school production of Peter Pan , age 10.
3) He and his older sister, Kate, are named after Catherine and Heathcliff, the two main romantic characters of the Emily Brontë novel, Wuthering Heights.
4) His mum Sally was a French teacher.
5) His dad Kim was a racing car driver.
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6) After Sally and Kim separated he gained two half sisters, Ashleigh from his mother's second marriage and Olivia from his father's.
7) He had KAOS, the initials of his mother and three sisters, tattooed onto his wrist.
8) As a boy he loved Chuck Norris.
9) He excelled at hockey, cricket and Aussie rules football, but played them just to get out of army cadets: "I mean, who wants to shoot an automatic rifle? What the fuck was I going to use that for?"
10) A teenage passion for dancing was inspired by his love of Gene Kelly.
11) At school he led a team of 60 all-male dancers — farmers sons at a military school — to an unprecedented nationwide high-school competition, dancing through the different aspects of fashion. They were the first all-boy school to win.
12) When he was 16, Ledger sat his graduation exams, then "got my marks and fucked off."
13) He and best mate Trevor DiCarlo jumped into a car and headed for Sydney. Usually a five-day drive over 4,000km (2,500 miles) of barren outback, it took them three.
14) His first big role — in Australian TV series Sweat — was as a gay bicyclist.
15) His first international role was on Australia/US TV series Roar, where he played a heroic young man dashing about on horseback dressed in sparse leather enthusiastically slaying foes with a mighty sword.
From BuzzFeed