minds in immeasurable ways."

Ledger has a daughter, Matilda Rose, born in 2005 to his then-girlfriend, Michelle Williams, who played his on-screen wife, Alma, in "Brokeback Mountain." The couple have since separated.

"He was just so respected in the industry," said Kim Serafin, senior editor of In Touch Weekly.

"It's just horribly tragic. He was just a fine actor and a good person, so this is horribly sad and very unexpected." E-mail to a friend

CNN's Deb Feyerick, Susan Chun, Miguel Susana and Eden Pontz contributed to this story.

All About Heath LedgerLike the News of the World Phone-Hacking Scandal Before It, The Sun's Payoff Probe Is Snowballing Out of Control

When the phone-hacking scandal at Britian's News of the World began to snowball out of control last summer, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman/CEO of News Corp., acted with brutal swiftness. He euthanized the 168-year-old tabloid with just a few days' warning. At the time, I wrote: "Facing a major meltdown, News Corp. is doing its best at containment. The problem is that it may be too little, too late. And it's glaringly inept, too -- on par with Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s attempt at containing the fallout at the Fukushima nuclear reactor. Also: There's a hell of a lot of radioactivity to News Corp. beyond just News of the World."

The media