Heath Ledger's body removed from the building

Actor Heath Ledger's body has just been removed from the Soho building where he was found dead. It was carried out in a black body bag and put in the back of the City of New York Medical Examiner's truck.

Law enforcement sources claim sleeping pills were strewn around the bed of Heath Ledger.

One law enforcement source told TMZ it is much too early to determine if the death was accidental or suicide.

In the last interview before his death, Heath, 28, said: "I kind of save the living for the time between action and cut. I'm pretty good at dropping a character once it's over for the day. Certainly once the film is over, I throw it all away. Your life is what matters."

In the last interview before his death, Heath, 28, said: "I kind of save the living for the time between action and cut. I'm pretty good at dropping a character once it's over for the day. Certainly once the film is over, I throw it all away. Your life is what matters."

Born in Perth in 1979, the blonde haired star had to choose one of the two compulsory classes - either cooking or drama and as Ledger could honestly not see himself in a cooking class, he tried his hand at drama.

He fell in love with acting and when he was 17, he and a friend, decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and drive across the country to Sydney.

However, upon arriving in Sydney with a reported 69 cents to his name, he tried everything to get a break.

His first real acting job came in a low budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliche; a teen angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl.

A succession of small roles followed, including a tiny part in the popular soap Home and Away before he got his big break in a 1999 movie called Two Hands.

Following the acclaim he got for that movie, he was cast in his first US movie - 10 Things I Hate About You opposite Julia Stiles.

After that, it seemed Ledger was being typecast as a teen hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot in 2000 as Mel Gibson's son.

What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles with Ledger accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast.

Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly with Orlando Bloom in 2003 was an absolute flop.

But it was on this movie set that he met Naomi Watts and even though there was nearly a ten year age gap the couple began dating.

Ledger's status as a teen hunk was cemented with his role in A Knight's Tale alongside a huge British cast including James Purefoy, Rufus Sewell and Paul Bettany.

Roles in The Order, Lords of Dogtown and The Brother's Grimm alongside Matt Damon followed but it was his Oscar nominated role as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain that really cemented his success in Hollywood.

Since then Ledger has starred opposite Sienna Miller in Casanova and Abbie Cornish in Candy.

But it is the role he just finished filming as The Joker in the latest Batman film opposite Christian Bale that had fans really buzzing as he was the first non American to ever play the role.

Despite his career going from strength to strength Ledger always remained a very private actor.

He rarely gave interviews unless they were connected to the latest movie he was promoting and hated speaking about his private life.

So it would surprise many to know that he is one of seven godparents to Elizabeth Hurley's son Damien or that his parents named him after the main character in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

He is also of Irish and Scottish ancestry while most of his wardrobe is designed by his best friend Shem.

He also stayed very close to his roots, living with and constantly staying in touch with another friend and mentor, the Aussie actor Martin Henderson, who appeared in Britney Spears video Toxic.

Ledger was also named by Empire Magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in the world in 2007.