Norm
MalMy mate Ledge. A personal tribute to Heath Ledger.
I don’t like name-dropping. By other people. So many people who didn’t know my mate Ledge (Heath Ledger) are writing about his death like they knew him in real life. It makes me sick. Being such close mates, I know Ledge would have wanted me to write something about this. Even though we didn’t speak about it yesterday on the phone. It’s not like he knew he was going to die just after we chatted. We talked about old times, like we always did. Just for a couple of hours. Like we do every few days. I don’t like big-noters, but Ledge did say to me, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be where I am today.’ What could I do but agree with him? When I knew it was the truth? Anyway, to fill a few of you people in who didn’t know him like I did - Back when we were school mates in Western Australia in one of Perth’s poofta-bashing suburbs, we were both considering acting as a career. One day, I said to Ledge, ‘Let’s do drama at school, dress up as fairies and girls, and see what happens to us.’ He said, ‘We’ll get the shit bashed out of us.’ I agreed, but then said to him, ‘One day, they’ll make lots films about pooftas, and they’ll be really popular. There will come a time when films about straight men aren’t anywhere near as popular as films about poofs. This could make or break both of us.’ He agreed. Nowadays I’ve learnt to call pooftas gays, but back then pooftas were pooftas. Neither of us wanted to miss out on the chance to play the role of a gay in a Hollywood film just because we knew nothing about gays, and were busy shagging chicks. So we both agreed to do act like gays for as long as it took. We even went to school wearing dresses and did home ec, typing and business studies. One day, while we were both in hospital recovering from injuries after the local footy team bashed the shit out of us, Ledge said, ‘You play a lot better gay bastard than I do.’ I had to agree. It was true. ‘You should move to Sydney and do film school,’ he said. That’s when I sacrificed my future film career for him. I just looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘Ledge, I’ve got a confession to make.’ He looked at me. I looked back at him. He looked away. I said, ‘Look at me.’ He did. Then I said, ‘After being sodomised by so many straight guys from the local footy club, I’ve learnt to enjoy it. I am gay now. I can’t act as a gay man in a film. I can only be gay. You’re a better actor than me. You go for it.’ And he did. And he never forgot it. Till last night when he died. When you forget everything. He even sent me and my partner Bruce a signed copy of Brokeback Mountain, and wrote on it, ‘Thanks for sacrificing your straightness for my career.’ So I wish fame-by-association celebrity wannabes who didn’t know Ledge like I did would stop writing about him as if they did.
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
Coffee Quip
Mal
U-Turning and Re-Turning to your site.
Mal.
Mal
U-Turn & Re-Turn.
Mal.