Heath Ledger Autopsy "Inconclusive"

Heath Ledger turned down other teen movies after starring in the romantic comedy "10 Things I Hate About You," waiting for the kind of grueling, intense roles that would become his trademark.

The decision set him on a career path toward "Brokeback Mountain" - the film that earned him an Oscar nomination.

Two years later, Ledger was found dead Tuesday by his housekeeper and masseuse - lying naked and face-down at the foot of his bed, with prescription sleeping pills nearby, police said. He was 28.

Shocked fans set up a makeshift memorial of flowers and notes on the sidewalk in front of his Manhattan loft, reported CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace from the scene, on The Early Show. One note said, "I couldn't find anything bad about you."

The medical examiner's office says an autopsy was inclusive, and more tests are needed.

A spokeswoman for the office, Ellen Borakove, said Wednesday that it will take about 10 days to complete the investigation.

It's expected that toxicology and tissue testing will be involved.

Authorities have said the death of the 28-year-old actor was caused by a possible drug overdose.

"One thing that seems pretty clear,"

"Heath Ledger -- I think this is the big shocker to a lot of people -- did have a history of drug use. I mean, he was a guy who partied a lot, and so I think that it was -- drugs may have been related, but I think it was accidental."

"It's unclear whether he ever sought help" for substance abuse, Cagle added.

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Photos: Heath Ledger
Photos: Ledger On Film

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In what may be his final finished performance, he took a rare role in a guaranteed summer blockbuster, playing Batman's nemesis, the Joker, in the upcoming "The Dark Knight." But the role was nothing he could phone in; it forced him to re-brand a character last played on the big screen by Jack Nicholson.

"He was getting ready for a huge publicity tour for that," Cagle says. "He was also working on a Terri Gilliam movie he was shooting, and "Batman" would have made him this international, global star. He was really about to break through in a way that only movie stars can dream about."

"I had such great hope for him," Mel Gibson, who played Ledger's father in "The Patriot," said in a statement. "He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."

Ledger split last year with Michelle Williams, who he met on the set of "Brokeback Mountain." The two had a daughter, the now 2-year-old Matilda, and had lived together in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood.

"I think certainly people were worried about him," Cagle said. "A lot of people say (substance abuse problems were) ... part of the reason for the breakup.

"I think he was a guy who was torn, like a lot of young guys, between wanting to enjoy his freedom and, yet, the stability of a relationship and being a father was very good for him. After their breakup, a lot of people say he sort of became very dissolute and very unhappy."

Cagle says he thinks Ledger and Williams had an "amicable relationship" after they split, "because the daughter was such a priority for them. He doted on this little girl. He loved this little girl. It's one of the reasons -- I think they stayed friendly at least for that, and it was one of the reasons ... a lot of people think this could not have been a suicide because he was -- besides his career going really, really well -- I mean, he was on the top of the world -- he cared about this little girl so much."

Early Wednesday, Williams and Matilda left Trollhattan, Sweden, where the 27-year-old actresss had been shooting scenes for the upcoming film "Mammoth," according to Martin Stromberg, a spokesman for film production company Memfis Film.

"She received the news at her hotel late last night," Stromberg said, adding he had not spoken to the actress after she learned of Ledger's death.

The actor's personal strife was accompanied by professional anxiety.

Ledger said in an interview in November that "Dark Knight" and last year's "I'm Not There," took a heavy toll. He said he "stressed out a little too much" during the Dylan film, and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told The New York Times. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took two Ambien pills, which only worked for an hour.

News of Ledger's death spread quickly from the crowd of 300 people that gathered Tuesday outside his apartment in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where those with close ties to the actor included Naomi Watts, who dated him after they met on the set of "Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized story about the birth of modern skateboarding.

Ledger was born in 1979 in the western Australian city of Perth to a mining engineer and a French teacher, and got his first acting role playing Peter Pan at age 10 at a local theater company. He began acting in independent films as a 16-year-old in Sydney and played a cyclist hoping to land a spot on an Olympic team in a 1996 television show, "Seat."

Speaking in Perth, Ledger's father said Tuesday the actor's death was "tragic, untimely and accidental."

Kim Ledger called his son "down-to-earth, generous, kind-hearted, life-loving, unselfish" and "extremely inspirational to many."

"Heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life," he said. "Please now respect our family's need to grieve and come to terms with our loss privately."

After several independent films, Ledger moved to Los Angeles at age 19 and starred opposite Julia Stiles in "10 Things I Hate About You," a reworking of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." Offers for other teen flicks came his way, but Ledger turned them down, preferring to remain idle than sign on for projects he didn't like.

"It wasn't a hard decision for me," Ledger told The Associated Press in 2001. "It was hard for everyone else around me to understand. Agents were like, `You're crazy,' my parents were like, `Come on, you have to eat."'

He began to gravitate toward more independent films after roles in "Monster's Ball," "The Patriot" and "A Knight's Tale." His work in 2005's "Brokeback Mountain" earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

In the 2006 film "Candy," Ledger played a poet wrestling with a heroin addiction along with his girlfriend. Neil Armfield, who directed Ledger in the film, said the actor had "handled his career incredibly well," steering himself toward more challenging roles.

"He made a decision about four years ago to stop being led by producers and managers and to forge his own way," Armfield told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

He brought the same intensity to "Dark Knight." Glimpsed in early teaser trailers, Ledger is more depraved and dark than comical. The film's director, Christopher Nolan, said this month that Ledger's Joker would be wildly different from Nicholson's.

"It was a very great challenge for Heath," Nolan said. "He's extremely original, extremely frightening, tremendously edgy. A very young character, a very anarchic presence that taps into a lot of our basic fears and panic."

Ledger was a widely recognized figure in his Manhattan neighborhood, where Michelle Vella said she frequently saw him carrying his 2-year-old daughter on his shoulders, or having ice cream with her.

"It's a shock; he's so young," said Taren Dolbashian, who also had seen Ledger with his daughter. "He always seems so happy."