Prosecutors had kept an April 23 subpoena up their sleeves as they tried to convince Olsen to voluntarily speak with federal drug agents still probing Ledger's January overdose, the source said.

...The U.S. Attorney of the Southern District decided not to serve Olsen with a subpoena, the source said.

The Post is not happy, saying "twin troll" Olsen has been "given another free pass." But actually she earned that pass — with a smart PR strategy of just-sweeping-enough public denials coupled with a refusal to meet with the narcs privately. With cynicism about the federal security apparatus as high as it is right now, it's hard to imagine what's left of Olsen's fan base holding that against her.

Despite tabloid speculation, Mary-Kate Olsen had nothing whatsoever to do with the drugs found in Heath Ledger's home or his body, and she does not know where he obtained them.

Regarding the Government's investigation, at Ms. Olsen’s request, we have provided the Government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger's death and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.

We don't know the source of the information being quoted in the media regarding the Government's inquiry, but these descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate.

Interesting that Olsen is requesting immunity from the Drug Enforcement Administration while denying so many possible drug charges! Of course, a media release is not a binding legal declaration, despite the fact that it was issued by the actress' attorney.

But the breadth of her public denial, and the likely damage to her reputation if it was later found to be false, do make it seem unlikely Olsen has a connection to the drugs that killed Ledger, and make it at least less likely that her bodyguards tampered with the crime scene.

Which raises the inevitable question, why does Olsen need immunity?

It could plausibly be significant that Olsen denies a connection to only those drugs found at the home and in Ledger's body, such as OxyContin. If she imagines herself being questioned more broadly about Ledger's use of other drugs, and on how he procured those, immunity would be useful in providing answers involving Olsen using recreational narcotics (however innocuous) along with Ledger, or in providing answers involving Olsen putting Ledger in touch with someone who might have later, unbeknownst to Olsen, supplied him with OxyContin or other drugs.

It's hard to imagine many of Olsen or Ledger's fans getting very upset if the actress wants immunity so she can avoid being questioned about the drugs that didn't kill Heath Ledger. Who wants to get tied up in an investigation into recreational celebrity drug use that's going to shed little, if any, new light on Ledger's death? In that sense, the carefully written, just-broad-enough statement from Olsen's lawyers does a brilliant job of shoring up the actress' reputation while keeping the authorities at arm's length.

UPDATE: As the Post notes, the AP story also quotes an anonymous official stating the feds have a subpoena that "could force" Olsen to appear before a grand jury if negotiations fall through. "Could?" Sounds constrained. If the feds can compel the testimony they need, why would they bother negotiating?

As we all know, Heath Ledger, who plays the Joker in the film, died in January from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and other medication. It was a fluke accident that swiftly stopped his sure-to-be meteoric rise to fame in its tracks. Some claimed that Ledger had been in a dark place after wrapping the film, having gone too deep into his crazed, anarchist character. But was that really it? Isn't that what every actor does? Could it have been a curse?

Christian Bale, who plays the rough and (annoyingly) growling Caped Crusader recently had a row with his mother and sister, right before the film's London premiere. It led to an arrest on an assault charge, though Bale denies any real wrongdoing. He is said to have had a deeply troubled childhood, which could be the reason for his violent outburst. Or... could it be a hex?

And then, sadly, we get to Freeman's auto accident. The actor, who plays Lucius Fox in the film, was driving in Mississippi last night when his car skipped the road and rolled down an embankment. He's said to be in "serious condition." There have been no reports of alcohol or substance abuse or any of that unseemly (like this post) stuff, so maybe it was, in fact, the dark shadow force that bewitched and doomed him.

Also, a crewman died while filming one of the movie's epic action sequences. (But he wasn't famous, so, boo!, apparently.) The film's other actors have so far not reported any ghostly occurrences or freak accidents, and the producers are definitely happy and swimming in piles of money. But could this just be the deceiving prelude to the awfulness that's yet to befall them? Could they spiral into addiction, spurned by an overabundance of wealth and an unseen malevolent force? More importantly, what could have provoked this curse? Supposedly the Poltergeist jinx was brought about when real skeletons were used for the film's opening scene. Did some such malfeasance take place on the Dark Knight set? I mean, other than the oily, meaty presence of Eric Roberts.

According to sources, all of the drugs in Ledger's body and discovered nearby in prescription bottles were legally obtained from two physicians - with the exception of OxyContin, a powerful painkiller.

Investigators "are trying to ID the source of the OxyContin," a source said. "Did it come from a dealer, from a friend? If he had a bottle from a friend, was it taken by someone else before police responded? That is what is trying to be determined."

But Olsen, the tabloid claims, is refusing to talk until she gets immunity from prosecution. Immunity, one naturally wonders, from what? Would supplying a prescription drug to Ledger carry so much jailtime, if Olsen even did that? Or is she worried about something more nefarious — like tampering with a crime scene?

Or perhaps Olsen's alleged request is more routine, a pro forma form of legal hardball designed to bring authorities into contact on the most favorable terms possible. But unlike most parties to an investigation, Olsen is a celebrity with an image to uphold, an image that can be damaged simply by trying to get immunity in the first place — as today's Post story shows.

[Post]

Jossip offers names like Biggie, Tupac, and Anna Nicole Smith as comparison, but we've selected three other figures (Lennon included) who died famously and tragically to compare to Russert's death. We'll measure the impact (socially, on the media, etc) of each passing on a scale from 1-10.

The Respected Institution: Tim Russert, Heart Failure, June 13, 2008
Russert was a fixture of Washington press and politics. He was both jovial and stern, pleasant and probing. He was the kind of reporter who gave a good face to politics. To that end, every news media figure had some fond remembrance of Russert, some anecdote. Every news show in the land had (or is having) a special Russert retrospective. A "private" memorial service will be broadcast by MSNBC tomorrow.
Impact: 4. I suppose all of this is just something of a twenty-one gun salute from his colleagues. Some people, like Shafer, may criticize the coverage for being indulgent. Of course it's indulgent, these people are his friends and have newscameras in front of them. Whether some sinister network exec is standing in the shadows, rubbing his hands together, with dollar signs in his eyes seems mostly inconsequential. The lamentation and celebration seems genuine, heartfelt.

The Rising Star: Heath Ledger, Drug Overdose, January 22, 2008
The young actor, who had received critical raves for his portrayal of a repressed gay cowboy in 2005's Brokeback Mountain, was getting large buzz for a number of upcoming films, including this summer's The Dark Knight, in which he stars as The Joker, Batman's arch nemesis. Ledger's death, from a bad mixture of sleeping pills and other medication, was originally thought to be a suicide, but tests quickly disproved that. It seems as though it was just a dumb bit of bad luck. As the paparazzi was largely responsible for Princess Diana's death (see below), the paparazzi made themselves well known here too, this time as rabid spectators and (ahem) gawkers. When the news broke, legions of photographers rushed to the SoHo apartment where the 28-year-old's body was found, hoping to see the body brought out. And they did.
Impact: 5. The instant explosion of news about Ledger's death showed the blogosphere at its full, bellowing power. It mushroom clouded very quickly, with people speculating, trading gossip (was Mary-Kate Olsen involved?), and eventually criticizing the media's lasciviousness toward the whole matter. But news moved on fairly quickly, and it was all over within a week or so.

The Poet: John Lennon Shot and Killed, December 8, 1980
The strange, swirling brain of definitive rock band the Beatles, Lennon was as iconic a figure of the Western world's social, sexual, and political awakening as any other in the 20th century. Naturally, news of his death reverberated enormously with his fans and followers. A crowd of a 100,000 or so gathered in memorial in Central Park, not far from the scene of the shooting. News outlets covered the story non-stop, dogging the surviving Beatles for reactions. Central Park's Strawberry Fields was dedicated in his honor.
Impact: 8. As shocking a death as possible, given the nature of the incident and Lennon's iconic status. Though it had been ten years since the Beatles broke up, Lennon and wife Yoko Ono remained fixtures of the progressive music scene. Grief over his death was genuine and profound, and substantial and enduring media coverage reflected that. In the past two years two films about the assassination have been released.

The Heroine: Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales Killed in Car Accident While Trying to Avoid Paparazzi, August 31st, 1997
The death of Diana, ex-wife of the United Kingdom's Prince Charles, rocked the entire world. A grand tragedy in all possible ways — a lovely young mother of two little boys, a beloved activist for peace to boot, killed in the stupidest and most avoidable of accidents — 2.5 billion people watched her funeral. My mother, who had woken up very early in the morning years before to watch Diana's wedding to Charles, woke us up in the middle of the night to tell us what had happened. The world felt immediate then, everything felt close by — even though we were in a small summer house in Rhode Island and the tragedy was farway on a busy Paris street. I imagine that's how many others felt, as well.
Impact: 10. As big and devastating as these deaths get, one hopes. Loved for her kind nature and down-to-earth sensibilities, for many people Diana represented something universally good and hopeful in the world. When that was taken away, quite suddenly and under such frustrating circumstances, the sense of loss lingered for some time. That sadness, compounded with the scandal of the Queen's relative silence on the matter, made the frenzy over the story reach unimaginable heights. It seemed to go on for months and months (aided, I'm sure, by Elton John's "Candle In the Wind" redo). And who can forget that dreadful, defining footage (shown over and over and over again) of her two boys, William and Harry, walking in the funeral procession?

The real fact of the matter, though, is that many people have died since Friday, since this morning, since I started writing this post. Like I said earlier, nearly every one of those deaths deserves recognition and memorials and all manner of other things. As our world doesn't quite work that way, we're left here with the famous deaths and, strangely, I've been tasked to quantify the reactions. I'm certainly not assessing the import of the actual life, of the actual grief, but rather what the media and its followers did when they stumbled, carelessly or not, upon it.

As we've helpfully pointed out, it's remarkably easy to accidentally kill yourself with popular prescriptions. In Ledger's case, it was painkiller OxyContin, anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, a couple sleep aids, and Vicodin. You probably know people with most of that cocktail in their medicine cabinets (or purses) right now.

Isn't this a handy riposte to your average thinking person's argument for the decriminalization of "street drugs"? Taxation, regulation, and government oversight is supposed to make everything safer—but when you add in a large degree of disposable income, a depressive personality, and the lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry, death's just as likely to be found at Duane Reade as on some theoretical dark streetcorner.

So... is Tom Cruise right? Would Scientologist Heath Ledger still be with us, healthy and drug-free? Discuss. Or just call us craven exploitative gossip-mongering leeches.

Don't take depressants together! Don't mix benzodiazepines with sleeping pills! Or opioids! Or antihistamines! But especially opioids.

About 75% of all overdose deaths involve drug combinations: the most deadly combinations seem to involve opioids plus other depressants. According to the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network, more overdose deaths are caused by opioid mixtures than by any other single drug or combination of drugs.

And there's good news!

Cocaine use is reported in a significant minority of overdose deaths: however, because cocaine counteracts some of the sedating effects of depressants, it may actually reduce overdose risk from opioids.

(Just avoid shooting it.)

And finally, the most important advice of all for current or aspiring celebrity partyboys (and girls): "if you have been addicted, and then quit, the dose you can tolerate after detox is far lower than the dose you could tolerate before."

Stick with one downer at a time, if you must mix use a little coke, and if you must quit, ease yourself back into it. And have a great weekend!

What We Can Learn from Heath Ledger's Death: Don't Mix Downs!!! [HuffPo]

The bad taste started early in the QUICK RESPONSE AIM chats that lit up the New York gossip elite's MacBooks yesterday afternoon. Balk prayed his scoop would hold up. It did! Jessica Coen—tumblring again!—also reposted the harried chatting frenzy. Former Gawker Media Managing Editor Lockhart Steele made the first recorded "Joker crying on the inside" joke at 5 p.m..

Our own inbox last night was full of depressingly unfunny "stalker" sightings. HEATH LEDGER SPOTTED NOT LOOKING SO GREAT ON BROOME STREET—now that's comedy! Because he was dead, you see. And famous. When it bends... (Denton removed an earlier Gawker post referencing those sightings because, he argues, sometimes even being condemnatory of bad taste can be in fairly bad taste. Just like this post you're reading right now!)

The undisputed masters of terrible taste are, of course, the lunatics at Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church. They're the ones who picket the funerals of dead soldiers and run the website about how God doesn't like Carson Kressley. Naturally, they'll be picketing Heath's funeral, because he kissed a boy once, in a moving picture. Per Radar, their announcement:

Oh, the funny videos are already up on YouTube—have you seen the one that couples the video of the body being carried out of the apartment with audio of paparazzi shouting Ledger's name and asking him questions? Classic stuff!

(Given more time and a different venue we'd defend the ancient and venerable practice of gallows humor, especially when faced with the inexplicable surreality of unexpected tragedies, but honestly—"I can't quit you" jokes? Jesus.)

Not only had Ledger, unusually for an actor made for romantic leads, won credibility by taking on the role of the gay cowboy; he had validated the choice of other actors, and other creatives, to resist the corrupting commercial draw of Los Angeles.

By settling in the most Bohemian borough of New York, Brooklyn, Ledger and his young family even more clearly invited the identification of a creative class that despised Los Angeles, historically, and Manhattan, increasingly, as high real estate prices drove out all but the bankers and lawyers.

Of course, that's not how it ended. After the separation from his wife, Michelle Williams, the Australian actor hit Manhattan clubs such as the quaintly low-ceilinged Beatrice Inn. And he died, in an overpriced Soho that has few remaining artists' lofts, wheeled out past a crowd of paparazzi and cameras much like those he tried to escape in Los Angeles.

• Heath Ledger's Final Months, a Gridskipper map.

As the discovery of pills "strewn" around Ledger's naked body spread, speculation mounted that his death had been a suicide. Pareene wrote a very good on-the-fly obituary of Ledger. Lawson compiled a best-of moments and US Magazine soon began to trot out Ledger's "I knew this would happen..." friends. The cluster of cameras in front of 421 Broome grew larger and larger. Yes, we will still there too.

Buxom media demon Julia Allison mourned the loss of one of Australian's greatest talents on her tumblr page by appearing on MSNBC to discuss his death. And around the world, journalists scrambled to assemble all their old reviews into thoughtful eulogies.

Later in the evening, Ledger's body was removed from the apartment on a stretcher. Thousands of flashes illuminated the black body bag as it was loaded into a white van. Yes, we were there as well.

Suicide was widely reported as being the cause of death though this is disputed by Ledger's family and unsubstantiated by police reports. This hasn't stopped Bonnie Fuller on the Huffington Post from somewhat self-importantly write, "None of his gifts, neither talent nor family, appears to have been enough to combat the demons that apparently led Heath to take the pills that could have ended his young life," before closing with a posthumous apostrophe, "Heath, perhaps if you had just re-watched your old film you would have been inspired to stay with us and to have "changed your stars." Sheesh.

This morning, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times, the Daily Mail, the New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News and of course the Sydney Morning Herald all ran front-page stories. But one of the best obituaries we've read so far is from Time magazine's Belinda Luscombe who manages to touch on his dissatisfaction in life, his enormous talent and his untimely death without descending into the maudlin and sentimental.

All of our coverage of Heath Ledger in death and in life can be found here.

Ledger was born in Australia, achieved some degree of teenaged fame on Australian TV, and decamped for America where he quickly became a likable heartthrob in movies destined to be camp favorites (10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight's Tale probably share nothing in common but stars and fates as nostalgia fodder). His turn as Mel Gibson's son in The Patriot earned him a GQ cover. Then he got serious.

He became both a gay icon and an acclaimed thespian with his role as Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain—and in addition to the Academy Award nomination, people were suddenly bestowing upon him the dangerous mantle of "young Brando."

And while he attacked his share of paparazzi, as all young guns must, Ledger became a New York icon not through phone-throwing and cop-slugging but through embodying a certain mid-2000s trend of quiet Brooklyn cohabitation.

In Brooklyn, with fiancee Michelle Williams, Heath Ledger became a Hollywood actor that the more sensitive among us could love, or at least tolerate. Why? Well, he lived in Brooklyn, wasn't afraid to kiss a dude in Brokeback Mountain, and showed us all that achieving (temporary, at least) domestic happiness was indeed possible. He and Williams went to community meetings to protest the Atlantic Yards development, hung out in the same places the rest of the parents in their neighborhood, took their kid to Prospect Park, and just generally behaved like normal people.

But the relationship ended. Ledger moved into Manhattan and began partying and making the columns in the proper young movie star fashion.

In a November piece in the New York Times (tracked down by commenter TedSez), Ledger, in the midst of playing a criminal psychopath in a perhaps unhealthily Method fashion, admitted to being distressed. He popped Ambien.

And then, some months later, he died, surrounded by pills, in an apartment belonging, according to early reports, to an Olsen twin.

He leaves behind a surprisingly short and almost as surprisingly consistent filmography. And he's survived by a two-year-old daughter, Matilda Rose.