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At Guildford, where most of the sons of Western Australia's farmers were boarders, Ledger was something of a maverick. Disturbed by the school's military aspects where cadets would be trained in the use of weaponry, he instead opted for sports, playing cricket and Rules football and especially excelling in field hockey, making the school's First XI at a very young age. He was pretty sporty all round. Outside of school he surfed and skateboarded and was a keen fisherman. He also spent much time with his father in the pits of many motor sport and speedway events, and would win several titles as a go-kart champion.
Beyond this, for he was truly a Renaissance boy, there was art. Ledger would plaster his room with abstract art and had already taken up drama. Having seen sister Kate onstage with Perth's Shakespearean troupe at the Globe theatre, he'd yearned to get up there himself and, at age 10, he did, taking the lead in the theatre's production of Peter Pan. At Guildford Grammar, given the choice of cooking or drama, he naturally picked the latter. Several teachers actively discouraged him but this just made him angry and all the more determined. As would be the norm throughout his life, he would learn rapidly. Though he had no real thoughts of a career in cinema, he did love films, particularly idolising Gene Kelly. Having taught himself to dance like his hero (another lifetime norm, this self-tuition, Ledger's not big on lessons), he'd eventually choreograph a 60-strong Guildford team to the first all-boy victory at the Rock Eisteddfod, a national competition. It was a triumph that said much for Ledger's precocious talents, rigorous self-discipline and charisma as his team of macho farmers' boys could not dance at all at first and really weren't keen on a routine Ledger had devised on the theme of Fashion.As said, Ledger as yet had no clear idea of a screen career, but he was aware of the possibility, certainly enough to get himself taken on by his sister's agent. As an extra he'd appeared in 1992's Clowning Around, starring Ernie Dingo, where a kid ran off to join the circus, and, a year later had popped up in Ship To Shore, a kind of Australian Happy Days, both productions having been filmed in Perth. Come 1995, though, matters became more serious when Ledger joined the cast of the TV series Sweat, again shot in Perth. This would deal with the routines, temptations, disappointments and triumphs of a group of kids at an elite sports academy. Heath was given the choice of two parts - a swimmer or a cyclist - and revealed a newly burgeoning ambition when he chose to play the cyclist, Steve "Snowy" Bowles. As the character was gay, he reasoned, and gay characters never appeared on Australian TV, he was bound to be noticed. And, though the show was wretched (it was canned after 26 episodes) and the acting poor, he was.
More importantly, he made a connection. Also appearing in the show, as Tom Nash, was actor Martin Henderson. Though four years older than Ledger, he got on really well with the younger kid and recognised in him something special. On his return home to Sydney, Henderson called Ledger and told him he should come to the big city and give acting a real shot. Ledger was unsure but decided to dip his toe in the water. Arriving at Henderson's apartment with just a small bag and a surfboard, he camped in his friend's living-room and was introduced to a wider world of film, TV and theatre. As well as new surfing spots.
Though only 16, Ledger decided to give it a go. He returned to Perth, left school, gathered his belongings and, along with Trevor DiCarlo, his best friend since the age of 3 (he still gets DiCarlo hired as an assistant on his movies), he drove the 3,200 kilometres back to Sydney. Here he, DiCarlo and Henderson would share an apartment in Bondi for around a year. Ledger would teach Henderson to surf, rising at 6am to ride the waves at sunrise on the northern beaches. Henderson would lead his young westerner friends in a merry riot of girls, beer and parties.
Work, enviably, came quickly to him. He'd win a small role in the movie Blackrock where a schoolboy witnesses a rape and murder and must hold his tongue so as not to betray his friends. Then there'd be another tiny part in Paws, a frothy, Beethoven-style kids movie where Billy Connelly voiced a friendly hound who holds the secret to a $1 million fortune, Ledger appearing as a student playing Shakespeare's Oberon in a play within the movie. With money being short, he even took a part in long-running soap Home And Away, concerning the lives and loves of the residents of Summer Bay. Ledger would appear in several episodes as Scott Irwin, a rough-boy surfer-type who hides a shameful secret and commits assuault when he's framed and excluded from school.
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Biography 
