By staff reporter
Heath Ledger has posthumously been awarded the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Ledger is the second actor to receive an Oscar after his death following Peter Finch, who won the best actor award for his role in the 1976 film Network, two months after dying from a heart attack.
"This award tonight … validated Heath’s quiet determination to be truly accepted accepted by you all here, his peers, in an industry that he so loved," Ledger’s father, Kim, said, accepting the Oscar on his son’s behalf with Ledger’s mother, Sally Bell, and the actor’s sister, Kate Ledger.
"We have been truly overwhelmed by the honor and respect bestowed on him with this award," said Sally Bell.
Ledger, who has a 3-year-old daughter Matilda, was found dead in his New York apartment five months before the July 2008 release of The Dark Knight.