Philip Seymour Hoffman dead at 46
By Chelsia Rose Marcius , Lachlan Cartwright AND Tina Moore / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Actor found in his New York City apartment with needle in arm after using heroin, sources say
‘I really thought this chapter was over,’ said David Katz, the actor’s friend who had just seen him a week before his death. Hoffman enjoyed an extensive Hollywood career, highlighted by a Best Actor Oscar win for his 2005 film ‘Capote.’
Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead Sunday morning on the bathroom floor of his West Village apartment with a hypodermic needle stuck in his left arm and bags of heroin strewn about his home, law enforcement sources said. He was 46.
The sources called the shocking death of Hoffman, who had struggled with addiction and reportedly did a 10-day rehab stint in May, an apparent overdose.
Hoffman, who in 2006 won the Best Actor Academy Award for playing the title role in “Capote,” was found by a friend, screenwriter David Katz, about 11:30 a.m. in the fourth-floor apartment on Bethune St. He was wearing boxers and a T-shirt.
“I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self,” Katz told the New York Times. “I really thought this chapter was over.”
Katz went to check on him after Hoffman failed to pick up his three kids — Cooper, 10, Tallulah 7, and Willa, 5 — from his estranged girlfriend at 9 a.m., a police source said.
The mother of his kids, costume designer Mimi O’Donnell, 46, called Katz, who phoned Hoffman’s personal assistant, Isabella Wing-Davey, telling her to unlock the apartment Hoffman rented for nearly $10,000 a month, the source said. The 911 call was made from Wing-Davey’s cell phone, according to sources.
The voicemail greeting on Wing-Davey’s mobile phone gives callers the option to leave a message for “Bella Wing-Davey and Phil.”
Sources said eight glassine envelopes — six empty and two containing what was believed to be heroin — were found with Hoffman, along with a charred spoon that seems to have been used for drugs.
One of the two envelopes containing drugs had the words “Ace of Spades” written on it, while the other was stamped with the ace of hearts symbol, the source said.
Police will use the narcotics tracking database to help determine the origin of the heroin, a law enforcement source said. The exact cause and time of Hoffman’s death are pending the medical examiner’s investigation, police said.
Wing-Davey, a grad student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, who directed a short film “Candlesticks” that listed Hoffman as assistant director, declined comment when reached by phone.
“They were friends, very good friends,” said Meg Gibson, who worked with Hoffman and Wing-Davey on “Candlesticks.”
Gibson noted that Hoffman was close friends with Wing-Davey’s father, Mark Wing-Davey, who chairs the graduate acting department at Tisch.
“She’s grown up with him,” Gibson said of Isabella Wing-Davey. “She’s been by his side in the last two months with everything he’s been working on.”
Katz could not be reached for comment.
“He always looked happy. He was always doing stuff with the kids,” said neighbor Louise Weston, 45. “They would be on their bikes. He would be walking behind them carting toys.
“When he first moved here and saw him, I was star struck and was like, wow. But he was always very relaxed,” she added.
His family released a statement calling Hoffman’s death “tragic and sudden.”
“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Phil and appreciate the outpouring of love and support we have received from everyone,” the statement said. “Please keep Phil in your thoughts and prayers.”
Doris Barr, the mother-in-law of Hoffman’s sister, Emily Barr, said people who knew him were grappling with his death
Hoffman, who had roles in the cult classic “The Big Lebowski,” “Mission: Impossible III,” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” had spoken publicly about his drug use.
In 2006, he told “60 Minutes” that he went to rehab and got sober when he was 22. Hoffman said he began using drugs after graduating from New York University’s drama school in 1989. “It was all that (drugs and alcohol), yeah, it was anything I could get my hands on … I liked it all,” he said then.
After more than two decades sober, he admitted in interviews last year to falling off the wagon and developing a heroin problem that led to last spring’s rehab stint. He seemed to be having problems as recently as last month, sources said.
Hoffman looked “overweight” and was reluctant to do interviews on Jan. 17 when attending the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of his movie “God’s Pocket,” which also stars John Turturro and Christina Hendricks, a source said. He was hanging out with Hendricks, her husband and John Slattery from “Mad Men” at the Eccles Center Theatre, the source said.
Another source said Hoffman in recent months had been going to West Village bars Automatic Slims and WXOU and “didn’t look in good health.”
Saturday night, he sat with two other men and dined on a cheeseburger and two cranberry and sodas at Automatic Slims, said a bartender there.
“He seemed to be okay. I was completely slack-jawed when I heard about it today, especially how it happened,” said the bartender, who declined to give his name. “He used to come in a lot. He never seemed off. Last night was no different.”
Hoffman is set to star in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part II,” which is in production.
A source said his work as the character Plutarch Heavensbee was substantially complete on “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1” and he had seven days remaining to shoot on Part 2. The tragedy will not affect the films’ scheduled release dates of November 2014 and 2015, the source said.
Hoffman was nominated for Academy Awards four times: for “Capote,” “The Master,” “Doubt” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.” He also received three Tony nominations.
Marina Cortez, manager of La Bonbonniere, on Eighth Ave. in the West Village, has shots of Hoffman hanging on her walls and considered the actor a friend.
“I am so devastated,” she said. “He was here Thursday. He ate a cheeseburger deluxe — medium. With a water. He was so happy. Before he left, he was singing, ‘La, la, la.’ ”
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