When I sat down to write my column for this week, it had been a few hours since the announcement that the Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment in New York City. While death, obviously, is always a horrible thing to learn of, this news in particular does not sit well with me. I suppose he is not the first celebrity of my generation to die at such a young age; first there was Aaliyah and Left Eye Lopes from TLC, but my knowledge of and interest in the popular musical world is extremely limited (my favorite band is, and will forever be, the Spice Girls.)

Oddly enough, we have managed to glamorize early death. Dean, who crashed his car shortly before Rebel Without a Cause was released, has become the poster child for aggrieved teenagers. Handsome, cigarette-smoking and leather jacket-wearing, it seems almost as though Dean’s death completed his image, just proving him to be the ultimate “Bad Boy.”

But can death really become us that much? Maybe Dean, had he not gotten in the car that day, would have turned out to be a sub-standard actor, maybe making a few poor career choices, and eventually fading off the scene never to be thought of again.

But he did get behind that wheel and ended up fantastically famous.

Now, I am the kind of person who cries at just about any movie you take me to. Movies make me quite emotional, and I am in awe of actors who actually make you feel as though you have a personal connection with them. Theatrical talent, when it is very good, is quite a thing to behold.

And Ledger was a phenomenal actor. I sobbed for going on two hours after Brokeback Mountain; the recent I’m Not There is one of the best films I have seen in a while; and 10 Things I Hate About You played a defining role in my adolescence. While I am no film expert, I feel sure that Ledger had a superb career ahead of him. But that’s it. He’s gone, and I feel there is nothing romantic about it at all.

It is funny to think that we can build such a culture of iconography around celebrities whose lives ended at too young an age: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy.

They intrigue us for what they could have been, the ways in which their lives might have unfolded; and they always rest in our minds as young and pure as they were the day they died.

My initial shock at Ledger’s death is slowly subsiding, but now doubt mixed with slight disgust is creeping into my thoughts. I find it hard to believe that even a short time ago, I might have considered death to be anything other than heartbreakingly sad. The glamour, the fascination, the style associated with these now mythical characters is now gone.

That “dying young” is a characteristic we now lend to the “icon” seems too base. That we cannot be satisfied with seeing a life play out in its entirety, and do not want to necessarily see its downfalls, the mistakes. That we love Marilyn Monroe because she never needed Botox; she never was featured in the pages of Us Weekly wearing — Shock! Horror! — no makeup! That she died beautiful and young and unmarried — it is too easy.

Poet A. E. Housman wrote a great line warning of “runners whom renown outran/and the name died before the man,” but I believe now there are things much more appropriate to revere than early exits. I cannot help wondering if Ledger’s death is not tragically classic, but rather only classically tragic. All the same, we lost a great one.

Caroline Smith is a sophomore in the college. She can be reached at smith@thehoya.com. The Hoya Wears Prada appears every other Friday in The Guide.