Philip Seymour Hoffman attends The Ides of March Premiere during the 68th Venice International Film Festival. …
"Dozens of individuals in the Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit areas have overdosed on a combination of heroin (or cocaine) and fentanyl, a narcotic analgesic that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine — and some have died. A powerful opiate pain reliever typically used after surgery or to treat patients with severe pain, fentanyl, like many prescription medications, can be deadly when abused," says the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
On Monday, NYPD reportedly launched an extensive investigation to track down Hoffman's dealer. An eyewitness allegedly told police investigators that he believed he saw Hoffman withdrawing a large sum of money from a bank ATM on Saturday night in the West Village and meeting with two men.
Despite the bevy of drug paraphernalia found inside Hoffman's apartment, those who saw the Oscar-winning actor in the final days leading up to his death reported that nothing seemed amiss. "He lived around the corner from me," one of his former neighbors told Yahoo. "I would see him around the neighborhood all the time, sometimes walking with his kids." At the coffee shop where she'd see him most often, "He was a local, a friend of the shop, no one treated him like a celebrity or like someone they couldn’t approach — it was nice to see."
The day before his passing he stopped by Chocolate Bar, a coffeehouse that he often enjoyed. "He was fine," assistant manager Kate St. Cyr told DNAInfo.com. "He's been in a great mood, really happy."
Philip Seymour Hoffman poses for a tintype portrait at The Collective and Gibson Lounge Powered by CEG. Later on, he enjoyed another one of his neighborhood haunts, Automatic Slims, with a friend. The pair enjoyed a quiet dinner and Hoffman tucked into a cheeseburger and a cranberry and soda, reports People. A bartender at the locale reported that he "seemed fine." His assistant also told authorities the same thing when recalling a conversation she had with him at around 1:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.
But while fine seems to be the word most are using to describe the star, things are not always what they seem.
In January, he did fulfill work obligations promoting his film "God's Pocket" at the Sundance Film Festival with Christina Hendricks and director John Slattery. The 46-year-old star even posed for a tintype portrait for photographer Victoria Will on Jan. 19.
However, the photograph of Hoffman taken at Sundance shows very different side of the actor, who struggled with drug addiction for more than 20 years. His expression seems downtrodden and vacant, with the eerie image almost foreshadowing his tragic and untimely death. And though Vanity Fair's Krista Smith told CNN that Hoffman was "completely jovial and warm" and "present and engaged" during her interview with the actor at Sundance, she noted that he had put on quite a bit of weight. Other festival observers also remarked that he looked "ill and pasty."
Aside from his appearance, Hoffman was known to be as intense in real life as he was on screen. A source close to the actor told Fox411, "He was always quite intense, a little bit paranoid, and troubled. Addiction was always going to be a constant struggle for him but this is so unexpected. He was an incredibly knowledgeable person and so concerned with problems and issues around the world. He was one of those people with such an awakened mind he couldn’t switch off."
Mimi O'Donnell, Hoffman's ex and the mother of his three children, told authorities that when she saw him near his apartment at 2 p.m. ET Saturday, she thought he looked high. Speaking to him six hours later, O'Donnell said he still seemed high and never showed up at her home the following morning to pick up their kids.
There's no word yet on funeral or
memorial plans for the Oscar winner, but Broadway will be dimming its
marquee lights in his honor on Wednesday night at 7:45 p.m. ET. This is a
common tradition to celebrate the life and contribution of fallen
members of the theater community.
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