Philip Seymour Hoffman dead at 46: Actor had 70 bags of heroin, prescription drugs in home

Philip Seymour Hoffman was living in house full of heroin.

Seventy glassine envelopes of the drug were taken from the West Village apartment where the Oscar-winning actor was found dead with a needle in his arm, sources said.
Some of the envelopes had the words «Ace of Spades» written on them, others were stamped with an Ace of Hearts — both brands of heroin often cut with a powerful pain reliever called fentanyl that have become a plague in New York City.

Hoffman’s body underwent an autopsy Monday to determine the cause of death, but police are pretty sure they know what killed him.
We still think it’s going to be an overdose,” said one source.

Some of the heroin packets found in Hoffman’s rented pad on Bethune Street were still full of horse, sources said. Others looked like they had been tapped.
And a charred spoon that the 46-year-old actor appeared to have used to heat up his last high was found near his body, which was found in a bathroom, the sources said.
Hoffman, who in 2006 won the Best Actor Academy Award playing the title role in “Capote,” admitted last year to falling off the wagon after two decades of being drug free and developing a heroin habit that sent him to rehab.

And a charred spoon that the 46-year-old actor appeared to have used to heat up his last high was found near his body, which was found in a bathroom, the sources said.
Hoffman, who in 2006 won the Best Actor Academy Award playing the title role in “Capote,” admitted last year to falling off the wagon after two decades of being drug free and developing a heroin habit that sent him to rehab. Meanwhile, celebrity friends and supporters stopped by the Jane Street apartment a few blocks away where Hoffman had lived with girlfriend Mimi O’Donnell and their three children until his drug relapse.

Cate Blanchett, who Hoffman worked with on the 1999 movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” came bearing gifts for the three kids — and she had tears in her eyes.
A short time later, the Rev. James Martin arrived. Martin is a Jesuit priest who met Hoffman in 2005 when he was directing «The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.»

In Los Angeles, actor John Leguizamo told The Daily News he saw Hoffman a week ago at the swanky Chateau Marmont hotel and they were “talking about theatre and how tough it is.”
Leguizamo chuckled sadly when he recalled how Hoffman quoted famed artist Pablo Picasso.
«It’s like Picasso said, ‘I do the impossible ‘cause everybody else does the possible’,” Hoffman said, according to Leguizame. “I’m not saying I’m Picasso, but theater is like doing the impossible.» Leguizamo, 49, said he and Hoffman «laughed, agreed and went our separate LA ways.»

The heroin found in Hoffman’s pad were brands local junkies know all too well, sources said Monday. “From what I know, it’s really good,” said one longtime addict, who is familiar with the New York City drug scene and asked not to be identified. “That’s what the people want … I think they’re getting it for cheap, too.”

Mayor de Blasio called the doomed actor a “quintessential New Yorker, in the sense of just everything we love about this place, his creativity and his amazing ability to portray the human condition.

“It’s absolutely tragic,” he said on Brian Lehrer’s radio show on WNYC. “What I can say about his life is even someone of that extraordinary achievement grapples with the demon of substance abuse.”

Hoffman was also a Tony Award-nominated stage actor who got rave reviews for his portrayal of Willy Loman in the 2012 revival of “Death of a Salesman.” In his memory, Broadway’s theaters will dim the lights on their marquees for a minute at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday.

In his brown Carhartt coat, ever-present baseball cap and rumpled slacks, Hoffman was a familiar and friendly presence in his neighborhood. Neighbors said they saw the actor as recently as Saturday and he seemed fine.

“He looked like he had just come from California or Florida, he was looking really good,” said 74-year-old Avri Ohana, who lives down the block.

Hoffman had been south — he was spotted in Atlanta last Thursday at a restaurant near the Hyatt hotel in downtown, according to TMZ.com.

Witnesses told the outlet Hoffman had made “multiple trips” to the bathroom and later appeared “drunk and disheveled” at the airport.

Hoffman, dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, was found dead at 11:30 a.m. Sunday in a bathroom of the fourth-floor apartment by a pal, screenwriter David Katz.
Katz had gone to check up on Hoffman after the actor had failed to pick up his three kids from his estranged girlfriend Mimi O’Donnell, 46, earlier that morning.

Meanwhile, friends and neighbors remembered Hoffman at a memorial in front of the building where he died.

Colin Stanfield, 45, said he saw Hoffman around «all the time, with his kids in tow, Chelsea piers, playing basketball.»
«I guess I’d heard over the years he’d had some troubles, but he just seemed like a regular guy,» Stanfield said.

About a dozen bouquets of flowers, including roses and orchids, and single flowers were placed on the building’s front steps. There were also two pictures of Hoffman and a handful of candles that were lit until they were doused by a steady snow.

“He’s the only celebrity we ever cared about,” said 34-year-old Nathan Driver, who lives a couple blocks away and walked over with wife Tara and their 2-year-old daughter, Scarlett, to pay their respects.