Academy award winner actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is dead, found in the bathroom of his apartment with a needle in his arm and packets of what is suspected to be heroin strewn about.  Police are investigating it as a drug overdose.  He was 46.

Hoffman in 2006 said that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier.  But in 2012 told reporters that after being clean for two decades he relapsed in and entered a drug rehab program.  The news of Hoffman’s death was greeted with shock and sadness around the showbiz community.

“I saw him last week, and he was clean and sober, his old self,” said playwright David Bar Katz, the friend who found Hoffman and called for paramedics.  “I really thought this chapter was over.”

Hoffman was nominated three times for Academy Awards in the Supporting actor category, for “Charlie Wilson’s War” (2007), “Doubt” (2008), “The Master” (2012).  But it was 2005’s bio-pic “Capote” that netted Hoffman his Best Actor Academy Award, earning high praise for his spot on portrayal of the celebrated and flamboyant author Truman Capote.

Hoffman is survived by his partner and their three children, as well as his parents and brother.