T/X17online.comTo work with Philip Seymour Hoffman must have been to love him.
The parade of friends, family and fellow actors paying their respects continued Tuesday at the New York City home of Hoffman's longtime partner, Mimi O'Donnell, with whom he had three children.
Joaquin Phoenix, who starred opposite Hoffman in his final Oscar-nominated role in The Master; visited O'Donnell today, as did Bobby Cannavale and Ethan Hawke, both members of the off-Broadway LAByrinth Theater Company, cofounded by the late actor.
Cate Blanchett and Justin Theroux were among the mourners who stopped by yesterday.
While Hollywood and fans of Hoffman's movies constitutes a significant component of those who will miss the Oscar winner's talents, the theater community lost one of its most respected players as well.
Ian McKellen, also a revered star of stage and screen, wrote on Facebook yesterday that he was most touched by Hoffman's performance as Konstantin in a 2001 revival of Anton Chekov's The Seagull in Central Park.
"Meryl Streep was his mother, although he looked old enough to be her younger brother, a self-obsessed lonely boy, longing for success, trying to make his own way in an alien world," McKellen recalled. "The open-air venue was not conducive to the delicacy and intimacy of the play, yet Hoffman amazingly shrank the space between him and the audience and made us feel we were spying on his insides.
"His work on film survives his death, the only consolation in our grief and regret. Last month he came to see our plays at the Cort Theatre. I wish, now more than ever, we had met afterwards, so I could have told him of my admiration."
Hoffman's mother, Marilyn O'Connor, was also at the West Village apartment that he and O'Donnell shared before their estrangement. It's not immediately known how long the two had been living apart.
A private funeral in New York is being planned for family and close friends of the Capote star, who was found dead in his apartment on Sunday morning.
Investigators found upward of 50 envelope bags of heroin, as well as multiple empty bags, syringes and prescription medications during their search of the place. An autopsy was expected to take place yesterday.
A law-enforcement source confirmed to E! News today that the heroin recovered has tested negative for fentanyl, an additive that when combined with heroin increases the sedative effect of the drug and has been linked to 22 suspected overdose deaths in Pennsylvania.
When Cory Monteith died last summer in Vancouver from a toxic mixture of heroin and alcohol, the drug in his system was also tested—and came up negative—for fentanyl following speculation that a rise in the occurrence of overdoses in British Columbia was due to increased use of the additive.
—Additional reporting by Holly Passalaqua