Skye McCole Bartusiak in 2006.

Actress Skye McCole Bartusiak, who played Mel Gibson’s young daughter in the 2000 film The Patriot, has been found dead at her Texas home.

Her mother, Helen Bartusiak, said the 21-year-old actress had been living in a garage apartment at her parents’ home in Houston. Her boyfriend found her unresponsive on her bed on Saturday.

Bartusiak, who tried in vain to resuscitate her, said her daughter had been healthy and did not drink or take drugs.

Bartusiak made her film debut in the The Cider House Rules in 1999 and starred with Michael Douglas in Don’t Say a Word in 2001. She had minor roles in other films such as Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), Against the Ropes (2004) and Boogeyman (2005). But Bartusiak was best known for her role in Gibson’s revolutionary war epic The Patriot, in which she played the daughter of militia leader Benjamin Martin, who struggles to speak with her father.

The Patriot cast also included Heath Ledger, who died after an accidental overdose of painkillers and sedatives in 2008.