Anne Heche, the Emmy-winning film and television actor whose dramatic Hollywood rise in the 1990s and accomplished career contrasted with personal chapters of turmoil, died of injuries from a fiery car crash. She was 53.
Heche was 鈥減eacefully taken off life support," spokeswoman Holly Baird said in a statement Sunday night..
Heche had been on life support at a Los Angeles burn centre after suffering a 鈥渟evere anoxic brain injury,鈥 caused by a lack of oxygen, when her car crashed into a home Aug. 5, according to a statement released Thursday by a representative on behalf of her family and friends.
She was declared brain-dead Friday, but was kept on life support in case her organs could be donated, an assessment that took nine days. In the U.S., most organ transplants are done after such a determination.
A native of Ohio whose family moved around the country, Heche endured an abusive and tragic childhood, one that helped push her into acting as a way of escaping her own life. She showed enough early promise to be offered professional work in high school and first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera 鈥淎nother World鈥 from 1987 to 1991, winning a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky Hudson, who on the show sustained injuries that anticipated Heche鈥檚: Vicky falls into a coma for months after a car crash.
By the late 1990s Heche was one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in 鈥淒onnie Brasco鈥 and Tommy Lee Jones in 鈥淰olcano鈥 and was part of the ensemble cast in the original 鈥淚 Know What You Did Last Summer.鈥
The following year, she starred with Ford in 鈥淪ix Days, Seven Nights鈥 and appeared with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix in 鈥淩eturn to Paradise.鈥 She also played one of cinema鈥檚 most famous murder victims, Marion Crane of 鈥淧sycho,鈥 in Gus Van Sant鈥檚 remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, and co-starred in the indie favourite 鈥淲alking and Talking.鈥
Around the same time, her personal life led to even greater fame, and both personal and professional upheaval. She met Ellen DeGeneres at a the 1997 Vanity Fair Oscar party, fell in love and began a 3-year relationship that made one of Hollywood鈥檚 first openly gay couples. But Heche later said her career was damaged by an industry wary of casting her in leading roles. She would remember advisers opposing her decision to have DeGeneres accompany her to the premiere of 鈥淰olcano.鈥
鈥淲e were tapped on the shoulder, put into her limo in the third act and told that we couldn鈥檛 have pictures of us taken at the press junket,鈥 Heche said in 2018 on the podcast Irish Goodbye.
After she and DeGeneres parted, Heche had a public breakdown and would speak candidly of her mental health struggles.
Heche鈥檚 delicately elfin look belied her strength on screen. When she won the National Board of Review鈥檚 1997 best supporting actress award, the board cited the one-two punch of 鈥淒onnie Brasco鈥 and the political satire 鈥淲ag the Dog,鈥 in which Heche portrayed a cynical White House aide and held her own against film great Robert De Niro.
Heche also called effectively on her apparent fragility. In 2002 she starred on Broadway in the play 鈥淧roof鈥 as a woman fearful of losing her sanity just like her father, a brilliant mathematics professor. An Associated Press review praised her 鈥渢ouching performance, vulnerable yet funny, particularly when Catherine mocks the suspicions about her mental stability.鈥
In the fall of 2000, soon after her break-up with DeGeneres, Heche was hospitalized after knocking on the door of a stranger in a rural area near Fresno, California. Authorities said she had appeared shaken and disoriented and spoke incoherently to the residents.
In a memoir released the following year, 鈥淐all Me Crazy,鈥 Heche talked about her lifelong battles. During a 2001 interview with TV journalist Barbara Walters, Heche recounted in painful detail alleged sexual abuse by her father, Donald Heche, who professed to be devoutly religious and died in 1983 from complications of AIDS. Heche described her suffering as so extreme she developed a separate personality and imagined herself descended from another planet.
In the final days of his life, Heche said, she learned he was secretly gay and that she believed his inability to live honestly fuelled his anger and hurtful behaviour. Not long after her father died, her brother Nathan 鈥 one of her four siblings 鈥 was killed in a car crash.
鈥淚鈥檓 not crazy. But it鈥檚 a crazy life. I was raised in a crazy family and it took 31 years to get the crazy out of me,鈥 Heche told Walters. In an effort to escape the past, 鈥淚 drank. I smoked. I did drugs. I had sex with people. I did anything I could to get the shame out of my life.鈥
Heche dated Steve Martin in the 1990s, and is widely believed to have inspired the childlike, but ambitious aspiring actor played by Heather Graham in his Hollywood spoof 鈥淏owfinger.鈥 She later had a son with camera operator Coleman Laffoon, to whom she was married from 2001 to 2009. She had another son during a relationship with actor James Tupper, her co-star on the TV series 鈥淢en In Trees.鈥
Heche worked consistently in smaller films, on Broadway and on TV shows in the past two decades. She recently had recurring roles on the network series 鈥淐hicago P.D.鈥 and 鈥淎ll Rise,鈥 and in 2020 was a contestant on 鈥淒ancing With the Stars.鈥
An earlier version of this story was corrected to say Anne Heche would be taken off life support Sunday, not that she had been. It was then updated Sunday night after a spokesperson confirmed Heche had been taken off life support.
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