Within weeks after graduation from high school, Anne Heche had already landed her first major television role, playing twins in the daytime drama Another World, a role that won her the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress, in 1991.
Anne Heche was born on May 25, 1969, in Aurora, OH. Though she had roles in a number of television programs and films, it wasn't until she and Ellen DeGeneres became a couple that people started to recognize Heche's name. Among the TV movies Heche made were Against the Wall and If These Walls Could Talk. Her film credits include The Juror; Wag the Dog; Six Days, Seven Nights; Psycho; John Q and Birth. She had a recurring role in the TV series Ally McBeal and she currently stars in Men in Trees. In 2001, Heche published her autobiography, Call Me Crazy.
Heche married Coleman Laffoon in 2001 and they separated in 2007. She has one son.
An actress who is known as much -- if not more -- for her offscreen life as for her onscreen performances, Anne Heche had the distinction of being one of Hollywood's most surprising success stories and also one half of its most famous lesbian couple. Heche's hyper-publicized former relationship with actress and comedienne Ellen DeGeneres was particularly notable -- and refreshing -- for its degree of openness, something that made the two women veritable poster children for gay pride in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Born in the small town of Aurora, OH, on May 25, 1969, Heche was raised as part of a fundamentalist Christian family. Her father, an itinerant choir director, was constantly running from both debt and his immediate family; the former was due to his lack of a steady job and the latter to his secret life as a gay man. Both conditions resulted in a tumultuous childhood for Heche, who began performing in dinner theatre at the age of 12 to help pay her family's bills. Her life changed dramatically when she was 13 and her father died of AIDS, something that revealed his other identity and confounded Heche's entire family. Compounding the tragedy was her brother's death in a car accident just months later; following this double blow, Heche lived with her mother in Chicago and kept acting to help pay the rent. When she was 17, she moved to New York and was cast as identical twins on the long-running soap opera Another World; Heche stayed with the show through 1991, earning a Daytime Emmy Award for her work in the process.
Following her departure from Another World, Heche struggled in obscurity for a few years, turning up on the occasional TV show. Her fortunes began to shift in 1996, when she had her breakthrough film role in Nicole Holofcener's Walking and Talking, a well-received independent that co-starred Heche and Catherine Keener as best friends experiencing various romantic ups and downs. That same year, she had a supporting role as Demi Moore's best friend in The Juror and although the film wasn't particularly successful, it did give Heche greater exposure. Her exposure increased exponentially when, after appearing in Wag the Dog and as Johnny Depp's wife in Mike Newell's highly acclaimed Donnie Brasco in 1997, she made public her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.
Heche's disclosure came directly against the advice of her agents -- whom she subsequently fired -- and the intense amount of hooplah surrounding it severely compromised her casting opposite Harrison Ford in the romantic comedy Six Days Seven Nights. Fortunately, Ford stood firm on his insistence that Heche star with him in the film and the actress managed to weather the ridiculous skepticism voiced by those who doubted a lesbian actress -- one who had made a career thus far out of portraying blatantly heterosexual women -- could convincingly play Ford's love interest. Although Six Days Seven Nights was savaged by most critics and failed to perform as well as had been expected, Heche earned a number of positive reviews for her performance, as well as a choice position on many Hollywood casting lists.
She went on to give another strong performance as a lawyer in Return to Paradise and then landed the much-sought-after role of Marion Crane in Gus Van Sant's relentlessly publicized 1998 remake of Psycho. The film, which also starred Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates and Julianne Moore as Lila Crane, turned out to be a sizable disappointment, and after starring alongside Ed Harris in the similarly disappointing religious drama The Third Miracle, Heche decided to try her hand at directing. She made her directorial debut with Reaching Normal in 1999 and the following year, wrote and directed a segment of the HBO drama If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000). Her segment centered on a lesbian couple willing to do anything to have a baby and starred Sharon Stone and DeGeneres. That same year, Heche returned to acting as one of the stars of Auggie Rose, a drama about a man who gets the opportunity to assume a new identity.
While Heche and DeGeneres chose to amicably part ways in 2000, their high-profile relationship left an indelible mark on US culture, helping to usher in an era of increased tolerance toward homosexuals within mainstream America. Along with the much publicized break-up, Heche found herself in the news for another reason that year. Upon having an emotional breakdown, the actress was found on a stranger's doorstep claiming to be Celestia, the daughter of God. However, rather than shy from the controversy, Heche chose to tackle it head-on, documenting the experience in the 2001 autobiography Call Me Crazy. Capping off a rollercoaster period of her personal life, Heche married camera-man Coley Lafoon in September of 2001.
While she had certainly remained in the public eye, it had been a while since audiences had seen much acting from Heche, so it certainly pleased her fans when she assumed a recurring role on the quirky Fox series Ally McBeal. Next up, she could be seen on the big screen in the Denzel Washington thriller John Q and with Nicole Kidman in 2004's Birth. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Heche was beginning to establish herself in films during the late 1990s, when she began a highly publicized relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. In 2001, a year after her break-up with DeGeneres, Heche married cameraman Coleman Laffoon, with whom she had a son. Since their separation in 2007 (they divorced in 2009), she has lived with actor James Tupper, with whom she also has a son.
Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio, the daughter of Nancy (née Prickett) and Donald Joe Heche.[1] Her father was an organist, church founder, Baptist minister, and choir director.[2] Her father disclosed his homosexuality to his family before dying of AIDS in 1983. In that same year, Heche's older brother Nate, who was also an actor, was killed in a car accident just a few months before his graduation from high school.[3] Heche was a noted actress at the progressive Francis W. Parker School, in Chicago, and the Bunche Park soap opera. As the World Turns offered her a contract in 1985, when she was 16. However, both she and her mother felt it best that she finish high school first.[citation needed]
Career
Immediately after her high school graduation, Heche landed her first major TV role, that of good and evil twins Vicky and Marley on the NBC soap opera Another World. For that work, Heche earned the Daytime Emmy award for "Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series" and won a Soap Opera Digest Awards. Heche taped her final episode of Another World in 1991 and the following year made her TV film debut alongside Jessica Lange in the Golden Globe-nominated adaptation of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers. She made her feature debut as Mary Jane Wilks in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1993) and gradually landed larger roles in I'll Do Anything (1994) and TV movies Against the Wall (1994) and Kingfish: A Story of Huey Long (1995), playing Huey Long's mistress.
Her breakthrough role was that of a friend of Demi Moore's character, who falls victim to a hit man in the thriller The Juror (1996). She appeared alongside Jada Pinkett Smith and Cher in the controversial abortion drama If These Walls Could Talk (1996). She went on to appear in the acclaimed indie Walking and Talking (1996). She was praised for her performance by critic Alison Macor of Austin Chronicle who said in her review that "While Heche may be best known for her role on the daytime soap Another World, her acting in Walking and Talking suggests that she, too, is destined for larger film roles".[4] She had a significant role opposite Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco (1997), as the wife of an FBI agent whose intensely guarded job as a mafia infiltrator threatens to destroy his own life and family. She got positive reviews for her role from critics such as Janet Maslin of New York Times who said Heche "does well with what could have been the thankless role of Joe Pistone's wife, who is left to mind three children and shovel snow for months at a time while Joe is busy being Donnie Brasco".[5]
In 1999, she played the skeptical daughter of a woman proposed as a candidate for sainthood in The Third Miracle. Heche wrote and directed the Emmy[7]-nominated HBO movie If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000). Later that year, she was awarded the Women in FilmLucy Award, along with the rest of the creators and cast of If These Walls Could Talk and If These Walls Could Talk 2.[8]
In 2001, Heche released the memoir Call Me Crazy.[9] She appeared in the Denzel Washington thriller John Q and also played Dr. Sterling in the long-delayed adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel's bestseller Prozac Nation (2001). She had a recurring role on the hit show Ally McBeal as the eccentric soulmate of John Cage during the 2000–2001 season. Heche starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Proof on Broadway. In 2004, Heche received an Emmy nomination for playing a drug-addicted mother who neglects her children in the Lifetime movie Gracie's Choice (2004). She starred alongside Nicole Kidman in the well-received independent film Birth and also appeared in a recurring role on the WB drama Everwood before returning to Broadway, where she was nominated for a Tony Award for a revival of Twentieth Century, starring opposite Alec Baldwin. She then took on a recurring role on Nip/Tuck in 2005 as an ex-mob wife and Witness Protection Program subject who requires plastic surgery. By the next fall, she was headlining her own primetime show, ABC’s dramedy Men in Trees where she starred as a transplanted New York author living in small town Alaska, which happens to be abundant with single men and few women. Men in Trees was canceled in May 2008, after a season shortened by the writer’s strike. She had the starring role in Spread, a sex comedy co-starring Ashton Kutcher released in 2009, which came out in a limited release and with negative reviews, however, Matthew Turney of View London wrote "There's also terrific support" from Heche.[10]
Heche currently stars in HBO's new series Hung, a dark comedy that centers on a well-endowed but struggling high school basketball/baseball coach. Thomas Jane plays the lead character, Ray. Heche plays Ray's ex-wife, who is remarried. The actress replaces Kristin Bauer, who played the role in the pilot. To date, the show has been received well by film critics.
In 2011, Heche appeared in the independent romantic comedy film Cedar Rapids, which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is about a naive middle-aged man (played by The Hangover actor Ed Helms) who ventures out of his sheltered existence for the first time when he’s forced to attend an insurance conference. Since its release Cedar Rapids has received many good reviews in which Heche's performance was well received; David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter stated that "while Heche shines brightest in more brittle mode, as in HBO's Hung, she strikes a sweet balance between Joan's mischievous and maternal sides".[11]
Media
Throughout her career, she has appeared in several magazine covers including Entertainment Weekly, Mirabella and Observer Magazine. Heche was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in 1998. She became a significant subject of widespread media interest while dating comedian Ellen DeGeneres. With her look in films like Six Days Seven Nights, she has exuded a certain sex appeal.[12]
Personal life
Relationships
Heche's same-sex relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres and the events following their breakup became subjects of widespread media interest.[13][14] The couple started dating in 1997 shortly after the famous "Puppy Episode" of DeGeneres' sitcom Ellen. At one point, the two said they would get a civil union if such became legal in Vermont. They also worked on film and TV projects together. They broke up in August 2000.[15]
Shortly after the split, Heche began dating cameraman Coley Laffoon, whom she met while Laffoon was filming a comedy special for DeGeneres. They were married on September 1, 2001. Their son, Homer, was born six months later, on March 2, 2002. The couple formally separated in late January 2007.[16] Laffoon filed for divorce on February 2, 2007.[17] After a long-running court battle over spousal and child support, Heche and Laffoon reached a divorce settlement on March 4, 2009.[18][19][20] In 2009, a court order was issued requiring Heche and Laffoon to hire a “parenting coordinator” to manage their relationships with son Homer. This arrangement remained in effect until May 1, 2011.[21][22]
Sources say Heche left her husband for Men in Trees co-star James Tupper.[23] The couple reportedly moved in together in August 2007.[24] Their son, Atlas Heche Tupper, was born over the weekend of March 7–8, 2009.[25]
Family
In 1994, Heche's sister, Susan Bergman, wrote a book about the family and their relationship with their father titled Anonymity. Heche and Bergman were reportedly estranged after the release of the book; Bergman died in January 2006.[26]
Psychological problems
Heche has stated in interviews to have been mentally unstable in the past, claiming at times to be two different people and communicating with God. She claims that the past emotional and sexual abuse as a child by her father contributed to her being "insane".[27]
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