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.
Best Known As: That blonde actress who dated Ellen Degeneres for a while
Despite turning in fine performances as a working actress since the late 1980s, Anne Heche is probably most famous as the former lover of comedian Ellen DeGeneres and for her highly publicized mental breakdown in 2000. Heche got her start on TV as a teen, ultimately winning a Daytime Emmy in 1991 for her portrayal of good/evil twins in the soap opera Another World. She played supporting roles in feature films throughout the 1990s, including parts in Donnie Brasco (1997, with Johnny Depp) and the political satire Wag the Dog (1997, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert DeNiro). She moved into lead roles in the island adventure Six Days Seven Nights (1998, with Harrison Ford) and Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho (1998), but her screen career was overshadowed by her personal life after she announced she was in love with TV star DeGeneres. They became Hollywood's most famous lesbian couple until their breakup in 2000. Soon after their breakup, Heche was found on a farm near Fresno, California, under the influence of drugs and claiming that she was "Celestia" and was waiting for a spaceship to take her to heaven. In 2001 her autobiographical book Call Me Crazy explained Celestia as an alter-ego created as a defense against bad childhood memories (including incidents her family has adamantly denied). The incident was the basis for the wry title of her 2001 memoir, Call Me Crazy. In spite of the melodramatic off-screen life, Heche continued to work in films like John Q (2002, starring Denzel Washington) and Birth (2004). In 2006 she began starring as a relationship coach who settles in Alaska in the TV series Men In Trees.
Heche married film cameraman Coley Laffoon in September of 2001. Their son, Homer Heche Laffoon, was born in March of 2002.
Career Highlights: Donnie Brasco, Walking and Talking, I Know What You Did Last Summer
First Major Screen Credit: O Pioneers! (1991)
Biography
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, All Movie Guide
Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio, the daughter of Nancy and Donald Heche. Her father was an organist, church founder, Baptist minister, and choir director.[1] In her book, Call Me Crazy, she claimed that her father molested her during her childhood, giving her herpes. Her father later 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.[2] Heche was a noted actress even at Francis W. Parker School, in Chicago, and the soap operaAs 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.
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. Heche made quite an impression with the complicated dual role, earning Daytime Emmy and Soap Opera Digest Awards. Heche taped her final episode of Another World in 1991 and the following year made a significant 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.
In 2001, Heche released the memoir Call Me Crazy. She had 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 2000-01 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. Her most recent film is Spread, a sex comedy co-starring Ashton Kutcher released in 2009.
Heche currently stars in HBO's new series Hung, a dark comedy that centers on a well-endowed but struggling high school basketball 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.
Heche's same-sex relationship with comedianEllen DeGeneres and the events following their breakup became subjects of widespread media interest. 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.
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.[5] Laffoon filed for divorce on February 2, 2007.[6] After a long-running court battle over spousal and child support, Heche and Laffoon reached a divorce settlement on March 4, 2009, two years after they separated.[3][7][8]
Sources say Heche left her husband for Men in Trees co-star James Tupper.[9] The couple reportedly moved in together in August, 2007.[10] Their son, Atlas Heche Tupper, was born over the weekend of March 7-8, 2009.[11]
She appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman in August 2009, publicly criticizing her ex-husband. During her TV interview, Anne complained about the $3,700-per-month she gives Coley in child support. Anne not only called him a "lazyass" but went on to say in response to questions about his job: "He goes out to the mailbox and he opens up the little mailbox door and goes, 'Oh! I got a check from Anne! Oh! I got a check from Anne! Yea!'[12][13][14]
Family
Her mother, Dr. Nancy Heche, is a professional Christianpsychotherapist. She has toured the USA as a Christian speaker giving testimony of the impact on her life by her husband's death from AIDS/HIV in 1983, by the sudden "death bed" revelation of his secret adulterous relationship, and by Anne's lesbian relationship. Nancy Heche has described how her spiritual views toward homosexuals have changed. In her recent book, The Truth Comes Out, she describes how prayers and her own personal spiritual awakening coincided with Anne's change from a lesbian relationship.
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 Bergman's book; Bergman died in January 2006.[15]
Psychological problems
On August 19, 2000, Heche knocked on the door of a home in Fresno, California. Dazed and scantily clad, Heche said her SUV had broken down, asked to take a shower, and then made herself at home. When the police arrived a short time later, Heche, who had publicly announced the end of her headline-grabbing three-year relationship with DeGeneres the day before, declared she was God and would take everyone back to heaven in her spaceship. Press reports at the time explained that her disorientation was the result of mental illness—fueled by Ecstasy, according to Heche—stemming from childhood abuse by her father, which led her to create an alter ego named Celestia, who was "daughter of God, half-sibling of Christ, and that she was to spread a message of love to this stricken planet before ascending into Heaven".[16][17][18]
^ Slotek, Jim (September 18, 2001). "Heaven and Heche: Actor Has Had a Strange Couple of Years...", The Toronto Sun, p. 54.
^ "'Elated' Anne Heche weds, closes the door on her past", USA Today (September 4, 2001), P. 2d.
^ MacDonald, Marianne (March 13, 2004). "Back to Earth?: Once one half of the world's most famous lesbian couple, Anne Heche's 'spaceship' breakdown captivated America. Today, she says, her feet are resolutely on terra firma", National Post (Canada), p. SP08.
Further reading
Heche, Anne. Call Me Crazy: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster, 2001. ISBN 0743229134.
Heche, Nancy. The Truth Comes Out. Gospel Light Publications, 2006. ISBN 0830739122.
