Anne Heche Biography
Anne Heche fully known as Anne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. Following her dual role in the daytime soap opera Another World (1987–1991), she came to mainstream prominence in the late 1990s. Her debut films include Donnie Brasco in 1997, Volcano (1997), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), and Return to Paradise (1998). In 1998, she portrayed Marion Crane in Gus Van Sant’s horror remake Psycho.
Anne Heche Age
Anne Celeste Heche was born on May 25, 1969, in Aurora, Ohio, U.S. Celeste Heche celebrates her birthday every 25th of May of every year.
Anne Heche Family
Heche is the youngest of five though her sister Abigail is her only surviving sibling. Her sister Cynthia died of a heart defect in infancy. Heche’s father Donald died of AIDS at age 45 in March 1983. Her brother Nathan died in a car crash aged 18 in June 1983. In addition to that, her sister, Susan Bergman, died aged 48 in January 2006.
Heche and her mother, Nancy, have been estranged. It was ever since Heche confronted her about the sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Since her husband’s died from AIDS, Nancy Heche has been a Christian therapist and motivational speaker. She lectures on behalf of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family about “overcoming” homosexuality.
Anne Heche Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of around 8 million dollars. Her salary earnings are mostly from the television and movie role she has featured in.
Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres
The two are in a relationship that once got them fired. They first met at a Vanity Fair Oscars party in 1997. At the time they became the most famous openly LGBTQ couples in Hollywood. Heche’s relationship with Ellen DeGeneres started in 1997. It was so true that at one point, they wanted to get a civil union. This was only if such became legal in Vermont. They broke up in August 2000. Heche stated that all of her other romantic relationships have been with men.
She felt that her relationship with DeGeneres destroyed her prospects as a leading woman. According to Heche, “People said, ‘You’re not getting a job because you’re gay”. She commented: “How could that destroy my career? I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
Anne Heche Husband(s)
On September 1, 2001, Heche married Coleman “Coley” Laffoon. He is a cameraman she met the previous year on DeGeneres’ stand-up comedy tour. They have a son, Homer, who was born in March 2002. Laffoon filed for divorce on February 2, 2007, after five and a half years of marriage. The divorce was finalized on March 4, 2009, but she lost custody of her son.
Heche reportedly left her husband for Men in Trees co-star James Tupper. On December 5, 2008, Heche’s representative confirmed that she was pregnant with Tupper’s child. Their son, Atlas Heche Tupper, was born in March 2009. In 2018, Tupper and Heche separated.
Anne Heche Acting
In the 1990s, for her work on Another World, Heche received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Young Actress in a Drama Series in 1991. In November 1991, she made her primetime television debut in an episode of Murphy Brown. Then she made her TV-movie debut the following year with a brief appearance in the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of O Pioneers! (1992). In 1993, Heche made her feature-film debut in Disney’s, The Adventures of Huck Finn with Elijah Wood. Over the following two years, she had small supporting roles in made-for-TV movies such as Girls in Prison (1994) and Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long (1995). She had also appeared in the straight-to-video erotic thriller Wild Side (1995) as Joan Chen’s lesbian lover.
In 1996, Heche started her first substantial role as a college student. She was contemplating an abortion in a segment of the made-for-HBO anthology film, “If These Walls Could Talk.” It was co-starring Cher and Demi Moore. Also in the same year, she appeared opposite Catherine Keener. She was portraying childhood best friends in the independent film Walking and Talking. The limited-release film gathered favorable reviews from critics. It is number 47 on Entertainment Weekly’s “Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time” list. Heche got a positive notice from film critic Alison Macor of Austin Chronicle, for larger film roles”. She then played the wife of Johnny Depp’s titular. He is an FBI undercover agent in the 1997 crime drama Donnie Brasco. The film made $124.9 million worldwide. Janet Maslin of the New York Times wrote: “[Heche] does well with what could have been the thankless role.”
By the late 1990s, Heche took on supporting roles in three other 1997 high-profile film releases. These are Volcano, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Wag the Dog. The disaster film Volcano had her star with Tommy Lee Jones and Gaby Hoffmann, playing a seismologist. While the critical response towards the film was mixed up, it grossed US$122 million at the international box office.
She portrayed the minor role of a backwoods loner in the thriller hit “I Know What You Did Last Summer”. The film starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze, Jr. Despite her limited screen time in the film, Heche was considered a “standout” by some critics. She obtained the role of a presidential advisor opposite Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman. It was in the political satire Wag the Dog, a role that was originally written for a man. This budgeted at US$15 million, the film made US$64 million.
Heche’s first starring part came in the 1998 romantic adventure Six Days, Seven Nights. She appeared opposite Harrison Ford, portraying a New York City journalist. As a journalist, she ended up with a pilot (Ford) in a deserted island following a crash landing. She had also been cast in the film one day before her same-sex relationship with Ellen DeGeneres went public. Heche was cast in a second starring role shortly as Vince Vaughn’s love interest in the drama Return to Paradise (1998).
Six Days, Seven Nights received a lot of reviews but grossed US$74.3 million in North America and US$164.8 million worldwide.
Heche also starred in Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (1998). It’s a remake of the 1960 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In the updated version of the film, she took on the role originally played by Janet Leigh, Marion Crane, an embezzler who arrives at an old motel ran by serial killer Norman Bates (played by Vince Vaughn in their second collaboration). Psycho earned mediocre reviews, and despite a US$60 million budget, it made a lukewarm US$37.1 million worldwide. In an otherwise negative review of the film, Janet Maslin of the New York Times felt that Heche was “refreshingly cast in Marion’s role”, while noting that her portrayal was “as almost as demure as Ms. Leigh’s, yet she’s also more headstrong and flirty”.
Her 1998 films have remained the only theatrically released films she has had a leading role. She has continued to act in films and on television but quickly fell under the Hollywood radar. In the 2000s, most of her parts were in independent films and television; she played the role of Dr. Sterling in the film adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s autobiography about depression, Prozac Nation, with Christina Ricci and Jessica Lange. Premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival, which received a DVD release in 2005. Then she appeared as a hospital administrator in the thriller John Q, about a father and husband (Denzel Washington) whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart. The film made US$102.2 million at the worldwide box office, despite negative reviews by critics. In 2001, she obtained a recurring role in season four of the television series Ally McBeal.
In 2002, Heche made her Broadway debut in a production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Drama Proof, playing a role of a young woman who has inherited her father’s mathematical genius and mental illness. The New York Times found her to be “consequential” in her portrayal, and comparing her to Mary-Louise Parker and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had previously played her roles in other productions of the play, stated: “[…] Ms. Heche, whose stage experience is limited and who is making her New York stage debut at 33, plays the part with a more appeasing ear and more conventional timing, her take on the character is equally viable. Her Character is a case of arrested development, impatient, aggressively indignant, impulsive”.
In 2004, Heche received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the Lifetime movie Gracie’s Choice, as well as a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress due to her performance in the CBS television film The Dead Will Tell. In that year, she also acted opposite Alec Baldwin in Broadway’s Twentieth Century, about a successful and egomaniacal Broadway director (Baldwin), who has transformed a chorus girl (Heche) into a leading lady. Due to her performance, she was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
In 2004, Heche also appeared alongside Nicole Kidman and Cameron Bright in the well-received independent drama Birth. She took on the recurring part on the WB drama Everwood during its 2004–2005 season, and then a recurring role on Nip/Tuck in 2005 as an ex-mob wife and Witness Protection Program subject who requires plastic surgery. Heche continued her television performance with her portrayal of a widow who does not celebrate Christmas in made-for-CBS Silver Bells (2005), and a con woman who schemes a man she meets on a dating website in the made-for-Lifetime Fatal Desire (2006).
Anna Heche Movies and TV Shows
In 2005, Heche appeared in the small-scale dramedy Sexual Life, chronicling the modern romantic life and co-starring Azura Skye and Elizabeth Banks. The film was screened in the film festival circuit and received a television premiere. In 2006, she began working on her series, Men in Trees. During the show, she starred as a New York author, who after finding out her fiancé is cheating on her, moves to a small town in Alaska, which happens to be abundant with single men and few women. Men in Trees was canceled after a season shortened by the writer’s strike. During the airing of the show, Heche starred in the horror-comedy Suffering Man’s Charity (2007), the romantic comedy What Love Is (2007), and the science-fiction thriller Toxic Skies (2008), where all of them went little-seen by audiences.
Heche appears as the girlfriend of a narcissistic gigolo in the sex comedy Spread in 2009, co-starring Ashton Kutcher. The film received a limited release in North American theaters while it made US$12 million at the worldwide box office. Matthew Turney of View London felt that “[t]here’s also terrific support” from Heche in what he described as an “enjoyable, sharply written and beautifully shot LA drama”. In 2009, she also was cast in the HBO dramedy series Hung, as the ex-wife of a financially struggling high school basketball/baseball coach (portrayed by Thomas Jane). The series received favorable reviews and aired until 2011.
In 2010s, a cameo appearance as the CEO of an important company in the well-received comedy The Other Guys (2010), starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, was followed by a much larger role in the independent comedy Cedar Rapids (2011), where she portrayed a seductive insurance agent with whom a naive and idealistic man (played by Ed Helms) becomes smitten. The Sundance-premiered production gathered critical praise and was an arthouse success. David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter remarked in its review for the film, “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”.
In the drama Rampart (2011), Heche starred with Woody Harrelson and Cynthia Nixon, as one of the two former wives of a corrupt police officer (Harrelson), who also happen to be sisters. The film had a selected theatrical run following its premiere at the 36th Toronto International Film Festival, and gathered an overall positive response; The San Francisco Chronicle, pointing out Heche and her other female co-stars, remarked that they “allow Harrelson to shine —he has always had a way of preening for women— and he brings out the best in them”. Heche had the leading role in the small-scale comedy That’s What She Said (2012), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and next obtained the part of the girlfriend of a former pro golfer (Colin Firth) in the critically acclaimed dramedy Arthur Newman (also 2012).
Heche starred with James Tupper, Jennifer Stone, and Rebekah Brandes in the supernatural horror film Nothing Left to Fear (2013), about a family’s life in a new town being interrupted by an unstable man of the cloth. This film received a release for VOD and selected theaters, and it currently holds a rating of only 12 on review-aggregator website Metacritic, indicating it was “overwhelming dislike” by the critics. LA Times remarked that both Heche and Tupper “should write apology notes to their fans”.
In 2013, Heche also headlined the short-lived NBC sitcom Save Me. She starred as a Midwestern housewife who believes that she is channeling God. She played the waitress friend of a recovering gambling addict (Jason Statham) in the action thriller Wild Card (2014). The film earned only US$6.7 million internationally on a $30 million budget. She had a continuers guest-role on The Michael J. Fox Show before its cancellation.
USA Network’s action-adventure drama series, Dig, had Heche portray the head of the FBI office in Jerusalem whose agents uncover a 2,000-year-old conspiracy while investigating an archaeologist’s murder. The six-episode series premiered late in 2014. In 2015, Heche guest-starred in the ABC thriller series Quantico playing the role of a criminal profiler, Dr. Susan Langdon. On September 27, 2016, the post-apocalyptic action-drama Aftermath –starring Heche– debuted on Canada’s Space Network and United States’ Syfy. She played Karen Copeland, an Air Force pilot from Washington, who must navigate Armageddon, along with her university-professor husband Josh (played by James Tupper, also a co-producer on the series) and their three nearly adult children.
Heche filmed the supporting role of the lead singer for a Broadway musical in Opening Night (2016), with Topher Grace. The musical comedy was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival. In another independent film, the comedy Catfight (2016), Heche starred opposite Sandra Oh, portraying two bitter rivals who pursue a grudge match that spans a lifetime. Like Heche’s previous film projects, the film premiered in the film-festival circuit and received a VOD and limited release, to largely favorable reviews from critics. Los Angeles Times wrote: “Oh and Heche are great here, giving performances entirely lacking in vanity and self-consciousness. They aren’t afraid to get ugly, both in their treatment of everyone around them as well as in their post-brawl bruises, which makes them that much funnier”.
In 2017, Heche played a supporting role in My Friend Dahmer as the teenaged Jeffrey Dahmer’s (Ross Lynch) mentally ill mother, Joyce. Then she received positive reviews for her performance, with The Hollywood Reporter calling her “nerve-jangling perfection” and Empire calling her “entertainingly off-kilter”.
On September 25, 2017, Heche debuted as (fictional) Deputy Director Patricia Campbell of the (real-life) Defense Intelligence Agency, or the “DIA,” in the new military/espionage thriller The Brave. She is the series lead for this 2017-18 season NBC series. Campbell oversees an elite team of cross-military-service specialists who must undertake especially dangerous missions, led by male Mike Vogel. She joined the TV show Chicago P.D. in a supporting role in 2018.
Anne Heche Mental Illness
On August 19, 2000, Heche drove from Los Angeles to Cantua Creek. She parked her Toyota SUV along a dusty roadside. Wearing only a bra and shorts, walked 1½ miles through the desert before knocking on the door of a stranger’s ranch house. When the home’s resident, Araceli Campiz, opened the door, she recognized Heche from the movie Six Days Seven Nights. Bemused at first, Campiz became uneasy when Heche showed no sign of leaving. “I didn’t know what to do,” Campiz said. “So I called the sheriff’s department.” When deputies arrived, Heche told them that she was “God, and was going to take everyone back to heaven in a spaceship,” according to the police report that was aired on NBC. The deputies called an ambulance. Heche went 50 miles to Fresno’s University Medical Center, from which she was released after a few hours.
Heche says that she was insane for the first 31 years of her life. She said that it was due to the trauma of being sexually abused by her father during her infancy and childhood. As a result of this trauma, Heche also said she had multiple personality disorder. She made an alter ego named “Celestia,” an alien from another planet who could speak to God and was the half-sister of Jesus Christ. Heche said that the incident in Cantua Creek snapped her out of her insanity and put her alter ego behind her.
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