Anne Heche

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Anne Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio and is the youngest of 5 children, although 3 of her 4 siblings are now tragically deceased. Her father, Don Heche, was often unemployed and led a double life as a homosexual. Anne has described him as lazy, schizophrenic, and sexually deviant. Despite her father's homosexuality, Anne has claimed that he raped her on a regular basis from the time she was an infant until she was 12, and gave her herpes when she was 8. The experience drove her insane, and she created an alter-ego named Celestia to escape the horrors of her life.The Heches moved 11 times before settling in New Jersey when Anne was 12. They were very poor, and at one point all lived together in one bedroom of another family's house. To help make ends meet, Anne got a job working in a dinner theater. In March 1983, when Anne was 13, her father died of AIDS. Just weeks later, her brother Nate committed suicide. To escape the embarrassment of these two events, Anne's mother Nancy uprooted the family to Chicago. Anne was active in theater at the progressive Francis W. Parker School, and was discovered by a talent agent who secured her an audition for the daytime soap opera As the World Turns in 1985 when she was 16. Anne flew to the audition in New York and was offered a job, but her mother insisted that she finish high school first.Immediately after graduating from high school in 1987, Anne flew back to New York and was cast as good and evil twins on the daytime soap opera Another World. She was on the show for 4 years, and won a Daytime Emmy for "Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series". Anne taped her final episode in 1991 and intended to enroll in the Parsons School of Design. When she was offered a small part in the made-for-TV movie O Pioneers!, Anne changed her plans and moved to Los Angeles. Soon thereafter she made her big-screen debut with a brief appearance in The Adventures of Huck Finn. Anne worked constantly over the next three years with minor roles in various film and TV projects. Her first substantial role was in a segment of the 1996 made-for-cable anthology film If These Walls Could Talk, in which she gave an excellent performance as a college student who decides to have an abortion after becoming pregnant by her married professor.In 1997, Anne had supporting roles in the films Donnie Brasco, Volcano, Wag the Dog, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, earning good reviews for each performance. That same year, out of nowhere, she entered into a same-sex relationship with the most famous lesbian in the world, Ellen DeGeneres. Literally overnight, the unknown actress suddenly became the subject of widespread controversy and criticism. Prior to this, Anne had only dated men, and many speculated that she was just experimenting and accused her of being a gold-digger. Meanwhile, she had just landed her first leading role in the big-budget romantic adventure Six Days Seven Nights with Harrison Ford, and there was a media debate about whether or not audiences would accept her playing Ford's love interest. The film's director, Ivan Reitman, stated "I think it will do the movie some harm, and that makes me nervous. The great news about all this is that we hired a relatively unknown and now she's one of the most famous women in America." The film performed well at the box office when it came out in the summer of 1998, and Anne appeared to be a star-in-the-making. Shortly after, she had her second leading role (and her best role to date) in the exceptional drama Return to Paradise with Vince Vaughn. As a less publicized film, it did not do well at the box office and was overlooked for any major awards.Despite the commercial success of "Six Days Seven Nights" and the critical plaudits for "Return to Paradise," Anne couldn't get another leading role. Her agents told her this was because of the negative attention she was getting for her relationship with DeGeneres, and that she lost the career opportunities they had predicted for her. In the worst of timing, Anne's updated sexual preference had ruined her career just as she seemed destined to become a major star. Her next appearances were supporting roles in the woeful, poorly received remake of Psycho, and the barely-seen indies The Third Miracle and Auggie Rose, which went straight to cable.In August 2000, Anne and DeGeneres broke up after 3 years together. A day after the split was announced, Anne drove five hours from Los Angeles to a rural area outside Fresno, parked her car along a dusty roadside and walked a mile and a half through the desert before showing up at the doorstep of a stranger's ranch house. High on ecstasy and wearing only a bra and shorts, Anne asked the resident if she could use their shower. The resident obliged, then Anne curled up on the sofa and said she wanted to watch a movie, but the VCR was broken. When Anne showed no signs of leaving, the resident became uneasy and called the Fresno County sheriff's department. According to the police report, Anne told officers that she was "God, and was going to take everyone back to heaven in a spaceship." The deputies summoned an ambulance, which ferried Anne the 50 miles to Fresno's University Medical Center, from which she was released after a few hours. Two days after that, Anne flew to Toronto to begin filming John Q. It was only a supporting role, and the film wasn't released until 2002.By the end of 2000, Anne was in a serious relationship with Coleman 'Coley' Laffoon, a cameraman she had met earlier that year when he was part of the camera crew filming a documentary about DeGeneres. In 2001, Anne had a recurring guest role on the TV sitcom Ally McBeal and a small part in the straight-to-video film Prozac Nation. Later that year, she released the memoir "Call Me Crazy," in which she described her horrifying childhood and stated that she was insane for the first 31 years of her life, until the recent incident outside Fresno had snapped her out of it and put her alter-ego behind her. Anne also described her estrangement from her mother Nancy, which began when Anne confronted her about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Nancy Heche, who claims she cured Anne's lesbianism by praying for her, is a successful psychotherapist and motivational speaker who travels around the country encouraging gays to convert to straightness. She and Anne remain estranged.Anne married Laffoon on September 1, 2001 when she was already three months pregnant. Their son Homer was born on March 2, 2002. After taking a year off, Anne tried to get her career back on track. In 2004, she had supporting roles in the independent film Birth and the TV movie Gracie's Choice, as well as a lead role in the TV movie The Dead Will Tell. Anne also had recurring guest roles on the shows Everwood and Nip/Tuck. In more TV movies, she starred in the Hallmark Christmas drama Silver Bells and the Lifetime thriller Fatal Desire.In 2006, Anne turned to television full-time by starring in her own series: Men in Trees was a delightful comedy-drama in which she played Marin Frist, a New York relationship coach who, after finding out her fiancée has been cheating on her, moves to a small town in Alaska to get a new start, where the ratio of men to women is 10 to 1. The series, which was shot entirely on location in Vancouver, Canada, was well-received by both critics and audiences during its first season. Anne's love interest was played by Canadian actor James Tupper, whom she soon left her husband for. Laffoon filed for divorce from Anne in February 2007, which marked the beginning of an extremely bitter two-year court battle. Laffoon was granted custody of their son Homer because Anne was living in Canada to shoot "Men in Trees" and was not allowed to bring him out of the country. However, in June 2008, following a hiatus due to the writer's strike, the show was canceled after 36 episodes. Following the cancellation, Anne claimed she was broke and could no longer afford to pay the ridiculous monthly installments of $15,000 in child support. After selling the Vancouver home she had purchased not long before, Anne returned to Los Angeles and moved in with James Tupper. Anne announced she was pregnant, and on March 7, 2009, she gave birth to their son Atlas, while still legally married to Laffoon. The divorce was finalized 2 days later, and a court order was issued requiring them to hire a "parenting coordinator" to manage their relationships with Homer, which remained in effect until 2011.After yet another fiasco with both her career and personal life, Anne went looking for work. She got a featured role in the independent film Spread, in which she had a number of explicit sex scenes with Ashton Kutcher. Then, she joined the cast of the little-watched cable TV series Hung, as the ex-wife of the main character, a male prostitute played by Thomas Jane. Though the part was well beneath her talents, Anne was just happy to be getting work. She also landed a supporting role in the mainstream comedy The Other Guys, but the majority of her performance was cut and she ended up only being in the film for a matter of seconds, so briefly that her name didn't even appear in the credits. Her next role was in the indie comedy Cedar Rapids. In December 2011, "Hung" was canceled after 30 episodes and Anne signed with a new agency. Only time will tell if this extremely underused, one-of-a-kind actress will get another high-profile film role and become the big Hollywood star that she should be.  See full bio on IMDb »