Anne Heche

Anne Celeste Heche (May 25, 1969 – August 11, 2022) was an American actress whose work spanned television, film, and theater across a career of more than three decades. Born in Aurora, Ohio, the youngest of five children, Heche grew up in a deeply religious household that relocated frequently due to her father's financial instability. The family lived in various Ohio towns before resettling in the Atlantic City, New Jersey, area in 1977. Her father, Don Heche, died on March 3, 1983, at age 45, from complications of AIDS, a diagnosis he had concealed from his family. Three months after his death, her 18-year-old brother Nathan was killed in a car crash. The remaining family subsequently moved to Chicago, where Heche attended the Francis W. Parker School and continued performing in theater productions, including Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth and Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead.

Heche's professional acting career began in 1987 when, days after high school graduation, she joined the cast of the NBC daytime soap opera Another World. She played the dual role of twins Vicky Hudson and Marley Love for nearly four years, through 1991, and received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for that work. Her film debut came in 1993 with a small role in The Adventures of Huck Finn. Her film profile rose considerably in 1997 with appearances in Donnie Brasco, Volcano, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Wag the Dog, followed in 1998 by starring roles in Six Days, Seven Nights, Return to Paradise, and Psycho.

From 1999 to 2001, Heche shifted focus toward directing, most notably helming a segment of the HBO television film If These Walls Could Talk 2 in 2000. Her Broadway career ran from 2000 to 2004, during which she appeared in On the Twentieth Century and Proof. Her starring role in the 2004 Broadway revival of Twentieth Century earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. That same year she also received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her appearance in the television film Gracie's Choice.

Additional film credits included Prozac Nation (2001), John Q. (2002), Birth (2004), Spread (2009), Cedar Rapids (2011), Catfight (2016), and My Friend Dahmer (2017). On television, she starred in The WB's Everwood from 2004 to 2005, ABC's Men in Trees from 2006 to 2008, and NBC's The Brave from 2017 to 2018. In 2020, she competed on the 29th season of Dancing with the Stars, finishing in 13th place. Over the course of her career, Heche received a Daytime Emmy Award, a National Board of Review Award, and a GLAAD Media Award, in addition to her Tony and Primetime Emmy nominations.

In 2001, Heche published a memoir titled Call Me Crazy, in which she alleged extensive sexual abuse by her father. On August 5, 2022, she sustained critical injuries in a high-speed car crash in Los Angeles and died six days later at the age of 53.