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No matter how many Oscars actress Anne Heche goes on to win, she'll always be remembered as the woman who switched
teams for Ellen DeGeneres. At the same moment she professed her Sapphic love for the comedienne, Heche had just reached
a career pinnacle attained by only a chosen few: female lead in a blockbuster wannabe. Perhaps it was the middling success of
Volcano that inspired her to throw caution to the wind and brave the possible damage a lesbian affair might do to a
leading-lady-on-the-rise's career. More likely, it was her brash pursuit of all kinds of experiences that led Heche to take such a
high-stakes gamble on a month-old, first-time lesbian relationship.
Heche's childhood was marked by horrific suffering that shaped her survivalist's outlook on life. Her father, Donald Heche,
was a choir director in a Baptist church who frequented gay bars at night. Heche found out about her father's double life at the
age of twelve, as he lay dying of AIDS. "I watched my dad disintegrate from AIDS because he was ashamed to be what he
wanted to be," Heche relates. He died the following year. Before the shock of her father's death could even sink in, Heche's
brother was killed in a car crash. The peripatetic lifestyle her father's calling had imposed upon the family had always
necessitated that Anne find employment singing in dinner theaters for extra money; the double tragedy of her father and
brother's deaths put even more pressure on her to help take care of her mother and two sisters.
In high school, performing became less of an economic necessity and more of an after-school avocation for Heche, but her
professionalism was nonetheless apparent. While appearing in a production of The Skin of Our Teeth, the fifteen-year-old
Heche was approached by a talent scout from the daytime drama As The World Turns. She turned down a proffered job on
the soap because it would have forced the family to relocate from Chicago to New York, but accepted another opportunity on
Another World after she graduated from high school. "The day I arrived, the producer said, 'Oh, by the way, you're playing
twins, and one of them is a real sexpot. In your first scene you'll be naked in a bathtub and you've just lost a million dollars,'"
Heche says. She played twins Marley McKinnon and Vicki Hudson Frame--one good, one evil--for four years, winning a
daytime Emmy along the way.
Heche toyed with the idea of design school, but the overwhelming temptation of acting in television movies brought her instead
to Hollywood. She made the inarguably bad O Pioneers! and Girls in Prison, and began to break into feature films in small
supporting roles. One of these films, A Simple Twist of Fate, led to a two-year romantic relationship with co-star Steve Martin
that the comedian would later call a "torturous love affair." It apparently ended quite badly for Martin, whose friends took to
calling Heche the "Heartbreak Kid" in the wake of the break-up. But Heche had a blossoming career to attend to. In 1995,
she had a minor breakthrough with the festival hit Pie in the Sky; her performance in the film almost exonerated her for her
participation in the abominable I'll Do Anything and the lackluster Milk Money, which she now refers to as Milk Duds.
Nineteen-ninety-six delivered up the roles that would thrust Heche onto the A-list. Nicole Holofcener's Walking and Talking
gained her indie credibility, while a short and deadly role in The Juror provided her with the opportunity to show up Demi
Moore. Heche won raves for her portrayal of Johnny Depp's deeply dissatisfied wife in 1997's Donnie Brasco, for helping
Tommy Lee Jones save Los Angeles in Volcano, and for aiding White House spin doctor Robert De Niro salvage the
President's reputation in Wag the Dog. In 1998, she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in the action-romance 6 Days, 7
Nights, and opposite Vince Vaughn in both the romantic thriller Return to Paradise and director Gus Van Sant's decidedly less
romantic remake of Psycho.
Aside from reveling in her "I-hope-it-lasts-forever" relationship with DeGeneres, Heche has something else up her sleeve to
fluster Jerry Falwell. She wrote, directed, and appeared in Stripping for Jesus, a short film about a stripper who writes Bible
scriptures on her body before taking the stage in hopes of saving her oglers with "a language they can understand." Heche
plays the stripper's sister, who kills for Jesus in order to redeem herself in the eyes of God.
Occupation: Actress
Date of Birth: May 25, 1969
Place of Birth: Aurora, Ohio, USA
Sign: Sun in Gemini, Moon in Virgo
Fan Mail: C/O Creative Artists Agency
9830 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
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Actress Filmography:
1.Third Miracle, The (1999)
2.Psycho (1998) .... Marion Crane
3.Six Days Seven Nights (1998) .... Robin Monroe
4.Return to Paradise (1998) .... Beth Eastern
5.Wag the Dog (1997) .... Winifred Ames
6.I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) .... Melissa Egan ("Missy")
7.Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground (1997) (TV) .... Pregnant Girl
8.Volcano (1997) .... Dr. Amy Barnes
9.Donnie Brasco (1997) .... Maggie Pistone
10.Walking and Talking (1996) .... Laura
11.Pie in the Sky (1996) .... Amy
12.Juror, The (1996) .... Juliet
13.If These Walls Could Talk (1996) (TV) .... Christine Cullen
14.Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long (1995) (TV) .... Aileen Dumont
15.Wild Side, The (1995) .... Alex Lee
16.Girls in Prison (1994) (TV) .... Jennifer
17.Against the Wall (1994) (TV) .... Sharon
18.I'll Do Anything (1994) .... Claire
19.Milk Money (1994) .... Betty
20.Simple Twist of Fate, A (1994)
21.Adventures of Huck Finn, The (1993) .... Mary Jane Wilks
22.Ambush of Ghosts, An (1993) .... Denise
23.O Pioneers! (1992) (TV) .... Marie
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