Remembering Anne Heche (1969-2022)
Friday, August 12, 2022 at 11:55PM 
One week ago, on August 5th, Anne Heche crashed her car into a house in Mar Vista, Los Angeles, near her home. The collision was dramatic, causing a fire that took an hour to control, and, though the occupants of the house didn't suffer injuries, Heche was taken to the hospital with severe injuries. At first, it was announced the actress was in critical condition, then a coma, severe brain damage, and today we got the news that Heche is legally dead. She was 53.
This is a horrifying end to what has been a biography marked by polemic and controversy, mental illness, and other difficult situations blown out of their private dimensions into tabloid fodder. Anne Heche had a complicated life - that's undeniable. Yet, to let scandal shine brighter than artistry feels wrong, an ultimate betrayal. In other words, as we mourn this fallen star, let's remember she deserved better than the callousness with which she was often discussed. Beyond personal trials, she was a fascinating screen presence...
Born Anne Celeste Heche on May 25th, 1969, in Aurora, Ohio, the future actress was the youngest of five children. Her youth was troubled, involving several moves, including a stay within an Amish community. Then, at age 13, the death of her father from AIDS-related complications. During this time, due to a precarious financial situation, Heche started working at a dinner theater, but even that couldn't keep the family afloat. At one point, they lived in a single bedroom made available by another family at their local church in Ocean City, New Jersey. Unfortunately, the tragedy didn't stop there. Three months after the patriarch's demise, Heche also lost her older brother, Nathan, in a car crash.
After this, the remaining family moved to Chicago, where a talent agent spotted Heche and got her an audition for the daytime soap As the World Turns. She was just 16 at the time and was forbidden from accepting a job offer. Her mother wanted her to finish high school first. That being said, her motives might have been more connected to religious beliefs rather than a concern for her daughter's education. At least, that's what one comes to understand through Heche's retellings of her younger life. By 1987, she graduated and, against her mother's wishes, accepted a dual role in NBC's hit soap opera Another World. She played a set of twins - Vicky and Marley Hudson, one good, the other bad.
As the 90s dawned, Anne Heche became one of American TV's most promising actresses. After receiving a first Daytime Emmy nomination for Another World in 1989, she won the prize in 1991. That same year, she made her Primetime debut in an episode of Murphy Brown. Her first TV movie, O Pioneers!, came shortly after, and, finally, her big screen debut in 1993's An Ambush of Ghost, winner of a Cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival. As the decade went on, theatrical roles became more substantial. Moreover, her projects showcased a great malleability, a power to adapt to any genre thrown her way, from seedy erotic thrillers to prestigious stories about important subjects.
Though she got some of her best reviews yet for Nicole Holofcener's 1996 Walking and Talking, the following year proved to be Anne Heche's cinematic breakthrough.
In 1997 alone, she appeared in four theatrically-released films, plus a made-for-TV movie, ranging in approach tremendously. On the one hand, you have the horror shlock of I Know What You Did Last Summer and Volcano's disaster movie stylings. Conversely, you have the Oscar-nominated wonders of Wag the Dog and Donnie Brasco. If the former showed Heche's promise as a comedic performer who could go toe-to-toe with Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, the latter showed her ability with subtle drama. Playing an undercover agent's concerned wife, Heche insinuates complexities within the archetypical nature of what could have been a forgettable character in the hands of a lesser actor. She won the Best Supporting Actress prize from NBR for both films.
Still that year, Heche made an uncredited guest appearance on Ellen shortly before she and DeGeneres made their romantic relationship public. This announcement coincided with the actress's transition from supporting roles to protagonists in her film career and probably hindered her growth into a bigger star. At least, that's what Heche believed, articulating her point in many interviews across the years. It is undeniable that the media's reaction to her acting radically changed in 1998, with some projects underwhelming and her profile as a celebrity becoming more talked about than her artistic prowess. It's no coincidence that she received her only Razzie nomination around this time.
I first became familiar with Heche through her television work in the 2000s, watching the actress in shows like Ally McBeal, Everwood, Nip/Tuck, and Men in Trees. While these often weren't the best showcases for her talents, I was thoroughly captivated by the actress' odd intensity. Even in what were supposed to be bubbly diversions, there was a neurotic edge to what Heche brought to the screen, a touch of willful abrasion that could alienate some but enchanted me. I mention this because the likely first film I saw her in was Gus Van Sant's much-maligned Psycho remake from 1998. For some unknown reason, that movie was in heavy rotation on one of the TV channels we had in my house.
Playing Marion Crane in this shot-for-shot recreation, Heche somehow found a perfect vessel for her idiosyncrasies, making the role her own while fitting into the mimetic exercise her director intended. It's a paradoxical phenomenon of finding specificity in the act of copying, the effort of imitation shining a light on dissimilarities. Overall, I'm a Psycho '98 defender because, in a way, the whole film works like Heche's follow-up to Janet Leigh, creating an experience of cinephile hyper-awareness. Every choice of form and performance is put on the spot, naked and vulnerable, practically begging for the viewers' dissecting ravage. And that's the thing – even as her opportunities dwindled, Anne Heche was consistently attracted to exciting projects.
With a new decade came a publicized breakup and the first of multiple mental health crises that attracted insensitive reporting like a carcass attracts vultures. Still, despite it all, Heche continued to work constantly, focusing a lot of her attention on independent cinema and even some forays into directing with If These Walls Could Talk 2 and On the Edge. In 2004, she should have had another breakthrough year like 1997, but the stars weren't as perfectly aligned anymore. Still, Heche got great praise for her performance as a drug-addicted mother in Gracie's Choice, a Lifetime TV movie that earned her first and only Primetime Emmy nomination. She should have also secured an Oscar nomination that year.
Nowadays, Jonathan Glazer's Birth tends to be held highly by critics and cinephiles, but it wasn't always that way. Just look at that Rotten Tomatoes score, primarily drawn from 2004 reviews, to get an idea of how much this masterpiece was hated once upon a time. This sad case of underrated cinematic excellence extended to the cast's incredible work, including Anne Heche's flinty take on the key to the film's mystery. Despite that description, she's not an exposition machine or even a nice little Rosetta Stone in human form. Instead, she's fiercely nasty, thorny to the max, and disruptive as all hell. She does this while keeping the characterization internal, refusing to be flattened into a simple answer to the plot's questions.
When we start celebrating 2004 before the season's last Supporting Actress Smackdown, don't forget Heche's Oscar-worthy achievement.
Alas, such golden promises didn't materialize as they should. Through the next two decades, Heche kept working, mostly in supporting roles with the occasional lead like her stint in Catfight, costarring Sandra Oh. You needn't look too deep until you discover fantastic performances in this period of growing obscurity. More importantly, the thespian's willingness to challenge herself remained firm to the bitter end, even as Hollywood turned their back on her. This resilience is still apparent now, as one looks at her IMDB page and finds two unreleased completed movies and five other projects in post-production. Though she's no longer with us, Anne Heche shall continue to bless our screens with new material for a bit longer.
Furthermore, she shall never be forgotten, for her sharpness will remain cutting, preserved in cinema and television, destabilizing ensembles with visions of complicated womanhood and challenging audiences everywhere. Anne Heche was one of a kind and will be sorely missed.
In a gesture of eulogizing celebration, please share your favorite Anne Heche performances in the comments.
Anne Heche, Birth, Donnie Brasco, Ellen DeGeneres, Emmys, Psycho, TV, Wag the Dog
Reader Comments (20)
She was a complicated person. An incredible actress as there was a period in the late 90s where she got overexposed as there were many other things about the 1998 version of Psycho that I didn't like aside from Heche.
Still, Heche has cultivated a slew of great performances. I cite Cedar Rapids as one of my favorite performances that she did as she is hilarious but also someone full of heart as she was able to get Ed Helms' character out of his comfort zone a bit while also being someone the guys could just drink a beer with. There was also her performance in My Friend Dahmer as Jeffrey Dahmer's mother which I thought stood out as she just played someone who was obviously mentally-ill and did a lot to really play into Dahmer's own troubled psyche.
Those 2 performances plus Birth, Wag the Dog, Walking and Talking, and an underrated performance in Milk Money (a terrible film but she's great).
She will be missed. Sad that her life had to end in such a terrible way with all of the issues she was dealing with.
She was also impressive in Hung, a show I wished had gotten at least one more season to tie up all the loose ends. A nice hidden little gem.
Anne Heche did not deserve this..
My absolute favourite actress jn the whole industry who was talented enough for a career that the perennially boring Jennifer Connolly, frustratingly wooden Naomi Watts and cinematically overrated Cate Blanchett have.
I'm sorry but I'm not holding back. It was a disgrace how this woman was treated for the last twenty five years. It turned out that there's more to it but I'll get into it later.
Anne Heche as an actress was quite a force to be reckoned with; there literally was nothing she couldn't do, no genre or script she couldn't elevate and certainly no woman whose internal world she couldn't identify. The impeccable run of roles from 1996-1998 was something special to behold. Jessica Chastain 2011 breakthrough was quite similar in terms of impact but even Chastain couldn't hold a candle to Heche's natural range and charisma. What a waste of a talented individual.
Her best cinematic performance was 1998's legal thrilller 'Return to Paradise', with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix. Heche plays a lawyer trying to convince Vaughn's character to take responsibility for a drug problem abroad. Throny, exhausted, desperate, sexy, intelligent and even dangerous, Heche captures it all in this role and I would highly recommend it. Robbed of a Best Actress nomination in the expectedly boring Oscar race of that year
Imagine how much she would have rocked a role like Roxy Hart in Chicago, that's the role that got away that she would have nailed.
Here's a list of her best roles, some in TV roles that shows her ability to elevate sub par material.
1. Return to Paradise (1998)
2. Gracie's Choice (2004)
3. Fatal Desire (2006)
4. Birth (2004)
5. Thats What She Said (2012) strange film but she's just sensational in it.
6. My Friend Dahmer (2018)
7 I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) what she can do with less than 5 minutes of screen time is just amazing
8. Wag the Dog (1997)
9. Psycho (1998)
10.The Dead Will Tell (2004)
An extremely dear talent to me and I will miss her greatly.
And now the blacklisting.
It was extremely popular among the woke gay cinephile crowd to blame institutional sexism, mental health stigma, 'misogyny' and patriarchal control for the downfall of Heches career. And while some of this is certainly true (mental health stigma definitely followed her more than her perceived 'problematic' lesbianism I think), it is not the full story and it wasn't even pieced together until last year.
Anne Heche had a podcast that she hosted with a woman named Heather Duffy (Better Together with Anne and Heather).
If you recall, last summer was also the downfall of Ellen DeGeneres as revelations came out about her behavior behind the scenes to staff and insiders. In an episode of the podcast last June both of them revealed that it was Ellen who was behind Heches blacklisting. It had only been confirmed to them once Ellen's downfall began.
https://youtu.be/pqnkj14bNrU
(be warned, Heche is erratic and hard to follow in this podcast, if anyone is interested in listening to it)
Harvey fucking Weinstein was less detrimental to her career than Ellen DeGeneres let that sink in folks.
I've noticed that none of you on this blog have any interest covering the disgusting behavior of evil women and LGBTQI+ people. Why is that? Why did none of you give Johnny Depp the benefit of the doubt after six years of abuse and lies? It is now confirmed that the real institutional control was coming from a feminist dominated media hell bent on destroying him though this was obvious from the very beginning. If you questioned it at all, you were an apologist who hates women.
You guys were awfully quite about Ezra Miller being a groomer and a freak.
Or how come none of you covered the corruption of the BLM movement as artists across the industry bullied people into compliance with woke social justice issues that all turned out to be scams? No criticism of the METOO movement woke me up to the fact that you are all far leftist hacks who are resentful and ideologically blind.
You all love to cling to a narrative that all of the problems in the world are due to straight white men whose perceived supremacy is holding categories back. Anne Heche was destroyed by a vindictive cunt who many people, some on this site, never questioned because she represented an identity category that aligned against perceived patriarchy.
Admit you have all fallen for serious levels of propaganda. Heche was treated more unfairly by a power hungry woman who was propped up as a sacred cow above criticism. All of you were too arrogant and resentful to truly question any narrative.
Anne Heche spent her whole life challenging authority and privileged truth above all else. More than her astonishing talent, I will never forget that. Take a leaf out of Heches book and stop falling for carefully cultivated institutionally driven lies.
A tragedy for everyone involved,hope she is at peace and the lady whose house was destroyed is able to move on in life.
I first saw Anne Heche in 1996's Demi Moore/Alec Baldwin thriller The Juror in which she stole the film from the two leads although her character was treated rather cruelly but she had me keeping an eye out for everything she appeared in.
Then is was her fantastic cameo in I Know what you did last Summer
Big Studio movies like Volcano a guilty pleasure followed by Six Days Seven Nights with Harrison Ford where she was again totally charasmatic.
The Psycho remake in 98 was ill advised and whilst not touching the original in performance and style was strangely enjoyable.
Next critical kudos with Wag the Dog and Donnie Brasco,she is Oscar worthy in both those films getting the tone of both movies which are wildly different.
Then she became tabloid fodder and her career changed gears and she was seemingly out of favour which I thought was a big shame but maybe her own mental health problems affected her.
I last saw her in the 2016 Jeffrey Dahmer movie and she hadn't lost any of her sparkle.
Thankyou Anne you brightened up this cinephiles life in a short period of time.
Aaron you're post starts by tearing down 3 other actresses with no relation to Heche so you lost me right from the start of your post.
@Mr Ripley
This might come as a shock to you, but one is allowed to criticiize compliant actresses who never challenged the system and never got punished the way that Anne Heche did..
Women are not above criticism, though to you gynocentric gays and gals I guess that's a step too far?
@aARON nothing shocks me much anymore,for someone i've never met you make a lot of assumptions plus this is a post about the loss of an Actress and the aftermath for those involved not to come and preach.
Just because it's not as precious as one would like doesn't make it any less of a loving tribute to a singular talent who was punished for telling the truth. DeGeneres had a lot more to do with that and I think it's disgraceful. Couple that with the congenital indifference to objectivity of certain identity categories in the media and it's strikes me as an impossible injustice to rectify.
My 'assumptions' are from observation. Anne Heche deserved better than this.
Wow-the recent Smackdown was for 1997, the year that Heche was at her zenith.
Kind’ve cancelled her (and anyone associated with) the (how could you!) remake of Psycho. (Were you in that Julianne Moore)? Still, seems like her association with Ellen put her promising future in the other direction. It was refreshing to see her pop up in projects.
I didn't fully get her until I saw her in Hung. Donnie Brasco and Wag the Dog are two solid titles.
I knew her from Another World, so I felt very invested in her success.
I remember how excited I was to read about the existence of Walking and Talking, which she's great in.
I remember what a surprising impression she makes in IKWYD Last Summer, in a plot-irrelevant scene that would probably have been cut if she wasn't so insanely good in it.
And I'm so happy she has Birth on her CV, so we all have a piece of art to turn to when we miss her.
Cláudio -- thank you for writing this when I was having a rough evening. Wonderful tribute as i knew it would be. So many memories of Heche have come flooding back to me including when i saw her on stage in PROOF.
Nathaniel,How was she in Proof?
What a beautiful write up. Anne Heche was indeed a gifted actress, showcasing her unique talent most notably in Nicole Holofcener's wonderful gem WALKING AND TALKING (1996) and Jonathan Glazer's austere but memorable BIRTH (2004).
RIP and healing energy sent to her two young sons.
Truly sad about her passing. She was very underrated. I remember her in Murphy Brown, she made such an impression on me that I became an instant fan.
I've been meaning to rewatch Birth, and now I shall. HBOMax, if anyone else wants to.
@Aaron-I do feel like the world does owe Johnny Depp an apology but I do wonder if his fans have any common sense given that they're going after Evan Rachel Wood because she's exposing his friend in Marilyn Manson. I hope Depp is no longer friends with that asshole and can offer some help for ERW as she needs someone who has been abused instead of leeches like Amber Turd. I should note that Manson fans are some of the worst out there. I knew them and they're really awful people.
Aaron -- i understand your passion for Heche (she was awesome). But it sounds to me like you're carrying a huge chip on your shoulder directed at anyone / everyone for not believing as you do or for being too "woke". But it's telling that I've received similar complaints from others saying "not woke ehough" for the exact same reason -- how little we comment on these very polarizing, very sad, and usually traumatic stories.
This is a case of projecting. We have barely said a word about Johnny Depp or Amber Heard or Ezra Miller or the numerous MeToo stories apart from linking to occassional news stories about them. We are not avoiding them for poitical reasons but for emotional reasons and 'what is this site's purpose?' reasons. I can't speak for the other writers but I personally do not like to fill my brain with extra trauma. so i dont generally read lengthy exposes or follow trials or grisly blow by blows of what went down between people (i'm not obsessed with true crime -- the current fad -- for this very reason.) I believe the best summary of my feelings on this matter (and the most i've said about cancel culture etcetera) -- both politically and emotionally as in let's stay focused on movies and understand what we're about was the Kevin Hart fiasco (which also involved Ellen DeGeneres) in regards to hosting the Oscars.
One last thing: This is the very first I'm hearing about Ellen DeGeneres' possible involvement in a blacklisting so I couldn't have possibly have spoken to that in any way shape or form and certainly wouldn't have come to Ellen's defense if I had. Again, you're projecting. We're all fans of Anne Heche here so let's find community in that and leave the rest alone.
Ben -- i have also been meaning to rewatch Birth. perhaps we should have a group watch.
mr ripley - she was incredible in PROOF. I should probably write a short bit about that experience. unless i have already a decade plus back but have forgotten.
I do not hate Psycho’98 that much. At least it was a personal project and I remember it better than other Van Sant’s “on demand” things like Good Will Hunting and Milk. The main problem for me was Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. As for Heche’s Marion, she did a decent job, with her beauty, luminous presence and a couple of nice clothes to elevate the overall results.
My favorite of hers is definitely Birth, agree with everyone who said she deserved an Oscar nod. Also like Catfight, it was a crazy/funny experience.
Sad to know about her death because she was one of the vanished stars from the 90’s that I hope to emerge soon for a huge comeback + Oscar love.
Yes to the group watch of Birth. Love to have a discussion of it on here.
I'm doing a Heche rewatch (or just watch) this week of what I can find streaming. Tubi, of all things has a few. She worked alot. I watched Wild Card on Netflix last night-she's got a woefully small role in it, but it's a pretty good flick. I'm a fan of Statham.