3 hours ago
photo released, Reuters
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Anne Heche was an Emmy and Tony Award-nominated actress
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US actress Anne Heche has effectively died, but she will remain on life support to allow for a potential organ donation, her representative said.
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The 53-year-old actress was in a coma a week ago after her car crashed into a house in Los Angeles.
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“Today we lost a bright light, a good spirit and so much joy,” her family said in a statement on Friday.
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Heche appeared in films including Vulcano, Donnie Brasco and a remake of Psycho in 1998.
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The mother of two also appeared on Dancing with the Stars in 2020.
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According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, Hesch’s car “burned intensely”, which took 59 firefighters more than an hour to completely extinguish. The two-storey house I bumped into is now “uninhabitable”.
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photo released, BOB RIHA JR
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Heesh was in a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late ’90s
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In addition to suffering burns, the actress was left with a “severe brain injury” – her family said.
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A representative said Hesh was “dead in the eyes of the law”, but added that she would be temporarily on life support to check if they might match a potential organ donation.
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“Ann will be deeply missed, but she will live on through her beautiful children, unique work and passionate advocate,” her family’s statement said.
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Hesch was born in 1969 in Ohio and her family moved several times during her childhood.
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When she was 13, her father died of HIV/AIDS, and she later said in her 2001 memoir Call Me Crazy that he repeatedly raped her when she was a child.
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In interviews promoting the book, she said the abuse made her “crazy” for the first 31 years of her life, and that she created a fictional world called the “Fourth Dimension” so that she could feel safe.
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photo released, Info
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Heesh with Johnny Depp in Donnie Brasco movie released in 1997
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Three months after her father’s death, her brother was killed in a car accident, which she thought was suicide. Her mother contested the allegations of suicide and sexual assault, and they became separated.
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Heesh became known in the late 1980s with her portrayal of twins Vicki Hudson and Marley Love in “Ather’s World”. The roles won him a Daytime Emmy and two Soap Opera Digest Awards.
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Heesh became more popular in the late 1990s, when she played Maggie in the crime drama Donnie Brasco, alongside Johnny Depp. She later told interviewer Larry King that working with Depp was “heaven”.
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In 1997, after dating only men, she began a relationship with American talk show host and comedian, Ellen DeGeneres. The famous couple said they would have a civil marriage if it became available in Vermont, but they separated after three years.
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photo released, Getty Images
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She was nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway in 2004
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Hesch later struggled with mental health issues and is said to have struggled with substance abuse, and at one point was taken to the hospital after parking her car on a California highway and walking in the desert.
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In 2001, Hesch married “Colly” Lavon, a photographer she met on DeGeneres’ comedy tour, and they had a son, before divorcing nearly six years later. She is said to have left her husband for the sake of Man in Trees co-star James Tapper. In 2008, a spokesperson confirmed that the actress was pregnant with her second son. The couple then separated in 2018.
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photo released, Getty Images
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Hesh (center) with co-stars Sandra Oh and Alicia Silverstone at the 2017 premiere of Catlight
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Hech earned an Emmy Award nomination for her role as Rowena Lawson in the 2004 TV movie Grace’s Choice, about a teenage girl who tries to raise her siblings on her own after their drug-addicted mother is sent to prison.
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The same year, she was nominated for Best Actress at the Tony Awards after her performance opposite Alec Baldwin in “Twenty Century” on Broadway.
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