Anne Heche challenged Hollywood homophobia
LOS ANGELES — Actress Anne Heche died Friday after being taken off life support, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury in a fiery crash, last week. Such an injury is caused by a sustained lack of oxygen to the brain.
On the morning of Friday, Aug. 5, Heche’s car smashed into a house in a neighbourhood in west Los Angeles and a fire erupted with the vehicle embedded inside the home.
Earlier Thursday, police said they were investigating Heche for driving under the influence.
On Tuesday, Heche spokesperson Heather Duffy Boylston said she had been in a coma since after the accident, with burns that required surgery and lung injuries that required the use of a ventilator to breathe.
“Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love,” Boylston said in a statement. “She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”
A native of Aurora, Ohio, Heche first came to prominence on the
NBC soap opera "Another World" from 1987 to 1991. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for the role of twins Marley and Vicky.
In the late 1990s she became one of the hottest actors in Hollywood, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she played opposite Johnny Depp as his wife in “Donnie Brasco” and Tommy Lee Jones in “Volcano’ and was part of the ensemble cast in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”
The following year, she starred with Harrison Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights” and appeared with Vince Vaughn in a remake of “Pyscho” and Joaquin Phoenix in “Return to Paradise.”
In 2004, she was nominated for a Tony Award starring opposite Alec Baldwin in “Twentieth Century.”
Her nearly three-year groundbreaking romance with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres challenged homophobia in Hollywood.
“This is a sad day,” DeGeneres tweeted, Friday. “I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all of my love.”
She was married to camerman Coley Laffoon for five years. The couple had one son. She had a second son with her “Men In Trees” co-star James Tupper in 2009.