Born in Ohio in 1969, actress Anne Heche is probably best known for her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres and her alter ego, an alien named Celestia.

Despite her family's having moved eleven times, her acting career began at age twelve in dinner theaters, and at age fifteen Heche was offered a role on the soap opera As The World Turns - a position she declined in order to finish high school in Ocean City, NJ. She eventually entered the daytime soap world at age seventeen, playing identical twins on Another World, and won two daytime Emmy awards and two Soap Opera Digest awards for that job. Heche also dated co-stars Richard Burgi and David Forsyth.

After leaving Another World in 1991, Heche went on to star in a series of made-for-TV movies, including the 1996 If These Walls Could Talk; she also dated actor Steve Martin. Her first lead role was in 1997's Donnie Brasco, and around that same time she announced her relationship with Ellen. Together they became the poster children for Hollywood gay couples, appearing at gay rights events and becoming community activists. This publicity also helped Heche's film career, and within a couple of years she starred in hits including Wag the Dog, Six Days Seven Nights, and the 1998 remake of Psycho. That same year, she was chosen by People magazine as one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world. In 1999, she announced that if Vermont enacted civil unions in that state, she would marry Ellen; in 2000 she directed her partner (and Sharon Stone) in If These Walls Could Talk 2, and she also won a GLAAD Media Award.

Despite their seemingly perfect relationship, Ellen and Anne split in the summer of 2000. A few days later, Heche knocked on the door of a stranger's home in Fresno, and was taken to the hospital after making irrational statements. Members of the press suggested the breakup had sent Heche into despair and that she had turned to drugs. In October, she admitted that she had met cameraman Coley Laffoon while directing a documentary about Ellen; their engagement was announced in May 2001. In the fall of 2001, she published an autobiography entitled Call Me Crazy. After an early September interview with Barbara Walters, most of America was ready to do just that. On 20/20, Heche disclosed that her father (a choir director who died of AIDS in 1983) had sexually molested her and given her herpes. She further claimed that by age 25 she had developed multiple personalities, including a being named Celestia (Heche's middle name is Celeste). Sometimes an alien and sometimes a reincarnation of God, Celestia apparently spoke a different language and had "special powers." In the interview, Heche also said that she would never limit herself saying she would be with a man or a woman. (Curiously, many people choose to see Heche's relationship series as "turning gay" and then "turning straight" again, rather than consider that she might be bisexual.) After the tape of the interview aired, Walters added in a postscript that Heche was now pregnant.

Heche and Laffoon were married in late 2001. In an interview with gay newsmagazine The Advocate, she grew angry at questions about her husband's and child's sexuality, insisting that the former was not the interviewer's business and that she didn't care about the latter. On March 7, 2002, Heche gave birth to a seven-pound boy, who was named Homer Heche Laffoon.

Selected Filmography
"Another World", 1987-1991
O Pioneers!, 1992
Girls in Prison, 1994
Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long, 1995
Walking and Talking, 1996
If These Walls Could Talk, 1996
Donnie Brasco, 1997
Volcano, 1997
I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997
Wag the Dog, 1997
Stripping for Jesus, 1998 (writer)
Six Days Seven Nights, 1998
Return to Paradise, 1998
Psycho, 1998
Reaching Normal, 1999 (director)
If These Walls Could Talk 2, 2000 (director and writer)
Prozac Nation, 2001
John Q, 2002
guest appearances on Murphy Brown, Ellen, and Ally McBeal

Sources
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_010904_heche2.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/DailyNews/hecheupdate082200.html
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/entertainment/DailyNews/anneheche011024.html
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Club/2419/
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Heche,+Anne

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