Anne Heche: Tributes pour in for ‘Donnie Brasco’ and ‘Psycho’ actor
Anne Heche, the actor who starred in a string of hits such as 1997’s Donnie Brasco and Gus Van Sant’s cult remake of Psycho, has sadly passed away following a tragic automobile accident.
Heche crashed her car at speed into a residence in the Mar Vista area of Los Angeles, near where she lived on Friday, August 5th, which caused her Mini Cooper to be “engulfed in flames”.
She was swiftly taken to hospital in a critical condition as she had suffered significant wounds that included a “severe anoxic brain injury” and burns. She was in a coma, being kept on life support to determine whether her organs were in the right state to be donated, as it “had long been her choice” to donate her organs, per a statement from her family.
In this same statement, her loved ones broke the tragic news that she was not expected to survive due to her injuries and unfortunately that has now been confirmed. The statement read: “We want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne’s recovery and thank the dedicated staff and wonderful nurses that cared for Anne at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital”.
“Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit,” her family added. “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. She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”
One of the most gifted actors of her generation, in the 1990s, Heche was a mainstay in popular culture and was in some of the biggest titles of the day. In Mike Newell’s hit crime drama Donnie Brasco, she starred alongside the likes of Al Pacino and Johnny Depp as Maggie, the wife of Depp’s protagonist, Joe Pistone. Heche’s multifaceted performance was critically acclaimed across the board, with one critic writing that she “does well with what could have been the thankless role.”
Arguably her most iconic film is Gus Van Sant’s remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, which was released in 1998, boasting an all-star cast of Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, and William H. Macy. A close modern remake of the 1960 original, once again, Heche showed her skill as an actor as she brought a Gen-X edge to the main character of Marion Crane, staying faithful to Janet Leigh’s classic performance whilst adding playfulness and intensity that expanded the confines of her role reflecting the type of creative vision she always espoused.
Aside from these two stand-out performances, Heche featured in an array of movies, including 1997’s disaster flick Volcano and the slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer. Then in 1998, she starred alongside Hollywood veteran Harrison Ford in the action comedy Six Days, Seven Nights, and in what was one of her busiest years, again, she worked with Vince Vaughn in the thriller Return to Paradise, which also starred a young Joaquin Phoenix.
After the 1990s, she lent her talents to a spread of acclaimed indie titles such as 2004’s Birth, 2009’s Spread, and 2011’s Cedar Rapids. More recently, in 2016, Heche featured in the black comedy Catfight alongside the likes of Sandra Oh, Alicia Silverstone, and Dylan Baker, showing just how dextrous she was as an actor and not afraid to take on any role.
As well as her work on the silver screen Heche also had an extensive career in TV, starring in titles such as Ally McBeal, Nip/Tuck, Men in Trees, Hung, The Michael J. Fox Show, Adventure Time, Dig, The Brave, The Legend of Korra and Chicago P.D.
Now that the heartbreaking news of Heche’s tragic accident has broken, tributes have poured in from across the world.
See more tributes to the iconic actor below.
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