Anne Heche began acting in her teens, but despite her successes in television and film, and on stage, her career was overshadowed by a life steeped in tragedy and controversy. Heche, who has died aged 53 after a car crash, came to tabloid prominence in the late 1990s as the girlfriend of Ellen DeGeneres, who was then the star of a hit TV comedy series.
Heche later blamed the publicity around their relationship for hampering her career, saying Hollywood was not ready for a lesbian star in straight love-interest roles. That was exactly what her first starring role was; in Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), marooned on a desert island with Harrison Ford. After a string of roles the previous year, including in Volcano and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and critical success in films such as Donnie Brasco and Wag the Dog, Heche had been cast in the film not long before her relationship with DeGeneres was made public.
