Anne Heche, star with troubled life, dies from accidental injuries

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Actress Anne Heche has died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. She was 53.

Spokeswoman Holly Baird said Sunday night that Heche was “peacefully taken off life support”.

Heche had been on life support at a Los Angeles burn center after suffering a severe brain injury when her car crashed into a house on August 5, according to a statement released Thursday by a representative of her family and friends.

She had not been expected to survive the accident, which left her car embedded in the house when flames erupted. She was pronounced brain dead Thursday night but was on life support due to a possible organ donation. Her heart stopped on Sunday.

Heche starred alongside Harrison Ford, Johnny Deep and other stars during a steady screen career contrasted with personal chapters of turmoil.

Originally from Ohio, Heche first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera Another World from 1987 to 1991. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for this role.

By the late 1990s, she was emerging as one of Hollywood’s hottest actresses, a constant on magazine covers and in big-budget films. In 1997 alone, she starred opposite Depp in Donnie Brasco and with Ford in Six Days Seven Nights.