For a woman who recently turned 40, Heche has had more than her share of incarnations. She started life as the sexually abused child of an evangelical Christian father, who was also a closeted gay man who died of AIDS in 1983, and his eerily compliant wife, who after his death became a Christian therapist, lecturing on behalf of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family about “overcoming” homosexuality. Fresh out of high school in 1987, Heche had a four-year starter career as a soap star, playing good and evil twins on “Another World,” for which she won a Daytime Emmy in 1991. That led to a period as a budding Hollywood leading lady, co-starring with Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman in “Wag the Dog” and Harrison Ford in “Six Days, Seven Nights,” while off screen she veered through a string of relationships with
a variety of father figures, including Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac and Steve Martin.
Then, at the 1997 Vanity Fair Oscar party, lightning struck and she fell madly in love with Ellen DeGeneres, becoming half of the most famous lesbian couple in America. Because she had never given any indication of being gay, Heche was pilloried as both publicity hound and career opportunist — though in retrospect, given her experience with her duplicitous father and homophobic mother, it could seem that her attraction to DeGeneres had less to do with acting than acting out. The romance actually destroyed her prospects as a leading lady; the deal for “Six Days, Seven Nights” was the last one made as the affair became public, and no more were offered. When the relationship soured after three and a half years and the couple split, Heche experienced what seemed to be a psychotic break, giving in to Celestia, whom she described as an alternate personality she had lived with for years, one who ultimately believed a spaceship was coming to take her to a better place. Her 2001 memoir, “Call Me Crazy,” recounted that episode, along with her sordid childhood, and started her on the road to career recovery.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/ma...che-t.html?hpw