Anne Heche hospitalized with severe burns from car accident

[AbcNbc247]

Now, all the conspiracy theories about her death are coming out *rolls eyes*

[Vee]

@DRW50

Seitz is a talented writer but unfortunately makes an egregious error early, saying she was on OLTL and not AW.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Vee

[slick jones]

@DRW50, @Vee   @Taoboi @SFK @DaytimeFan

@Faulkner @beebs @dragonflies

 

 

A Tribute From Emily Bergl( who worked with Anne Heche)  Bergl is familiar to me from Gilmore Girls and Men in Trees, Desperate Housewives, etc...

“You worked with crazy Anne Heche?” “So how crazy was she?” “Was it a nightmare working with crazy Anne Heche?”

I worked with Anne Heche for two years on the TV show Men in Trees, and this line of questioning was usually the first out of people’s mouths when they heard I had worked with her. She elicited more curiosity than any other famous person I’ve ever worked with. The other celebrities I’d known, mostly men, would garner only a “So what’s he like?” Some of these men had their own public moments of struggle, but these breakdowns never defined them. (The only question I possibly heard more was about my time on Desperate Housewives. Everyone wanted to hear “what bitches all those girls were.”)

Others who knew Anne more closely, who worked with her on higher profile projects and movies, will be better able to eulogize her body of work, which was impressive, arresting, and dazzling. I’d like to give you the answers to the questions I most received about Anne, answers that I gave many, many times.

Anne was not only a genius, but one of the most astoundingly focused and prepared actors I’ve ever worked with. I don’t think I ever saw her miss stepping on her mark once. I imagine she may have called for her line once or twice, as she was the lead of Men in Trees and worked at least twelve hours most days, but I can’t recall her ever needing it. I asked her what her secret was, and she told me her first job was playing twins on Another World, so she had to memorize up to seventy pages of dialogue a day (as if that was something anyone could do.) If you look up her scenes, you can’t find one false note from her performance in a soap opera.

The only joke I did make about Anne was that it’s likely she didn’t have a psychotic break, but really was an alien, because her strength seemed super human. She would work for twelve hours, invite everyone to the bar, really listen to us, bring joy, drink a couple of doubles, and be back at work at four AM. As I would roll in feeling barely human, she would walk into the makeup trailer, always on time, with a smile on her face for everybody, her face luminous without a lick of makeup. She would greet everyone with a hug, tell us how beautiful we all were, and bring a sense of excitement for the day ahead. All day, scene after scene, her work would be technically flawless, and yet always remained spontaneous. I don’t think she was capable of phoning it in. And then she would do it all again the next day.

One day we were filming a scene where Anne had to run an auction for a crowd, and it was a hell of a lot of lines. We heard later the director was chastised by the studio for the thousands of feet of film he shot that day. Anne gave her speeches all day long until she was hoarse, barely able to speak. It was the end of the night, and after twelve hours of work they turned the camera around on the background actors for their reaction to Anne. Most people would have gone home and had the script supervisor do their lines, but Anne stayed for take after take, giving it her all, improvising and hamming it up. She made a room full of tired people, who had heard the scene a hundred times already, laugh over and over again. She gave as much energy and commitment to the background actors as when the camera rolled on her close up.

It’s no wonder Anne titled her brilliant memoir Call Me Crazy, she beat everyone to the punch. She was talking about mental health before we used that term, before it was popular and acceptable to talk about those struggles. Other celebrities would have breakdowns, and they would be quietly swept under the rug, but Anne put it all out there: She was raped by her father who later died of AIDS, her brother killed himself by driving into a tree, her mother told her she would burn in Hell when she told her she was gay. I am haunted that Anne’s last conscious moments were in flames, and I pray that she eventually found peace. But despite a sometimes harrowing life, she was so much fun to be around. She was insouciant, joyous, insightful. It’s a cliche but she really did light up a room.

There’s one piece of Anne’s story that isn’t in her book. When I was still temping in Chicago, I used to work for an eccentric tax lawyer named Peter Davis. He hung out at Nick’s Beer Garden along with a motley crew of musicians, artists and poets, and he would do all their taxes for free. One of the characters who frequented Nick’s was a former prize fighter who still went by his handle of King Solomon. When I told Peter I would be working with Anne he said “Please find out if she knew King Solomon, because he’s always bragging about how he hung out with her, but we think he’s full of [!@#$%^&*].” One night I turned to Anne and said that the story was probably apocryphal, but did she know a prize fighter in Chicago named King Solomon? Her face froze for a good few moments, and then she slowly answered yes. She and her mother had been living in a room together at the Belden Hotel, and King Solomon had started taking Anne to the track. After a while it became apparent that he was grooming her to become “one of his girls,” and then she got the job on Another World. There must have been some serious brainwashing going on because Anne told me she was actually weighing the two options, deciding whether to enter King Solomon’s stable, or become a soap star. After she finished telling me the story, Anne became quiet again, and she turned and looked into my eyes for a few seconds. “Thank you, Emily, for telling me that,’ she said. “So much of my life, what’s happened to me, I’ve been told it’s not real. So to hear confirmation of that piece of my story, it means so much.”

I don’t justify many of Anne’s actions, and the people, family and children whom she has hurt so deeply. My heart goes out to Coley Laffoon, James Tupper, and her sons Atlas and Homer. But we so rarely investigate the abuse, the gaslighting, the misogyny, the homophobia that drives people to finally take up the “crazy” mantle that’s been placed upon them, and in Anne’s case, I imagine it began when she was being abused as a child. I would tell you to read Call Me Crazy, but it’s now $200 on Amazon. I hope the people buying her book want to discover who she is, and not just make some post mortem money. I gave my $200 because I want to read it again. I want to know her again. I want to learn from her again. She was a true genius, and I miss her."

 

 

Such a beautiful , sad tribute, I'm sharing it with a tear in my eye...

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by slick jones

[Vee]

I've always loved Emily Bergl. That's a beautiful tribute.

[Faulkner]

That is a very lovely tribute indeed.

[DRW50]

Thanks for the articles. I had no idea just how close Anne was to such a disastrous choice before she got AW. Another reminder that the happy endings of Hollywood films are never real...

[SFK]

@slick jones thank you so much for sharing that with us.

[Taoboi]

That was a beautiful tribute. Thank you for sharing.

 

It also reminded me that MEN IN TREES was back in the days when the world of televisions actually allowed for summer series separated from the regular fall shows and winter premieres. I remember it getting decent advertisements back then until the end that is. Just...a different time. 

[slick jones]

I

 

 

 

 

Jonelle Allen had reposted it, feeling all these a-holes out there have forgotten her talent and choose only to reflect on her mistakes.

 

[Taoboi]

That's a name that I haven't heard in a while. 

 

Good for her.

[SFK]

With her CBS primetime pedigree, she’d be a welcome addition on B&B in a fantasy world where she wouldn’t be totally wasted. Maybe a short gig as Carter’s mother.

[Taoboi]

Her vs Grace?

[beebs]

Absolutely beautiful tribute, thank you @slick jones for sharing.

[SFK]

That could be delicious under the right writer's pen.

[dragonflies]