Anne Heche

Born: May 25, 1969, in Aurora, Ohio

Fun Fact: She had a two-year relationship with Steve Martin.

Since the highly publicized breakup of her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche has had her share of attention and speculation from the press. Gossip columnist Liz Smith reported in September that she was already seeing someone new.
Heche and Coley Laffoon -- a 28 year-old cameraman hired to work on her documentary film of Ellen's cross-country standup tour -- are not only still dating late in October, but may even be expecting a child.

Earlier this fall, according to Inside.com, Heche closed a deal with Scribner to publish her memoir. An executive at Simon and Schuster said that the book will focus less on typical Hollywood tell-all details and more on how the 31 year-old's traumatic upbringing has affected her adult life. Heche is expected to receive an advance in the high six-figure range.

Anne Heche grew up in a fundamentalist family shrouded in secrets and tragedy. Her father Don, a choir director, died of AIDS at the age of 45, when Anne was only 13. (Anne's sister later wrote a book, Anonymity, about their father's secret life.) Three months later her brother died in a car crash.

Heche grew up without movies or television, but her father's job introduced her to the world of amateur theater. During his illness, Anne started working in dinner theater to help support the family. It was her first exposure to gay people, and she says it helped her understand who her father was.

The day after she graduated from high school, Heche moved to New York and quickly landed a role on the soap opera Another World. (She played twins -- one good, one evil.) After four years on the show she was ready to launch into a film career, and made a quick succession of movies, including Donnie Brasco, Volcano, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Wag the Dog. But her big break came when she was asked to star opposite Harrison Ford in Six Days, Seven Nights. She had just met Ellen, and caused a media furor when she decided to come out publicly just before the filming began.

Heche's forthrightness hasn't seemed to hurt her career. She's gone on to star in such films as Return to Paradise, Psycho, and Agnieszka Holland's The Third Miracle. And she recently directed one of the three episodes of HBO's If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which Ellen and Sharon Stone play a couple trying to have a baby.