Anne Heche has died aged 53 following a serious car accident in which she sustained a severe brain injury.
Representatives for the actor announced that she had been pronounced brain dead following tests, but would be kept on life support in the short-term as her surviving organs were assessed for donation – as per her wishes.
It is understood that several organs were in a state to be recovered for those in need yesterday, with Heche being the recipient of an Honour Walk, in which hospital staff line the path to the operating room to pay their respects to the late donor.
Yesterday evening (16th August), a representative for Heche announced she had been “peacefully taken off life support”.
This followed a longer statement last week, which read: “Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work – especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love.
“She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”
Heche had been a working actor since the late 1980s, with her breakthrough role being on US soap opera Another World, where she played twins Vicky Hudson and Marley Love.
Film roles soon followed, with some of her most remembered projects being crime thriller Donnie Brasco, disaster blockbuster Volcano and horror flick I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Her screen partners include Vince Vaughn, with whom she starred in both Return to Paradise and 1998’s Psycho remake, as well as Harrison Ford in cult favourite action-comedy Six Days, Seven Nights.
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Heche returned to the small screen later in her career, starring in critically-acclaimed HBO comedy-drama Hung and, most recently, legal drama All Rise, as well as providing a voice on Nickelodeon favourite The Legend of Korra.
Her upcoming projects, which will now be released posthumously, include Lifetime trafficking drama Girl in Room 13, action film Supercell and another HBO series titled The Idol.
In her personal life, Heche was the subject of much media coverage in the late 1990s after she and comedian Ellen DeGeneres announced that they were in a relationship. They separated in 2000.
The actor would go on to have two children, the first in 2002 with cameraman Coleman ‘Coley’ Laffoon and the second in 2009 with Canadian actor James Tupper.
Throughout her life, Heche was praised for speaking candidly about mental health issues she had experienced, most notably in her memoir titled Call Me Crazy, which became a bestseller upon release back in 2001.