Anne Heche - Early Life

Early Life

Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio, the daughter of Nancy (née Prickett) and Donald Joe Heche. Heche is the youngest of five children, although three of her four siblings are now deceased.

Heche's family moved eleven times before settling in Ocean City, New Jersey when she was 12. When asked in an interview what her father's source of income was, Heche replied "Well, he was a choir director. But I don't think he made much on that a week. He said that he was involved in a business of gas and oil. And he said that until the day he died. But he never was involved in the business of gas and oil ever." In March 1983, when Heche was 13, her father died of AIDS, although he never came out as a homosexual. "He was in complete denial until the day he died. We knew he got it from his gay relationships. Absolutely. I don't think it was just one. He was a very promiscuous man, and we knew his lifestyle then," Heche said on Larry King Live. Despite her father's homosexuality, Heche has stated that he raped her from the time she was an infant until she was 12, and gave her genital herpes when she was eight. When asked "But why would a gay man rape a girl?" during a 2001 interview with The Advocate, Heche replied "I don't think he was just a gay man. I think he was sexually deviant. My belief was that my father was gay and he had to cover that up. I think he was sexually abusive. The more he couldn't be who he was, the more that came out of him in ways that it did."

Weeks after her father's death, Heche's brother Nathan committed suicide. The remainder of Heche's family subsequently moved to Chicago, Illinois. Heche was a noted actress at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and the Bunche Park soap opera. In 1985, when Heche was 16, she was discovered by a talent agent who secured her an audition for the daytime soap opera As the World Turns. Heche flew to New York City, auditioned, and was offered a job. However, both she and her mother felt it best that she finish high school first.