Anna Stuart has given an interview to Roger Friedman about the death of "her daughter" Anne Heche
Early on Anne Heche had spent a lot of time at Anna Stuart’s home, even after she’d left the soap. “She was closer to me than almost anyone except my husband, my dogs, and my cats,” Stuart said softly.
They became close friends right away. Heche liked where Stuart was living enough that she rented a nearby cottage. “We were family,” Stuart says. “She’d bring boyfriends by. I was in her [very small] wedding [to husband Coley Laffoon]. Badgely Mischka asked to dress her. She had two dresses.” Over time, Heche brought both Laffoon and their newborn son, Homer, for visits.
Of the marriage to Laffoon, Stuart says, “Anne marched to her own drummer. I don’t know. They were on two different pages.” She added, not suggesting this had anything to do with Laffoon, “She had a mantra, Truth is my weapon.”
We did talk briefly about Heche’s relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. Stuart says, “I’m not sure she would have gone ahead with it if she’d known the toll it would take on her career.”
Now she tells me a story about Anne’s failed audition for Brian DePalma’s movie, “Carlito’s Way.” “She was supposed to play a stripper, a pole dancer,” Stuart recalls, “Penelope Miller got the part. Al Pacino thought Anne was too young. But still, Heche was all in. Stuart accompanied her to a private men’s club on 8th Avenue. “She took a stiff drink and then she got up and did it. She danced on a pole. And there I was, dressed like her prudish chaperone in my turtleneck. But I was like a mother at a 6 year old’s dance recital. I was so proud of her. And she was good!”
So what happened? Stuart doesn’t know. She hadn’t seen Heche since before the pandemic, but there were many calls and Face Time, birthday greetings last May. “If I’d known she was in so much trouble,” Stuart says. “I needed to see her in person. She was losing her way. There were signs. She lost her balance. She was obviously in a lot of pain. I can’t help anyone reason it out.”
In an earlier email, Stuart summed up her relationship with Heche for me: “Meeting Anne Heche, was like being transported up to the Starship Enterprise into a new galaxy. She was like no one I had ever met. Her sparkle, her enthusiasm, and fierce curiosity, made you want to stand close by, in the hopes that some of it might rub off on you. She affected everyone that way. I saw that magic over and over again.” She adds: “She is truly dancing with the stars.”
