Anne Heche, Six Days Seven Nights actress passes away at 53

US actress Anne Heche is dead but will remain on life support to allow for a possible organ donation, her representative has said. The 53-year-old had been in a coma for a week after crashing her car into a house in Los Angeles, reports the BBC. "Today we lost a bright light, a kind and most joyful soul," her family said in a statement on Friday. Heche appeared in films including 'Volcano', 'Donnie Brasco' and the 1998 remake of 'Psycho'. The mother-of-two also appeared on 'Dancing with the Stars' in 2020.

As per IANS report, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), Heche`s vehicle "erupted in heavy fire", which took 59 firefighters more than an hour to fully extinguish. The two-storey home she crashed into was left "uninhabitable". As well as suffering burns, the actress was left with "a severe anoxic brain injury", when the brain is deprived of oxygen, the BBC quoted her family as saying. A representative said the late actress is "legally dead", but added that her life-support treatment will continue temporarily to check if she may be a match for a potential organ donation.

"Anne will be deeply missed but she lives on through her beautiful sons, her iconic body of work, and her passionate advocacy," her family`s statement said. "Her bravery for always standing in her truth, spreading her message of love and acceptance, will continue to have a lasting impact."

READ: Anne Heche, Six Days Seven Nights actress, severely burned in car crash

Born in Ohio in 1969, Heche and her family moved around many times during her childhood. When she was 13 years old, her father died of HIV/AIDS, and she later said in her 2001 memoir 'Call Me Crazy' that he had repeatedly raped her as a child.

In interviews promoting the book, she said the abuse caused her to be "insane" for the first 31 years of her life and that she had created a fantasy world called the 'Fourth Dimension' to make herself feel safe. Three months after her father`s death, her brother was killed in a car crash, which she believed was suicide. Her mother disputed both the suicide and the abuse claims and the pair became estranged. After her family relocated to Chicago, Heche was spotted by a talent agent in a school play.

She became known in the late 1980s for portraying twins Vicky Hudson and Marley Love on the soap opera 'Another World'. The roles won her a Daytime Emmy Award and two Soap Opera Digest Awards. Heche came to wider prominence in the late 1990s, playing Maggie in crime drama movie 'Donnie Brasco', alongside Johnny Depp.