Anne Heche was a little too stylish and smart for Hollywood

Heche was charismatic and cool, with a terrific camera presence, an intriguing and sexually charged opaqueness, on the verge of disillusionment or hostility

Heche was stylish and smart – often radiating a sophisticated refusal to be intimated, which isn’t the same as cynicism. File Picture

The movies never really knew what to do with Anne Heche. 

Her gamine beauty and quizzically sharp intelligence were not easily absorbed into the Hollywood templates: she was not an obvious heteromantic lead and often complained that news about her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the 90s cost her many film roles, when the overwhelmingly straight industry was in hock to fatuous “lipstick lesbian” stereotypes. (As it happened, all her other relationships were with men.) She was too potent and pointed a presence to be comfortably cast in the traditional supporting roles of sister, colleague or best friend.