HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 21, 2000 – Anne Heche, phone home. Please.
The 31-year-old actress is reportedly in Toronto, Canada today, preparing to shoot a new movie with Denzel Washington, after she spent a weird weekend – including a brief hospital stay – in Fresno, Calif., of all places.
Yes, that’s right. Fresno.
In case you missed it, Heche and Ellen DeGeneres publicly ended their three-year, same-sex, highly public romance on Saturday issuing a statement in which they said they’d had an “amicable parting” and asked everyone to respect their privacy “during this difficult time.”
But, that same day, Heche was apparently driving through central California when her car broke down about 40 miles west of Fresno. According to news reports, she walked about a mile before knocking on the door of a rural house and babbling something to the occupants inside. The residents phoned authorities to report a “suspicious person.”
Heche was then hospitalized at University Medical Center in Fresno, and was treated for “medical issues,” whatever that means, according to a local sheriff’s department spokesman.
But things could get ugly for Heche in the next few days. The Fresno Bee newspaper is already reporting on its Web site that anonymous sources are saying Heche was under the influence of drugs, possibly the rave-fave Ecstasy. And KABC-TV in Los Angeles has quoted unidentified hosptial officials as saying Heche was in an “altered mind state.”
More on the Anne Heche saga as it develops.
