Section A·Page 22
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, August 17, 1998
Despite 'evil' childhood, Anne Heche enjoying life
The Associated Press
MARINADEL REY, Calif. — Barefoot and wearing a black summer dress, Anne Heche resembles a pixie with her big blue eyes and wispy blonde hair.
The actress reflected on a life that seems much longer than its 29 years.
"I'm proud of every single movie that has gotten me here, but I am also proud of the journey that I have taken personally in order to be who I am now." Hee said.
Her Hollywood career has blossomed with recent roles opposite Robert De Niro in the political satire Wag the Dog and in the adventure-romance Six Days Seven Nights with Harrison Ford. Her latest movie is the drama Return to Paradise, with Vince Vauhn.
Heche's success on the big screen seems idyllic, but getting there has been tough.
She said that her childhood was "evil" and that she only recently discovered solace — something she attributes to finding joy in her work, being honest and falling in love.
"When I was 12, I was like an old woman," said Heche, who left home at age 17 and began therapy a year later. "Now, I'm getting younger. I went through eight years of trying to be at peace with who I was and what had happened to me as a child."
the actress jolted the entertainment industry last year when she began a much-publicized relationship with actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, whom she met at an Oscar party.
Before sitting down for a late-after-
noon interview, Heche stopped to call "Ell" to say she would be home soon. The two moved into a new house last Valentine's Day.
"Hi, baby, how are you?" Heche said to DeGeneres, holding the phone in one hand and a pen in another to autograph promotional posters for Return to Paradise.
Heche said she chose the role because of its message of responsibility and love.
In the movie, Heche plays a lawyer who tries to save an American man imprisoned on drug charges in Malaysia after a reckless vacation with two friends. She has to persuade the men to return and admit that they are guilty to save her client's life with a plea bargain.
"My brother was killed when he was 18 and I was 13," she said. "I never got to fight for his life. This was a movie where I got to fight the fight that I never got to."
The film is a departure for Hache, who played a scientist and Tommy Lee Jones' quirky love interest in Volcano, Johnny Depp's wife in Donnie Brasco and the cynical press aid in Wag the Dog. She won National Board of Review awards for the latter two roles.
tell two jobs.
"I fall in love with all my characters," Heche said. "I never want to forget that what I am playing is dress-up. I am a very committed person, and I'm committed to the truth of who I am. I've worked a long time in order to get there and have gone through a lot of struggles of looking at my nightmares in order to get to a place where I'm comfortable with myself—enough to be able to receive love for everything that I am."
Unfortunately, she said, that love has not come from her family.
Her family has barely spoken to her since she announced that she was homosexual. DeGeneres' mother has taken the place of Heche's mother
Heche was born in Aurora, Oroio,
and moved around.
"I've been really blessed. I may not be getting the 20 scripts a week that somebody else gets, but I'm getting the ones I want."
Anne Heche
Actress
"They are very religious," she said. "Gay is a sin to them."
Perhaps, Heche said, the resentment comes from learning that their father, who had worked as a Baptist church choir director, led a secret gay life. He died of AIDS when Heche was 13, the same year her brother died.
To escape her dreary home life and to make some money, Heche began acting in dinner theater in southern New Jersey.
"My home became the theater when I was 12, and I couldn't wait to get there," she said. "I loved it."
At age 15, she turned down an offer to go to New York to work on the soap opera *As the World Turns* so she could stay in high school. She graduated in 1987 and left the next day for the soap *Another World*. The job earned her an Emmy in 1991.
"That kind of started my life as an actress." Heche said.
She came to Hollywood, and television work led to small supporting roles in feature films.
In 1985, Heche was noticed in *Pie in the Sky*, a hit at film festivals. Her stardom climbed with *The Juror* in 1996 and the next year with Volcano.
"I've been really blessed," she said. "I may not be getting the 20 scripts a week that somebody else gets, but I'm getting the ones I want."
The experiences of Italian, Polish and Jewish Americans are the focus of one documentary series, while two other films scrutinize the world of contemporary Orthodox Jews.
LOS ANGELES — PBS dishes up a big serving from the American melting pot this month, reminding us how close we are to our ethnic roots — and how far.
Films examine 'melting pot'
Celebrating immigrant spirit and identity is the goal of these films, produced by PBS station WLIW of New York and second generation to a 1966-97 series that resonated with viewers.
The Italian Americans II: A Beautiful Song, The Polish Americans and Another Mitzvah (Blessing) is as unabashedly positive as were The Italian Americans and A Laugh, a Tear, a Mitzvah and May the Road Rise to Meet You, about Irish Americans.
The Associated Press
The programs take a rosy view of what distinguishes each group and how each group has distinguished itself in America.
The two Mitzvahs are probably the only documentaries on Jewish culture that don't dwell on the Holocaust," Cass said. "And the Italian show doesn't dwell on the Mafia. These series are designed to talk about the positive aspects of the culture ... so people can celebrate and pass on to children things that are getting lost."
There is much familiar ground in the programs -- about cultural idiosyncrasies and the important roles of family, faith and community -- but it gets a fresh treatment by virtue of the personalities involved.
"I don't want to trivialize the Italian-American experience, but I think one of the first things we're aware of is the food," said actor Alan Alda, born Alphonso D'Abruzzu. "I can remember every dish of pasta I've eaten."
Ethnic pride may endure, but each generation inevitably seems less Italian or Polish or Jewish and more American.
There are people, of course, who resist assimilation, creating islands of tradition in America. One such group, Hasidic Jews, is the focus of The Return of Sarah's Daughters and A Life Apart.
Sarah's Daughters is filmmaker Marcia Jaramel's effort to understand how modern women can embrace Orthodox Judaism, which is highly structured and, to an outsider, seems to classify women as second-class citizens.
The film is an intriguing, intimate look at the details of everyday life, including how a kitchen is kept kosher and why women must go through the ritual bath known as a mikvah. The film offers a balanced examination of the demands and rewards of the faith.
A Lye Apart, narrated by actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Leonard Nimoy, examines other Hasidic Jews who more strictly observe ritual law and seem further divorced from American society.
Rifts between the Hasidim and other Jews — who fault them for "spiritual arrogance" or sexism or who find their Jewishness too overt — are examined.
as confirmed
The melting pot continues to boil.
The Italian Americans II. The Polish Americans and Another Mitzvah begin airing on PBS stations this week. The Return of Sarah's Daughters begins Aug. 23, while A Life Apart begins Aug. 25. Check local listings for air dates and stations.
Study: Taller toddlers likelier bullies
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Taller, more independent toddlers are more likely than their peers to become adolescent bullies, a new study has found.
"One of the explanations is that if a kid has a big size, he uses that to get what he wants," said Adrian Raine, leading author of the study published in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Researchers studied children in Mauritius, an island between Africa and India, beginning in 1972. Several ethnic backgrounds were represented.
Height, weight and levels of stimulation-seeking and fearlessness were measured when the children were 3 years old. When the 1,130 participants turned 11 years old, their aggressiveness was determined by factors such as whether they swore, fought, threatened others and were cruel.
"Once kids learn that early on, then it becomes ingrained," Raine said. "So, later on in life, when a person is faced with a difficult situation, he goes back to early learning experience by using his physical advantage whether he is still tall or not."
The most aggressive 11-year-olds were found to have been an average half an inch taller than their peers, Raine said.
Study of Violence in Boston, agreed that children's body size may be a factor in later aggression but said that there were other necessary characteristics for a child to become a bully.
"A very important variable is the way that a child is treated at home and by his peers," Levin said. "There has to be a need for bullying, a need to being aggressive toward other children. The most important variable psychologically, it seems to be, is a profound sense of powerlessness."
Jack Levin, director of Northeastern University's Program for the
raime suggested that parents of taller, more independent toddlers should discourage their children from using their size or aggression to get what they want.