Actress Anne Heche in coma with severe burns after fiery car crash

Hollywood actress Anne Heche remained hospitalized in a critical condition, in a coma and connected to a breathing machine on Monday, four days after being seriously injured in a violent car accident in Los Angeles, a spokesperson for the agency said. ‘artist.

Heche, 53, was hospitalized shortly after the compact car she was driving spun out of control in a Westside neighborhood in Los Angeles on Friday morning, drove into a house and caught fire, police say.

No one inside the house was injured, but the impact set the house on fire, requiring the intervention of dozens of firefighters.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson said Monday the cause and circumstances of the crash are still under investigation.

Heche was in a coma and did not regain consciousness shortly after the accident, said Michael McConnell, a member of the Los Angeles talent management firm that represents her, Zero Gravity Management.

« At this time she is in extremely critical condition, » he told Reuters in a text message, noting that Heche « has significant lung damage requiring mechanical ventilation and burns requiring surgery. »

The Los Angeles Times quoted a Venice Beach salon owner, Richard Glass, as recounting a visit Heche had made to his store shortly before the accident, describing her as « a nice little girl » as she bought a red wig on Friday morning. .

Heche rose to fame for his Emmy-winning work on the daytime television drama Another world and went on to star in other on-screen roles, including the HBO series Suspended and movies like Walk the dog and Cedar Rapids.

She made tabloid headlines in the late 1990s for a relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres around the time DeGeneres became publicly lesbian. After their split, Heche married cameraman Coleman Laffoon, but they later divorced, and she spent a few years after that in a relationship with actor James Tupper, her co-star in the short-lived TV show. Men in the trees.