Before Fame, Anne Heche Spent Childhood At Jersey Shore

OCEAN CITY, NJ — Emmy-award winning actress Anne Heche died Friday after suffering injuries in a car crash the week prior. But way before that, when the star was a child, she said that the Jersey Shore helped her become an actress after living in Ocean City.

In a 2017 interview with South Jersey Magazine, Heche shared how her childhood at the Jersey Shore sparked her interest in pursuing a performing arts career.

Heche had moved 11 times in her childhood, and said that she had once lived in an old house on Ventnor Avenue in Atlantic City, filled with old clothing that grew her imagination, the outlet said.

When Heche was 12-years-old, she moved to Ocean City with her family. "That’s where I first became an actress," Heche told the magazine. "I literally started singing for my supper, right on the Boardwalk. I would flip burgers and sing show tunes to get people to come to our stand."

She also sang at her church, and got paid $100 a week at the 76 House Dinner Theater in Swainton, according to the outlet.

Heche told the Telegraph of London in 2011 that during that time, she was making more money than anyone else in her family.

"At the time we’d been kicked out of our house and my family was holed up living in a bedroom in the home of a generous family from our church," Heche said.

The Press of Atlantic City reported that Heche attended Ocean City schools up until the eighth grade.

"So, you could definitely say that New Jersey changed my life," Heche said to South Jersey Magazine. "I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Jersey."

Heche was removed from life support on Friday after a week-long coma due to a severe brain injury she received after driving her car into a home, setting it ablaze.

"My brother Atlas and I lost our Mom. After six days of almost unbelievable emotional swings, I am left with deep, wordless sadness," Heche's son Homer wrote to the Los Angeles Times. "Hopefully my mom is free from pain and beginning to explore what I like to imagine as her eternal freedom."