Ally McBeal: Celebrity appeal

Heche's film credits include I Know What You Did Last Summer, Donnie Brasco, Wag the Dog and Six Days, Seven Nights alongside Harrison Ford.

She is currently filming John Q with Denzel Washington. She plays a hospital administrator who refuses heart treatment to Washington's 10-year-old son.

Hollywood actor Robert Downey Jr is the most recent star to join the cast of Ally McBeal - which regularly attracts large audiences both sides of the Atlantic.

The Chaplin star, who was recently released from jail after serving a sentence for cocaine possession, will play Ally McBeal's love interest in the new series of the show.

Other high-profile celebrities to have appeared in the series include soul singer Barry White and former Charlie's Angel Farah Fawcett.

Downey Jr will play Ally McBeal's love interest

Although Heche is best known as a film actress, she has also been commended for her TV work, winning a daytime Emmy award for her role in the US soap Another World in 1991.

But she is just as well known for her 3�-year relationship with American comedy actress Ellen DeGeneres, the star of comedy series Ellen. The relationship ended "amicably" in August.

The couple were Hollywood's most famous same-sex couple. They were also considered to be one of the most stable, even though both said the Hollywood establishment had turned against them.