“American Pie” star Natasha Lyonne, on the lam since she failed to appear in court in April, is lying in Beth Israel Hospital’s intensive-care unit under an assumed name – decimated by drugs and disease, The Post has learned.
The only recognizable feature of the once-beautiful star of the indie film circuit is her unruly strawberry-blond curls.
Lyonne is suffering from hepatitis C, a heart infection, a collapsed lung and is covered in track marks, said a source who’s closely observed the tragic situation.
The source added that she’s undergoing methadone treatment, which is typically used to wean heroin users from the highly addictive drug.
The one-time toast of the downtown scene – who wowed critics in “Slums of Beverly Hills” and “Kate & Leopold” – has been at the 16th Street hospital under the pseudonym Sarah Sullivan for at least a month, said a relative of a patient in her ward.
Lyonne came to Beth Israel after being treated in Bellevue Hospital. She had earlier been living on the street.
Her lawyer, Terry Karl, did not return repeated phone calls for comment.
A Post reporter saw the native New Yorker lying in a hospital bed yesterday on the seventh floor of the downtown hospital.
Her ringlets looked the same as they did on the silver screen, but her typically dark, heavily mascaraed eyes were bare.
Instead of her hip downtown duds by Alice Roi and Marc Jacobs, Lyonne wore only a standard-issue hospital gown.
Her face was pale. She appeared to be exhausted and in pain.
A bright pink sign was taped to her door ordering visitors to don a protective hospital gown and gloves before entering, and to wash their hands before and after the visit – possibly a precaution against the spread of hepatitis.
Lyonne, 26, refused to take a visitor on both occasions The Post went by.
At one point, she was overheard telling the nurse, “You don’t know what kind of year I’ve had.”
An angry Manhattan judge issued an arrest warrant for the troubled former child star, who was Little Opal on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” in the 1980s, after she skipped a court appearance four months ago.
The hearing stemmed from a December 2004 complaint filed by a neighbor in the actress’ Gramercy Park brownstone.
Nicole Scheinder told cops that Lyonne, wild-eyed and angry, stormed into her apartment, ripped the mirrors off the wall, tossed her belongings around and screamed at her.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, cops said Lyonne then grabbed Scheinder’s beloved floppy-eared pooch and threatened, “I’m going to sexually molest your dog.”
Shortly afterward, actor Michael Rapaport, an old friend and the brownstone’s landlord, penned a scathing article in Jane magazine about Lyonne’s hellish spiral.
“People were going in and out of the apartment, [one of the tenants] was telling me about the late-night parties, and random dudes sprawled out on her sofa at all times,” wrote the “Boston Public” and “Mighty Aphrodite” star.
He eventually evicted her, but when she finally left, he said he found “garbage everywhere, scripts, contracts, pages from Hustler magazine . . . and things I can’t even mention.”
After she was arrested for drunken driving in Miami in 2001, she reportedly told cops, “I’m a movie star. Can I talk to my entertainment lawyer?”
Of her success, the actress once told a reporter: “I’ve always been sort of outside, looking in. What’s so weird about suddenly having a strange level of success is that, all of a sudden, I’m supposed to be an insider.”
(p. 7 in metro and sports extra)