DIRECTOR BIO
Amy Heckerling
was born in the Bronx, NY, in a hospital that was torn down, lived in an apartment building that was torn down, and went to a public school that was torn down. Amy divided her time between watching James Cagney movies on TV and watching The Three Stooges on TV. Her family moved to Queens in time for the racial strife and Amy decided to get out of town and go to the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan.
At art school, like Adolph Hitler, Amy discovered that she wouldn't make it as an artist and should find something easier to do with her life. Naturally, she chose film directing since she had never actually seen a movie camera.
Amy applied and was admitted to NYU's School of the Arts at the time the wonderful Haig Manoogian ran the film school. Martin Brest, Jack Rapke, and Joel Silver were also students. Amy's short films received prizes at the NYU Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, the prestigious Bronx Film Festival, and secured her place at the American Film Institute.
Her AFI short got her into Universal, where she directed "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", followed by Johnny Dangerously and European Vacation.
Her daughter Mollie was born weeks later and has just graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts.
After raising Mollie to almost two years old, Amy wrote and directed, "Look Who's Talking," "Look Who's Talking too," "Clueless," "I Could Never Be Your Woman," and produced, "A Night at the Roxbury," Executive Produced, wrote, and directed episodes of the T.V. series of "Clueless" and "Fast Times," and directed an episode of "The Office."
She just wrapped her latest film, "Vamps," which stars Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter, and Sigourney Weaver.
She has written many scripts, been in and out of movie jail repeatedly, hasn't had red meat since she was fifteen, recycles everything, won't go in the sun or near cigarette smoke, drives an electric car. She loves James Cagney, Franz Kafka, Punk Rock, Eddie Cantor, N.Y.U. The Museum of Modern Art, pre-war German movies, post-war Italian movies, Fred Astaire, and "A Clockwork Orange."
She hates California, it's cold and it's damp.