Amy Heckerling (born May 7, 1954) is an American film director, one of the few female directors to have produced multiple box-office hits.

Early life

Heckerling was born in The Bronx to a bookkeeper mother and a certified public accountant father.Amy Heckerling Biography (1955?-) She attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and studied film at New York University,Donadoni, Serena. "Hormonal pyrotechnics 101: Amy Heckerling on life, love and other high-school explosives.", Metro Times, July 26, 2000. Accessed February 10, 2008. "Few filmmakers are as in touch with their inner teenager as Amy Heckerling, even if her own experience is diametrically opposed to those of the California teens in her best films. The Bronx native attended the High School of Art and Design in nearby Manhattan, where she focused on photography, and eventually moved on to New York University to study film." where one of her teachers was noted screenwriter and satirist Terry Southern. She received her master's degree from the AFI Conservatory. She was once engaged to actor Bronson Pinchot.www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6Xc1maQHU

Career

Heckerling's first film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), about Los Angeles teenagers, was praised for the strong female characters played by Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh and others (The film also led to a short-lived series on CBS in the 1985-1986 season called Fast Times, which Heckerling produced.). Heckerling's next film was a parody of gangster films, Johnny Dangerously (1984), starring Michael Keaton, Marilu Henner and Joe Piscopo, with fast talking characters familiar from 1930s screwball comedy. Heckerling also directed the second of the Vacation films, National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) with Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo.