Editing Amy Heckerling (section)

==Career==
After graduating from NYU, Heckerling decided that she wanted to follow her friend Martin Brest to the [[American Film Institute Conservatory]] in Los Angeles where she felt there would be more opportunities to break into the business. Heckerling experienced severe [[culture shock]] upon moving to LA from NYC, especially because NYC's public transportation had made it unnecessary for her to learn to drive. When she did eventually learn, she adjusted to LA life and started working. Her first studio job was lip-syncing [[dailies]] for a television show, where she started making connections in the business.

During her second year at AFI, Heckerling made her first short film, ''Getting it Over With'', about a girl that wants to lose her virginity before she turns twenty and the adventures she has before midnight of her twentieth birthday. Heckerling continued to work on the film after she graduated from AFI with her [[Master of Fine Arts|MFA]], using the editing studios at night to finish the project after work. As soon as she finished the edit and sent it away to be processed, she was in a car collision with a drunk driver who hit the side of her car, landing her in the hospital with a collapsed lung, bruised kidney, and mild amnesia, causing her to be fired from her editing job because she could not remember where certain footage was.<ref name="autogenerated2001"/>

When asked about film's ability to grant a form of immortality, Heckerling describes the experience during the accident: "There was the whole thing-the yellow light and all that stuff-and what went through my mind right then was, 'Well, at least I got the film to the lab.' So it's not going to save you from anything, obviously, but something about it pulls you forward."<ref name="autogenerated1998"/> Eventually, she finished the film and held a screening that gained a very positive response, causing Heckerling to call it one of the best days of her life. Her next step was to use the film to get a job. [[Thom Mount]], president of [[Universal Pictures]], showed a lot of interest in Heckerling but because she was not backed by an agent they could not hire her. After months of struggling to find an agent, Mount called Heckerling up on the phone and asked her to make a film.<ref name="autogenerated2001"/>

===Feature films===

====1980s====
Heckerling's first feature was ''[[Fast Times at Ridgemont High]]'' (1982), based on the non-fiction account of a year in the life of California high school students as observed by undercover ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' journalist [[Cameron Crowe]]. When Heckerling first signed on to do a feature for Universal, she read a lot of scripts, but it was Crowe's script for ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' that stood out to her. Although she loved the script, she felt that it bore the marks of excessive studio interference, so she read the novel, determined which parts were strongest, and sat down with Crowe to rework the script. The film helped launch the careers of numerous stars including [[Jennifer Jason Leigh]], [[Judge Reinhold]] and [[Phoebe Cates]].

In addition, it marks early appearances by several actors who later became stars, including [[Nicolas Cage]], [[Forest Whitaker]], [[Eric Stoltz]], and [[Anthony Edwards (actor)|Anthony Edwards]]. Most notable, however, is the appearance of [[Sean Penn]] as Jeff Spicoli, who was launched into stardom by his performance. Heckerling describes casting Penn, whom she first met while he was sitting on the floor outside of the casting office, as a feeling of being overwhelmed by his intensity, even though all he had done was look up at her. She knew that this was her Spicoli, even though they had seen other people who had read better for the role. [[Ally Sheedy]] read for the role of Leigh's character Stacy Hamilton, but Heckerling decided that she wanted someone that seemed younger and more fragile (though Jennifer Jason Leigh is more than four months older than Ally Sheedy).

Heckerling was discriminating about the film's soundtrack. Originally, the film was supposed to have music in it by bands like the [[Eagles (band)|Eagles]].<ref name="autogenerated2001"/> "I guess a lot of people like that stuff, but being young as I was at the time, I really wanted a new edgy eighties music soundtrack. I wanted [[Fear (band)|Fear]], [[Oingo Boingo]], [[The Go-Gos]], [[Talking Heads]], and the [[Dead Kennedys]]. I was one of those obnoxious teenagers that thought that the music I liked was great and everything else sucked. Getting that Oingo Boingo song in the film was a big fight. But I had to make some compromises and put in some songs that I didn't like at all."<ref name="autogenerated2001"/>

The studio was unsure of how to market the film, and Heckerling guesses that they did not think that anyone would want to watch it. The studio decided to just open it in a few hundred or so theaters on the [[West Coast of the United States|west coast]] without any advertisement. Once the film opened, it was a huge success so the studio quickly opened it at theaters around the country.<ref name="autogenerated2001"/> It became an instant hit right out of the gate, eventually going on to become a pop culture touchstone. The film earned $27,092,880 at the box office in the USA.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl726894081/weekend/|title=Fast Times at Ridgemont High|website=Box Office Mojo}}</ref> It also spawned a short-lived series on [[CBS]] called ''[[Fast Times]]'', with Heckerling writing, directing and producing.

After doing ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'', Heckerling was bombarded with similar but lesser scripts. It was hard for her to find anything that wasn't about high school, [[preppy]] kids, or story about a girl losing her virginity. Eventually she found her next film. ''[[Johnny Dangerously]]'' (1984), with [[Michael Keaton]], [[Joe Piscopo]], [[Danny DeVito]], [[Dom DeLuise]], and [[Peter Boyle]], was an ''[[Airplane!]]''-style spoof of gangster movies, but it failed to catch fire at the box office upon its initial release. Heckerling attributes the film's failure to the public's lack of familiarity with the gangster movies that the film was poking fun at. "It was pure satire of something nobody remembers. I think that was the main problem, because all the actors and writers did great jobs. But we were definitely satirizing something ... I mean, unless you watch 1930s movies on TV at night, people don't remember. Somebody told me that during a screening they were sitting next to [[Brian De Palma]], who had just done ''[[Scarface (1983 film)|Scarface]]'', and he was in hysterics. If you studied those movies, you know what we were doing."<ref name="autogenerated1998"/> In subsequent years, however, it has garnered a substantial cult audience.

The following year, she directed ''[[National Lampoon's European Vacation]]'' (1985) with [[Chevy Chase]] and [[Beverly D'Angelo]], a sequel to the popular ''[[National Lampoon's Vacation]]''. With it, Heckerling scored her second solid hit, earning $74,964,621 at the box office. The film, like many of Heckerling's films, received poor reviews from critics but proved to be very popular with audiences. Heckerling, despite being well educated and loving the work of such intellectual writers as [[Franz Kafka]],<ref name="theuncool1"/> has admitted that she loves "silly things," which has proven to make her commercially successful in the comedy genre.<ref name="charlierose1">{{cite web|url=http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5856 |title=An interview with Amy Heckerling |publisher=Charlie Rose |date=November 13, 1996 |access-date=November 21, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131022013822/http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5856 |archive-date=October 22, 2013 }}</ref>

In 1989, Heckerling had her biggest success with ''[[Look Who's Talking]]'', starring [[John Travolta]], [[Kirstie Alley]] and a baby voiced by [[Bruce Willis]]. Heckerling got the idea for the film while she was pregnant with her daughter and developed it into a feature. Heckerling says that she loves to write comedies, such as ''Look Who's Talking'', because she notes that when a film is made, everyone working on it puts more than a year of their lives into making it, so she wants that year to be happy and fun. Heckerling, who loved Travolta, was ecstatic to work with him, though many people consider the film's release to be during the end of a low point in Travolta's career.<ref name="charlierose1"/> The film has been Heckerling's highest-grossing film to date, earning $296,999,813.<ref name="mojo">{{mojo title|lookwhostalking|Look Who's Talking}}</ref> After the film's release, Heckerling was able to cross off the second of two goals that she had set for herself in college, the first being to make a studio feature, which she did with ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High'', and the second being: "I wanted to have hits the way boys had hits, not like a 'girl hit' that made 50 million, but a boy hit that made 100s of million."<ref name="charlierose1"/>

====1990s====
Two ''Look Who's Talking'' sequels would follow—1990's ''[[Look Who's Talking Too]]''—also directed by Heckerling and co-written with her then-husband [[Neal Israel]]. The film added another baby to the storyline and was a moderate success. Heckerling then produced, but did not direct, the third and final sequel, ''[[Look Who's Talking Now]]''—a flop. The films also spawned a brief television show called ''[[Baby Talk (TV series)|Baby Talk]]'' that was largely written by Heckerling.

In 1995, she wrote and directed ''[[Clueless (film)|Clueless]]'', reworking and updating [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Emma (novel)|Emma]]'' as a 1990s teen comedy about wealthy teenagers living in [[Beverly Hills]]. Heckerling originally thought of ''Clueless'' as a television show because she loved to write the character of Cher who she described as a "happy, optimistic, California girl", and wanted to explore all of her adventures, but after she pitched it to her agent she was told that it would make a great feature. To research for the script, Heckerling sat in on classes at [[Beverly Hills High School]] where she observed how teenagers acted, though she admits that most of it was made up. She notes that teenagers at the high school did not dress in high fashion every day as the characters do in the film and that in reality the students there dressed just as frumpily as everyone else. She did, however draw on many of her observations, especially the tendency of teenage girls to groom themselves constantly. "You would think that within, you know, the few minutes that they've been in class, that their makeup wouldn't be needing so much repair and yet they're constantly painting and sculpting and ... doing to themselves."<ref name="charlierose1"/>

As with ''[[Fast Times at Ridgemont High]]'', it quickly caught on with teenagers and went on to become a significant pop culture reference point. The film went on to gross $56,631,572 and helped launch the careers of most of the cast, including [[Alicia Silverstone]], [[Brittany Murphy]], [[Paul Rudd]], [[Donald Faison]], [[Breckin Meyer]], and [[Stacey Dash]]. It was spun off into a moderately successful TV series, with Heckerling penning the pilot, as well as directing several episodes from the first season. Heckerling describes the show as basically the same as the film, only cleaner, and says that she still loves the characters.

====2000–present====
Heckerling directed and produced ''[[Loser (film)|Loser]]'' (2000), a romantic college comedy with [[Jason Biggs]] and [[Mena Suvari]]. The film was not a critical or commercial success. After a break, Heckerling's romantic comedy ''[[I Could Never Be Your Woman]]'' (2007), starring [[Michelle Pfeiffer]] and [[Paul Rudd]], never opened in theaters; rather, it received a [[direct-to-video]] release domestically, despite fairly good notices. Production of the film was troubled by financial issues, including the rights to distribution being sold off without Heckerling's knowledge, making it difficult for her to sell the film to a studio. At the time, Heckerling was also taking care of both of her parents who were very ill (her father was in the hospital and her mother had cancer). Though Heckerling dislikes the baggage that the film carries and is upset about it not being released theatrically, she says that the experience was significant for her because she loved working with Rudd and Pfeiffer in England.<ref name="avclub1"/> Heckerling also directed an episode of the [[NBC]] version of ''[[The Office (American TV series)|The Office]]''.

In 2011, Heckerling directed the [[horror-comedy]] film ''[[Vamps (2011 film)|Vamps]]'' with [[Sigourney Weaver]], [[Alicia Silverstone]] and [[Krysten Ritter]], about two vampires living in New York City as best friends and roommates. The film was released to theatres on November 2, 2012, followed by a DVD release on November 13. On July 4, 2016, [[Gilbert Gottfried]] posted an in-depth 81-minute interview with Heckerling on his [[podcast]]. In July 2017, a musical version of ''[[Clueless (musical)|Clueless]]'' helmed by Tony nominee [[Kristin Hanggi]] received a developmental lab in New York City. A previous workshop starring [[Taylor Louderman]] (''Kinky Boots'') and Dave Thomas Brown (''Heathers'') took place in 2016. Heckerling wrote the libretto for the musical. The musical opened [[Off-Broadway]] on November 20, 2018 with [[Dove Cameron]] in the lead role.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://deadline.com/2018/10/clueless-musical-off-broadway-full-cast-dove-cameron-dave-thomas-brown-1202479429/ |title='Clueless' Off Broadway Musical Announces Full Cast; Opening Date Set | work=[[Deadline Hollywood]] |date=October 9, 2018 |access-date=October 14, 2018}}</ref>