Clueless writer finally confirms that Cher is Jewish

“Hollywood has many Jewish people,” says Heckerling. “But there is also a little bit of self-loathing. There was a famous phrase: ‘Think Yiddish, cast British’ which meant use your humour and put it in a white person.”

The preview performance I saw of the stage show looked in great shape. While staying loyal to the original film - a sleeper hit that cost twelve million dollars to make and grossed $88 million at the box office - the musical is buoyed by a score that is as catchy as it is savvy. The music is written by Scottish musician KT Tunstall and lyrics by Glenn Slater (The Little Mermaid).

This show which is not to be confused with an off-Broadway juke box musical of 2018, is elevated further by the pitch-perfect American performer Emma Flynn who plays Cher and is supported by a high-energy cast.

But to return to the question that Heckerling has preferred to avoid for the last 30 years, the director accepts that the evidence is heavily stacked in favour of Cher being Jewish even though she “didn't want her to have any religion.”

“Her father is a litigator,” continues Heckerling. “So with a name like Horowitz people just put two and two together.” Yet that surname wasn’t in the script.

“In the school scene when [actor] Wallace Shawn as the teacher was calling out the students’ names for attendance [registration], he felt the need to say a last name for Cher so he called her Cher Horowitz. I liked it so I put it in the movie,” says Heckerling whose career and that of Sean Penn’s was launched with her first movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).

Putting aside the fact that Silverstone, Paul Rudd, who played Cher’s stepbrother Josh (Josh, noch!) and Dan Hedaya who played her widower father were also Jewish – none of which proves anything about the heritage of the characters they play, of course - there is one, seemingly incontrovertible piece of evidence; the mezuzah on the front door of the Horowitz family home.

Emma Flynn as Cher and the cast of Clueless musical Photo: Pamela Raith[Missing Credit]

“I didn't know till you just told me,” says Heckerling surprisingly. “We were using the home of a man that was a meat supplier for many food companies. He was quite wealthy but there had been a lot of damage during the earthquake that had just happened. It was in the Valley, had a beautiful chandelier and a fountain in front. I really liked it.”

Might then Heckerling’s reticence to outing Cher as Jewish also be rooted in her background? The daughter of accountant Louis and bookkeeper Doris, Heckerling was raised in the Bronx and still has the strong accent to prove it.

“Every few weeks there were fires, like in the film The Bronx is Burning. I didn’t know why, but there were. And there were a lot of people that were from concentration camps there. My best friend’s parents had survived Auschwitz and so had her cousins upstairs in our apartment building. I would go to the stores with my grandmother and the butcher and the grocer would have numbers on their arms. They would always say to me, “You know what this is?” and I’d say sure and they’d say “Never forget.”

“There is a part of me that's always expected when you go places, they're gonna hate you because you’re Jewish.”

She remembers her father being turned away from a restaurant when it was realised that his name was Jewish, not German

Perhaps then denying Cher’s Jewishness was a way of protecting her from some of the experiences Heckerling had learned of as a Bronx child or had encountered personally. She remembers her father being turned away from a restaurant when it was realised that the name he booked under belonged to Jews and not Germans. However as far as her career is concerned there was also the prejudice that goes with being a woman to contend with.

“A girl couldn’t just say, ‘I want to make this movie,’ says the director. “You had to have somebody who was a  big and important man in the industry say it.”

Has it changed?

“I haven’t made a movie in a while. They may act like it's changed, but I doubt it.”

Isaac J Lewis as Christian and Emma Flynn as Cher Photo: Pamela Raith[Missing Credit]

Hollywood chauvinism forced Heckerling to “figure out a way of playing the game” even though with Fast Times and Clueless she had already both made her mark and Hollywood a lot of money. Yet if the films she wanted to make were less likely to be green lit by male film executives because her characters were female, she had to find a way to “stay in the game” even when she became pregnant with her daughter Millie.

Drawing on her own experience as a mother she had an idea for a film about a single parent and her new born. But she knew that “nobody” - for which read the usual male executives - “is going to care about a woman with a baby. But, if the baby has the voice of a man who is a big star, that might get by.”

The result was the Look Who’s Talking franchise the first one of which starred Kirstie Alley as the mother, John Travolta as the babysitter and Bruce Willis as the voice of the wise-cracking baby who wants Travolta’s character to be his dad.

“When I was writing it, I said nobody is going to care about a movie where the main characters are female, but they would like to see another movie with Bill Murray (who was all the rage at the time) and maybe I could get him for 10 hours. So that was my thinking. You gotta play whatever game you gotta play to where you want to get.”

Emma Flynn as Cher and Keelan McAuley as Josh. Photo: Pamela Raith[Missing Credit]

Heckerling is reluctant to talk about future projects. But after a few mock spits to ward off the evil eye which “might give the idea to someone else” she relents a little. There is, she reckons life in the Look Who’s Talking series yet so she is working on a script that would begat number four if the film gets made. However the project closest to her heart concerns another teenage girl, though in a very different context from Clueless.

“I’m fascinated with everything that happened in the Second World War. I promised people in my neighbourhood I wouldn't forget. And I’m now obsessed.”

‘Clueless, The Musical’ plays at London’s Trafalgar Theatre until 27 September 2025. Tickets from cluelessonstage.com