Amy / Joy
Amy’s Freshman Register photo.
Partying in Vegas, 1965.
…but did they find him?
Joy & Amy with matching baby bumps, 1987.
Backstage for Springsteen, 1991.
Joy, undergrad days.
Cliffies in Cali: Amy, Patsy McDermott, Nancy Sato and Joy, April 2025.
05-09-2025
Amy Spies talks to Joy Horowitz about the importance of their friendship over time and the before-and-after of living through the devastation of the Palisades fire in January.
Had it not been for her girlhood friendship with Amy Spies, Joy Horowitz explains, her life trajectory would have been entirely different: she never would have considered applying to Harvard or taken seriously the entreaties of a singer-songwriter she wound up marrying, named Brock Walsh.
Says Joy of Amy: “I owe my life to this incredible woman who I met when we were 11-years-old in sixth grade.”
Says Amy to Joy, upon being instructed to say nothing in reply: “I’m being uncannily obedient.”
As in Cole Porter’s song from “Anything Goes:” It’s friendship, friendship—just a perfect blendship, Amy and Joy have completed each other’s thoughts, jokes and lives for more than 60 years. For these two former Psych and Soc Rel majors, staying connected is everything. They are living proof of the results of Harvard’s longest-running research study on happiness in old age: it is tied to maintaining close relationships.
Having grown up across the street from each other on South Camden Drive in Beverly Hills, their girlhood often crossed over into fantasyland. Like the protagonists in the 1964 Peter Sellers comedy “The World of Henry Orient,” they were known to stalk famous touring musicians, like the Dave Clark Five and Hermans’ Hermits, on North Rodeo Drive. Or ride their sting-ray bicycles to Paul Newman’s house on North Hillcrest Drive. Or hound the actor Richard Chamberlain, who starred in “Dr. Kildare,” their favorite TV medical drama written by Amy’s father and co-written by Amy’s mother (without credit).
It’s no surprise, then, that the subject of friendship between girls would become a source of inspiration for Amy—a Hollywood film and TV writer, novelist and, more recently, mindful writing instructor. A staged, musical adaptation of her 1984 movie “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” will soon be touring the country. When Joy congratulates Amy on her latest creative endeavor, Amy says with typical candor, “It’s taken me a lifetime to accept praise for work I have done.”
From the psychology of needing to hide one’s achievements to the ups and downs of pushing through grief, the lifelong friends get “mushy” about how their friendship continues to sustain them.