Biografia
Amy-Jo Albany was born on February 5th, 1962, in Hollywood, Ca. Her Father, Joe Albany, was born in New Jersey of Italian parents. Joe Albany was a brilliant musician and troubled drug addict. Her Mother, Sheila Nesbitt, was associated with the Beat Poets and also burdened by addiction. Leaving after 3 years Nesbitt would reappear into Albany's life intermittently but mostly left her to be raised by Joe alone in transient hotels and night clubs.
As a child, Albany suffered from debilitating Asthma. As a result, she often stayed up all night watching "Movies til Dawn" and became an avid movie fan: film noir, horror and musicals particularly.
Albany often cut school, preferring to hang out at the Peaches Records and Pickwick or Bennett's Books on the Boulevard. She left school in her senior year, 40 credits shy of graduating.
This led to a decade or so of wandering and miscellaneous jobs, primarily in bookstores. At Dutton's, she devoured books, and secretly developed an interest in becoming a writer. After an early marriage ended, and the death of her parents in the late 80s, she went through a self-destructive phase ending when she met her current husband, Karl, in 1992. They have two children, a daughter, Charlie, and a son, Dylan, age 20 and 16, respectively.
In 2001, encouraged by her friend, director Jeff Preiss, she wrote a memoir called Low Down: Junk Jazz and Other Fairy Tails from Childhood published in 2002. Movie producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa optioned the book, and stuck with it for a decade.
Co-writing with Topper Lilien, Albany adapted her own memoir for the screen, and served as one of the film's Executive Producers.
Low Down Movie