The variational procedure in the effective-mass and parabolic-band approximations is used in order to investigate the effects of crossed electric and in-plane magnetic fields on the electronic and exciton properties in semiconductor heterostructures. Calculations are performed for bulk GaAs and GaAs/Ga1−xAlxAs quantum wells, for applied magnetic fields parallel to the layers and electric fields in the growth direction, and it is shown that the combined effects on the heterostructure properties of the applied crossed electric and magnetic fields and the direct coupling between the center-of-mass and internal exciton motions may be dealt with via a simple parameter representing the spatial distance between the centers of the electron and hole magnetic parabolas. Exciton properties are analyzed by using a simple hydrogenlike envelope excitonic wave function and present theoretical results are found in fair agreement with available experimental measurements on the diamagnetic shift of the photoluminescence peak position of GaAs/Ga1−xAlxAs quantum wells under in-plane magnetic fields.