Charles Shyer, Filmmaker Who Focused on Women, Dies at 83

[ad_1] Charles Shyer, who co-wrote and directed a protracted string of hit comedies, together with “Personal Benjamin,” “Child Growth” and “Father of the Bride” — a lot of which featured robust feminine leads and had been made in collaboration together with his former spouse, Nancy Meyers — died on Dec. 27 in Los Angeles. He was 83.

His daughters Annie Meyers-Shyer and Hallie Meyers-Shyer, who can also be a director, stated he died in a hospital after an unspecified brief sickness.

Mr. Shyer was virtually raised by the movie trade — his father, Melville Shyer, was a founding father of the Administrators Guild of America — and his tasks drew on his unabashed love for traditional motion pictures.

His portfolio of inspirations was huge, encompassing the famend, like “His Woman Friday” (1940) and “North by Northwest” (1959), and the obscure, just like the absurdist 1973 British comedy “O Fortunate Man!,” which he ranked amongst his favourite movies.

He and Ms. Meyers had been each romantic {and professional} companions. They had been already relationship after they collaborated with Harvey Miller on the script for “Personal Benjamin,” a 1980 movie a few socialite who enlists within the U.S. Military.

The movie, directed by Howard Zieff and starring Goldie Hawn, was a serious hit — it made $69.8 million on a $9.2 million funds — and the writing trio earned an Academy Award nomination for finest unique screenplay.

Extra success adopted. “Irreconcilable Variations” (1984), the primary movie Mr. Shyer directed, was adopted by “Child Growth” (1987), “Father of the Bride” (1991) and its 1995 sequel, and “The Guardian Lure” (1998), all written by Mr. Shyer and Ms. Meyer. “Father of the Bride” and “The Guardian Lure” had been remakes of films which are themselves thought of classics.

Lots of their movies featured robust feminine characters pushing towards social norms. In “Child Growth,” for instance, Diane Keaton performs a hard-charging marketing consultant who finds herself elevating a child on her personal.

“Just a few years in the past, it might have needed to be a person,” Mr. Shyer instructed The Toronto Globe and Mail in 1986, “as a result of it’s exhausting to consider a girl who doesn’t know methods to cope with a child. However these days it’s attainable.”

He directed most of his movies with Ms. Meyers, although they switched locations for “The Guardian Lure,” her directorial debut.

Hollywood wags took to calling them the “Schmyers,” not solely due to the prolific nature of their collaboration but in addition due to its tightness — they labored in a one-room constructing behind their dwelling within the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles, going through one another throughout a writing desk.

“I might lay down the scene, after which I might — it seems like I’m describing a film — pull the paper out and heave it throughout the desk, and he’d pencil it up,” Ms. Meyers stated in an interview. “Generally he would lay down the scenes after which I might revise them. There was a romance to it.”

The couple married in 1995 and separated three years later, however they remained mates.

All through their movies — and within the ones Mr. Shyer made after they cut up, like “Alfie” (2004), which was additionally a remake — Mr. Shyer tackled critical home points however leavened them with a giant dollop of humor.

He typically recalled a bit of recommendation given to him by one in all his directing heroes, Billy Wilder: “All of us need the identical factor, us writers and administrators. We wish to make them giggle and make them cry.”

That, he instructed Script journal in 2022, is what it's all about.

“What he’s saying is you wish to do a film that's fulfilling, however that has substance,” he stated. “And I believe that’s for me the large drive.”

Charles Richard Shyer was born on Oct. 11, 1941, in Los Angeles. His father was an assistant director and occasional director, and his mom, Lois (Jones) Delaney, managed the house.

He briefly attended School of the Desert, in Palm Desert, Calif. However he left when he was accepted into an apprentice program run by the Administrators Guild of America.

Mr. Shyer labored low-level jobs on numerous motion pictures earlier than shifting to writing. He turned an assistant to Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson at across the time they tailored Neil Simon’s 1965 play “The Odd Couple” for tv in 1970.

“I obtained to sit down in on story conferences. After which after they had been over, I might say stuff to Garry,” he instructed Script. “And he stated, ‘That’s good. Communicate up extra.’ And he would encourage me, after which he stated, ‘You may be a author.’”

Mr. Shyer obtained writing credit on three movies within the Seventies — “Smokey and the Bandit” in 1977 and “Home Calls” and “Goin’ South” in 1978 — earlier than teaming up with Ms. Meyers and Mr. Miller on “Personal Benjamin.”

Mr. Shyer’s first two marriages led to divorce. His third marriage, to Ms. Meyers, led to 2000. He married Deborah Lynn in 2004; they divorced in 2009.

Alongside together with his two daughters, each from his marriage to Ms. Meyers, he's survived by two youngsters from his marriage to Ms. Lynn, Jacob and Sophia Shyer, and three grandchildren.

Mr. Shyer’s final two motion pictures — “The Noel Diary” (2022), which he co-wrote and directed, and “Greatest. Christmas. Ever!” (2023), which he co-wrote and produced — had been each made for Netflix.

He spoke warmly of his work for that streaming service, however he additionally bemoaned what he noticed because the fading of the theatergoing expertise.

“I believe film theaters are going to go the best way of bookstores and file shops,” he instructed The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. “They’re simply not going to be round anymore, and that’s very unhappy to me. I’m grateful that I set to work throughout a time after they had been round.”