Charles Shyer, the Oscar-nominated writer and filmmaker known for classic comedies like “Private Benjamin,” “Baby Boom” and “Father of the Bride” that he made alongside Nancy Meyers, has died. He was 83.
Shyer died in Los Angeles on Friday, his daughter, filmmaker Hallie Meyers-Shyer told The Associated Press on Sunday. No cause was disclosed.
A son of Hollywood, whose father Melville Shyer was one of the founding members of the Directors Guild of America, Shyer made an indelible mark on comedies, mostly of the romantic persuasion, in the 1980s and 1990s.
Born in Los Angeles in 1941, Shyer cut his teeth writing for television, assisting Garry Marshall and working on shows like “The Odd Couple” before transitioning to films. He had writing credits on “Smokey and the Bandit,” Jack Nicholson’s “Goin’ South” and the Walter Matthau drama “House Calls.” A big breakthrough came with “Private Benjamin,” the Goldie Hawn comedy about a wealthy woman who inadvertently signs up for basic training, which he co-wrote with Meyers and Harvey Miller.
It was a script that was initially turned down by every studio in Hollywood, even with Hawn attached to star and produce.
“We went to a meeting at Paramount after they read the script, and Mike Eisner was the president of the studio, and we sat in his office with Mike and (producer) Don Simpson. And Mike said to Goldie, ‘This is a mistake for you to make this movie,’” Shyer told Indiewire in 2022. “God bless Don Simpson who spoke up and said, ‘Mike, you’re 100% wrong on this one.’”
The movie became one of the biggest hits of 1980. It got them an Oscar nomination and a win from the Writers Guild and also paved the way for his directorial debut “Irreconcilable Differences.”
That film, which he also wrote with Meyers (they married in 1980), starred Shelley Long and Ryan O’Neal as a writing-directing duo whose relationship crumbles after success and an infatuation with a young actor played by Sharon Stone. It was partially inspired by the tabloid affairs of Peter Bogdanovich, who left his wife and producer Polly Platt for Cybill Shepherd.
“Nancy and I just laughed at the same things. We love the same movies, we kind of educate each other on the movies that each of us loved,” Shyer told The Hollywood Reporter. “And Nancy really made me laugh. I think she wrote the best one-liners of anybody I know, except Neil Simon. And, and we were just always in sync — as filmmakers, we had this thing.”
They followed with “Baby Boom,” in which Diane Keaton plays a working woman who suddenly has to care for a baby, and “Father of the Bride,” which reimagined Vincente Minnelli’s 1950 film for the 1990s with Keaton, Steve Martin and Martin Short leading the comedic ensemble. It was successful enough to spawn a sequel.
Shyer and Meyers’ last collaboration as a married couple before divorcing in 1999 was the remake of “The Parent Trap,” with Lindsay Lohan, which Meyers directed and Shyer co-wrote and produced. Their daughters Annie and Hallie, whose names were used for Lohan’s twin characters, both appeared in the film. Shyer is also survived by two children, Jacob and Sophia, from a subsequent marriage that ended in divorce.
While Shyer often found himself doing remakes, he and Meyers never wanted to do “carbon copies” of the originals and always endeavored to put their own stamp on their films. But even he was surprised by the longevity of some of them, remembering an old Billy Wilder quote that “comedy is not like fine wine, it does not age well.” But, he said, they tried to avoid the temptation to include too many timely references.
“You try to write things that are not basically of the moment, especially in comedy,” he told Indiewire. “Try to write stories about human beings that will reflect on today and tomorrow and yesterday.”
Shyer went on to remake “Alfie,” with Jude Law, and the Hilary Swank period drama “The Affair of the Necklace,” neither of which did well at the box office. He also directed the Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte movie “I Love Trouble,” the only film of his that he admitted he didn’t like.
Other films never saw the light of day: He spent a year and a half prepping “Eloise in Paris” but it was canceled when the production company suddenly went out of business.
He stepped away from directing for many years but returned in recent years with two Netflix Christmas romantic comedies: “The Noel Diary” and “Best. Christmas. Ever!”
“I just gravitated towards stuff I like,” he told Indiewire. “I’ve never seen a James Bond movie. I’ve never seen one. I never liked science-fiction movies. … I like movies about people, and I want them to have substance.”
Shyer had told Indiewire that he was working on a script he’d been thinking about for decades, since he was hospitalized briefly at 17. He described the movie as a cross between “The 400 Blows” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” And retirement, he said at the time, was not in the cards.
“What am I going to do? Garden?” he said. “I just have a lot of energy. I want to keep going. I actually love the process and I love the camaraderie. I love what I do. If I drop dead, maybe it will be holding a camera.”
