Charles Shyer, the director of Father of the Bride and Baby Boom, who formed a successful comedy film-making partnership with his then wife Nancy Meyers, has died aged 83. His family confirmed his death in a statement to Deadline, and his daughter, film-maker Hallie Meyers-Shyer, told the Hollywood Reporter he died in hospital in Los Angeles “after a brief illness”.
Shyer had a hand in a string of successful comedies made over four decades, often in conjunction with Meyers, whom he married in 1980. The son of studio executive Melville Shyer, he cut his teeth as a writer on the TV series The Odd Couple (starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman), before breaking into movies with a writing credit on Smokey and the Bandit. He co-wrote the Goldie Hawn comedy Private Benjamin with Myers and his fellow Odd Couple writer Harvey Miller. Directed by Howard Zieff, Private Benjamin was a huge hit on its release in 1980, earning Shyer an Oscar nomination and enabling him to move into the director’s chair.
