The Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter, who has teamed up with his then-wife Nancy Meyers for such crowd-pleasing, feel-good comedies as Private Benjamin, Irreconcilable Differences, Baby Boom, and Father of the Bride. Charles Shier passed away. He was 83 years old.
Ms. Shire died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a short illness, said her daughter Harry, the writer and director of the 2017 Reese Witherspoon comedy “Home Again.” Myers Shire told The Hollywood Reporter.
The son of veteran assistant director Melville Shire, one of DGA’s founders, Shire began writing scripts with his then-partner Alan Mandel for sitcoms such as The Odd Couple and The Partridge Family, which went on to become box office hits. He entered the film industry with the blockbuster films “Smokey” and “Smokey.” The Bandit (1977) Starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field.
Scheyer’s career skyrocketed when, with Meyers and Harvey Miller, he co-wrote the screenplay for Private Benjamin (1980), directed by Howard Zieff and starring Goldie Hawn in her first big-screen starring role. The comedy, about a naive Jewish-American widowed princess who enlists in the U.S. Army on opening night, earned the trio an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. (Bo Goldman won instead of Melvin and Howard.)
Myers and Scheyer married in 1980 and over the next two decades established themselves as one of the most successful husband-and-wife creative teams in film. Their romantic comedies eerily echoed the pulse of American popular culture.
Irreconcilable Differences (1984), which marked Shire’s big-screen directorial debut, tells the story of a nine-year-old girl (Drew Barrymore) who sues for a divorce from her parents (Shelley Long, Ryan). It poked fun at the country’s extreme litigious tendencies. O’Neill) Because they bicker constantly.
Baby Boom (1987), also directed by Scheyer, explores what happens when a talented New York business consultant (Diane Keaton) suddenly finds himself caring for a woman. , which showed off the concept that women can also have a career and a family. An infant after the death of a long-lost cousin.
Myers and Shier found their greatest success in poking fun at weddings and the havoc caused in Father of the Bride (1991). This spirited remake of the 1950 classic stars Steve Martin as a hapless father who must come to terms with the fact that his young daughter (Kimberly Williams) is all grown up and about to get married. .
“I got a call from Steve Martin. He had seen ‘Baby Boom’ and loved it, and there was already a script written that he didn’t like,” Scheyer told Indie Films. -As told by Alex Ferrari on a 2021 episode of the Hustle Podcast.
“We loved Steve so much, and he was in New York. I had never seen the original Father of the Bride. I didn’t even know it existed. It wasn’t necessarily my type of movie. Probably not. But we said yes. Let’s go see Steve. ‘So I got on the plane and I hadn’t read the script yet. right? I wanted to direct Steve. I read the script. And I wanted to jump out of a plane. ”
But the temptation to work with Martin was irresistible. Knowing they could rewrite the script and capitalize on his comedic strengths, Scheyer and Myers signed on and watched the original version, starring Spencer Tracy as the father and Elizabeth Taylor as the bride.
Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review that “Father of the Bride” “does a good job refreshing the material with new jokes and new attitude, but retains some of the most memorable moments of the earlier films.” .
Like the original, “Father of the Bride” spawned sequels. Scheyer and Myers took their cue from Father’s Little Dividend (1951) and mined the laughs from Father of the Bride Part II (1995), about Martin’s character George Banks becoming a grandfather. .
Between these two films, the couple helped write the ensemble comedy “Once Upon a Crime…” (1992) and wrote “I Love Trouble” (1992), starring Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte. (1994) pays homage to the screwball comedies of the 1930s.
Myers and Scheyer divorced in 1999. Their last official collaboration was on the screenplay for Lindsay Lohan’s film debut, The Parent Trap (1998). The remake of the 1961 Disney comedy also marked Myers’ directorial debut. (However, Shier told The Hollywood Reporter that Myers helped him with the 2022 Netflix film The Noelle Diary.)
He also directed “I Love Trouble.” Directed “The Necklace” (2001), starring Hilary Swank. In 2004, he co-wrote and directed the remake of Alfie, starring Jude Law.
From left: Harvey Miller, Nancy Meyers, Charles Scheier, screenwriter of 1980’s Private Benjamin.
Warner Brothers / Provided by: Everett Collection
Charles Richard Shier was born on October 11, 1941 in Los Angeles to Lois and Melville Shier. A jack-of-all-trades, his father studied with the likes of D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, served as head of production at Chesterfield Pictures, and was a founding member of Progressive Pictures, one of the first independent film companies. .
During a career spanning more than 50 years in Hollywood, the elder Scheyer also directed several films, including The Museum Murders (1934) and Mad Youth (1939), and was instrumental in the founding of the DGA in 1936. played a role.
His son was one of the first to enter the DGA apprenticeship program after graduating from UCLA.
“I used to go to sets with him all the time when I was a kid,” Scheyer recalls. “I was more of a natural. If he was a dry cleaner, I probably would have gone into dry cleaning. But I went into the film industry.”
This opportunity led to Scheyer’s first professional work, starring in Norman Jewison’s The Russians Are Coming (1966) and the Bob Carroll Jr. and Madeline Davis NBC sitcom The Mothers. Served as an assistant for “In Law.”
Scheier intended to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a director. This job was put on hold when, in his early twenties, he accepted a job as an assistant to screenwriters Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson.
“That set me on the whole trajectory of writing,” Scheier said. “I was a marshal’s assistant on a show called ‘Hey, Landlord’ (NBC in 1966-67). My job basically consisted of doing Christmas shopping and washing cars. did.”
When he wasn’t running errands, Scheyer would pitch jokes and story ideas in story meetings, and Marshall would encourage him to write. Scheyer then spent the early 1970s working on films such as Barefoot in the Park, The Partridge Family, The Odd Couple (for which he was the head writer for several years), and Happy Days. spent writing the script for the sitcom.
But Shier wanted to work in movies. A spec script he wrote with Mandel caught the attention of Universal, who asked him to rewrite Hal Needham’s road comedy Smokey and the Bandit.
“I’m a guy from Studio City. I’ve never heard of an 18-wheel radio. I mean, I didn’t know what it was,” Scheier said. “But it was an opportunity. Burt Reynolds was a great movie star.”
Smokey and the Bandit was a monster hit, coming in at No. 4 on the list of top domestic box office films of 1977 (No. 1 was taken by Star Wars).
Scheyer and Mandel were hired to rewrite two 1978 feature films, the romantic comedy House Calls with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, and the Western Goin’ South, directed and starring Jack Nicholson. Ta.
Private Benjamin was Myers’ first credit. She based this work on her own experience of turning down a wedding and reinventing herself as a screenwriter. Scheyer, Myers, and Miller shared producing duties with Horn.
Miller had worked with Scheyer on The Odd Couple and Stepmothers, and it was through him that Scheyer first met Myers. In 1976, she caught the eye of Shire while on a date. “Charles was a cute guy wearing a B’nai B’rith T-shirt,” Myers told the Jewish Journal in 2003.
“Nancy and I just said the same thing and laughed. We love the same movies, and we’re kind of educating each other about the movies we both loved,” Scheier said. “And Nancy really made me laugh. I think she wrote the best one-liners of anyone I know, other than Neil Simon. And we were always in sync. – As filmmakers, we had this.”
Scheyer and Myers were also credited as creators and executive producers of the 1988-1989 NBC version of Baby Boom, starring Kate Jackson.
In 2011, Scheyer collaborated with jewelry designer Liv Ballard to create the online short Ieri oggi domani (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow). The highly stylized production, written and directed by Scheyer and featuring designs by Ballard, won awards and acclaim online and throughout the advertising community.
Harry extended Shire’s filmmaking tradition to the next generation.
Survivors also include a daughter, Annie Meyers Scheyer, and twins Jacob and Sophia from his third marriage to Deborah Lynn Scheyer from 2004 to 2010. Shire was also married to actress Diana Ewing from 1969 to 1974.
In a podcast interview, Shire said comedy has always been his passion. “I wasn’t interested in movies set in space. I just wasn’t interested in them, and I still am,” he said. “But the Billy Wilder movies, I always loved Preston Sturges…those, those were the movies I really loved.”
Mike Barnes contributed to this report.
