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.
His directorial debut, again writing with Meyers, was Irreconcilable Differences, a film industry comedy about marital breakdown, supposedly inspired by the divorce of director Peter Bogdanovich and designer Polly Platt. Shyers followed this up in 1987 with Baby Boom, an archetypal yuppie comedy, once again co-written with Meyers, featuring Diane Keaton as a high-flying executive who takes on an orphaned toddler.
By now an industry powerhouse, Shyer and Meyers collaborated on a remake of the hit 1950 comedy Father of the Bride, with Steve Martin in the role previously played by Spencer Tracy. It was a huge success in 1991, and Shyer also directed its 1995 follow-up, Father of the Bride Part II, a remake of the original’s sequel.
In 1998 Meyers made her directorial debut with Parent Trap, another remake of a hit comedy, which made a star of its lead Lindsay Lohan in a double role. Shyer co-wrote and produced it but it would be their last film together; the pair divorced in 1999 and Meyers went on to a stellar directing career of her own, with films including Something’s Gotta Give, What Women Want and The Holiday epitomising a certain kind of “beige chic”.
In 2001 Shyer directed The Affair of the Necklace, set in 18th-century France and starring Hilary Swank, and in 2004 took charge of a remake of the 1960s Michael Caine comedy Alfie, starring Jude Law. That was Shyer’s last feature for nearly 20 years, but in 2022 Netflix released Christmas romcom The Noel Diary, and the following year he produced and co-wrote Best. Christmas. Ever!
Shyer was married three times: to Diana Ewing (between 1969 and 1974), Meyers (between 1980 and 1999), and Deborah Lynn (between 2004 and 2009), and had four children, including Meyers-Shyer, who directed the 2024 Michael Keaton comedy Goodrich.
