Lauren Shuler Donner

Early life and career

Donner was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of a wholesale distributor and a housewife. She was raised in Cleveland, where she took on photography and frequently went to the movies with a cousin. She studied film at Boston University, specializing in production and editing. Following the advice of a teacher, she moved to Los Angeles in hopes of entering the entertainment industry.

As Donner worked in Los Angeles as an assistant editor of educational and medical films, she sought other jobs and despite having no original intention to work in television, a chance meeting at NBC headquarters lead her to leave her data there. In 1973, the network invited Shuler to a vacation relief program filling in for employees on vacation. She worked on many jobs, but decided that the best for her would be as a camera operator due to her photography experience. After being taught about cameras by the crew of The Tonight Show, Shuler asked NBC to work on the local news. Afterwards she freelanced on Metromedia, working on rock concert shoots, sitcoms and TV movies. Donner was a rare camerawoman in a male-dominated field, being the first woman admitted to the IATSE Electrical and Camera Guild #659.

Eventually Donner decided to work as an associate producer, in 1976 joining ABC's Wide World of Entertainment. After a traffic accident that had her hospitalized for months, Donner started working with screenwriter friends and became a creative executive/story editor on Motown Productions. Her input on the script of Thank God It's Friday (1978) led her to become an associate producer for that film. Next she made her television producing debut in 1979 with the acclaimed Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill, a television film written and directed by Joel Schumacher in the style of Robert Altman's Nashville. She got the job by directly asking NBC programming director Charles Engel.

Feature film production career

While working at Motown, Donner became a personal friend of National Lampoon writer John Hughes, and convinced him to write a script that would become her feature film producing debut, the 1983 comedy hit Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton. The following year she persuaded Richard Donner to direct Ladyhawke, and the two fell in love, marrying a year after the film got released, 1985. She produced only two more of her husband's movies, Radio Flyer (1992), and Timeline (2003), but declared that their relationship helped her learn on how to work with action films, as "if I hadn't seen how he did action movies, I wouldn't have had the wherewithal to even pursue an X-Men or a Constantine, or any of those". Her experience with Schumacher and Hughes led them to invite her to produce St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986), both seminal films of the Brat Pack period. Donner had a particularly successful year in 1993 overseeing two solid hits: Dave, a homespun political comedy, and Free Willy, a family film about a boy and his whale.

Personal life

Donner has systemic lupus erythematosus, and had kidney problems in her childhood. She has liberal political views and likes to work on movies that express her beliefs – Dave for politics, Free Willy for marine life and Hotel for Dogs for animal rights. She has served on the advisory boards of Planned Parenthood and TreePeople, and was instrumental in the campaigning for California Proposition 2.

Awards and honors

Donner has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008, right next to her husband's. In 2006, Lauren was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award along with Jennifer Lopez and Diane Warren.

Filmography

As producer, except as noted.