Lynda Obst
Lynda Rosen Obst (born April 14, 1950) is a feature film producer[1]. She was born in New York and is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She worked as an editor at The New York Times before moving to Los Angeles with her then-husband David Obst. Starting at The Geffen Film Company as a "d-girl", her first major project was developing the scripts that would eventually become Flashdance.
She partnered with Debra Hill in 1986. The partnership would go on to produce Adventures in Babysitting, Heartbreak Hotel and The Fisher King, among other projects.
Following The Fisher King (1991), Obst and Hill parted ways; Obst became an in-studio producer going on to produce such notable films as Sleepless in Seattle, One Fine Day, Someone Like You, Contact, and The Siege. She was one of the central figures in the battle over the Richard Preston article Crisis in the Hot Zone.
She is the author of the memoir Hello, He Lied (1996), which details her experiences in the modern studio system. in 2009, she completed principal photography as producer on the Ricky Gervais-Matthew Robinson co-writing and directing debut, The Invention of Lying (originally titled "This Side of the Truth"), starring Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner. The film was released in October 2009. She is also the producer of Gurinder Chada's, Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, to be released by Nickelodeon.
She is currently writing and producing the upcoming film to be directed by Steven Spielberg called Interstellar.
Publications
- Dirty Dreams: A Novel, (New Amer Library Trade: New York, NY, 1990. ISBN 0-453-00731-7)
- Hello, He Lied, (Little, Brown & Company: New York, NY, 1996. ISBN 0-316-62211-7)
Selected Filmography
- Flashdance (1983), Associate Producer
- Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Producer
- Heartbreak Hotel (film) (1988), Co-Producer
- The Fisher King (1991), Producer
- Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Producer
- Bad Girls (film) (1994), Executive Producer
- One Fine Day (1996), Producer
- Contact (film) (1997), Executive Producer
- The Siege (1998), Producer
- Hope Floats (1998), Producer
- Someone Like You (film) (2001), Producer
- Abandon 2002, Producer
- How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (2003), Producer
- The Invention of Lying (2009), Producer