According To The variety Lynda Obst, who had producing credits on high-profile films including “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Flashdance” and “Adventures in Babysitting,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 74.
“I was immensely proud of her. She was a trailblazer for women in the industry at a time when it was very difficult for women to have prominent roles. She was passionate about her work but even more passionate about her family,” her brother, WME’s Rick Rosen, said to Variety.
Obst told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that she had been battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Most recently, she served as producer or executive producer on TV series including “The Hot Zone,” “Good Girls Revolt,” “Hot in Cleveland” and “Helix.” Obst’s final feature producing credit was Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” in 2014. Among her other credits were “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “Hope Floats,” “Bad Girls” and “The Fisher King.” Obst started out editing the book “The Sixties,” which was later adapted into a mini-series, and worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine. After moving to Los Angeles, she got a development job with Peter Guber at Casablanca Records and FilmWorks, where she found and developed the script that would become “Flashdance,” her first production credit. Paramount’s Dawn Steele encouraged her to partner with producer Debra Hill in one of the first all-female production companies, where they made “Adventures in Babysitting,” “Heartbreak Hotel” and “The Fisher King.”
After meeting Nora Ephron years before through Obst’s husband, literary agent David Obst, she produced Ephron’s directing debut “This Is My Life.” She went on to executive produce “Sleepless in Seattle” and serve as producer or executive producer on “One Fine Day,” Robert Zemeckis’ “Contact,” “Hope Floats,” “The Siege” and “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”
She had a number of productions still in development, including “K-Pop: Lost in America,” “The Female Persuasion,” a Heart biopic and a Sally Ride mini-series.
Obst was honored by Women in Film in 2016 for “blazing a trail for female producers.”
A former journalist, Obst wrote two popular books about the industry: “Hello, He Lied & Other Tales From the Hollywood Trenches” and “Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales From the New Abnormal in the Movie Business.”
Obst was also an Oscar columnist with David Edelstein for New York Magazine.
She is survived by her son Oly Obst, a manager and producer at 3 Arts; brothers Rick Rosen, partner of TV at WME and Michael Rosen, a former TV producer; and two grandchildren.
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