With her blockbuster hits Private Benjamin and Baby Boom, Nancy Meyers defied the conventional wisdom that a movie centered on a woman’s story wouldn’t draw audiences. Meyers earned a journalism degree from American University and moved to Los Angeles at age 22, becoming a production assistant on The Price is Right. She spent several years trying to break in as a screenwriter before co-writing and producing Private Benjamin in 1980. The movie’s box office success and multiple Oscar nominations proved that a movie about a woman didn’t need a big-name leading man to win over audiences. In 1981, she won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay for Private Benjamin. Meyers made her directorial debut with Irreconcilable Differences in 1984, then wrote and produced Baby Boom in 1987. She became known for comedies with a unique point of view and strong box office appeal, from 1998’s remake of The Parent Trap to 2000’s What Women Want to 2002’s Something’s Got to Give. She was the writer and producer for all three movies in the Father of the Bride trilogy in 1991, 1995, and 2020. Meyers worked on The Intern in 2015 as well as Home Again in 2017.