Lauren Shuler Donner

Lauren Shuler Donner
Donner at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con
Born	Lauren Diane Shuler (1949-06-23) June 23, 1949 (age 67) Cleveland, Ohio, US
Occupation	Producer
Years active	1978–present
Spouse(s)	Mark Rosenberg (m. 1980; div. 1984) Richard Donner (m. 1985)

Lauren Diane Shuler Donner (born June 23, 1949) is an American film producer, who specializes in mainstream youth and family-oriented entertainment. She owns The Donners' Company with her husband, famed director Richard Donner. Her movies have grossed about $4.5 billion worldwide, mostly due to the X-Men film series.

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 to enter the entertainment industry.

As Donner worked in Los Angeles as assistant editor of educational and medical films, she sought other jobs and despite having no original intention to work on television, a chance meeting with the 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 photographer 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 market, being the first woman admitted to the IATSE Electrical and Camera Guild #659.

Eventually Donner decided to work as an associate producer, joining in 1976 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) lead her to become an associate producer in 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 for it to NBC programming director Charles Engel.