Background
Shaber was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and abandoned a pre-med education for the Yale Drama School.
Shaber was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and abandoned a pre-med education for the Yale Drama School.
Bachelor, Western Reserve University, 1950. Master of Arts, Western Reserve University, 1951. Master of Fine Arts, Yale Drama School, 1954.
He also wrote the final draft, though uncredited, for the John McTiernan film The Hunt for Red October. He wrote and produced plays, and also wrote forty commissioned screenplays, eight of which were made into feature films, in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, he taught advanced screenwriting at Columbia University in New York City.
His film, a semi-autobiographical reminiscence about a summer stock company in the 1950s, set in the fictional Ohio town of Kempton Hills, Those Lips, Those Eyes, released in 1980. The film starred Frank Langella and Thomas Hulce and was directed by Michael Pressman. Shaber also authored a novel based on the screenplay (Dell, 1980), though he was personally loath to call it a "novelization," as it was written from the first person perspective of its main character and contained much additional material that was cut from the finished film as well as created specifically for the book.
Shaber has two daughters, Remy Shaber (dancer) and Sam Shaber (musician). He died on November 4, 1999 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan of an aneurysm, at age 70.
Active Mayor's Advisory Council on Film, television and Theatre. Member Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences M C.
Married Alice Roux Doherty, March 29, 1969. Children: Samantha, Remy.