Nicholas Meyer

As a screenwriter and director, Nicholas Meyer found success as a gifted filmmaker with a track record of producing crowd-pleasing entertainment for both film and television. After his start as a publicist for Paramount Pictures, he launched himself into a successful career as a novelist in 1971, and soon made his mark with the teleplay for "The Night That Panicked America" (ABC, 1975). His first major motion picture script came with "The Seven Percent Solution" (1976), an adaptation of his own novel, followed by his directorial debut on the sci-fi thriller "Time After Time" (1979). However, it was for his shepherding of the franchise-saving sequel "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) that Meyer would be most fondly remembered by genre film fans. He would be called back to contribute two more times on the successful iterations "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986) and "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" (1991). Later in his career, Meyer transitioned into more literary fare with such projects as the Richard Gere/Jodi Foster period romance "Sommersby" and a pair of adaptations based on novels by the revered American author Philip Roth - "The Human Stain" (2003) and "Elegy" (2008). Although his impressive career encompassed the alternating, often overlapping, titles of novelist, screenwriter and director, Meyer was viewed more as an artisan than an auteur - an apt descriptor for such a talented craftsman of well-made mainstream movies.