Film producer Lynda Obst, 74, died of COPD on Oct. 22. Obst was the driving force behind such wonderful and terrible films as Sleepless in Seattle, The Fisher King, Flashdance, Adventures in Babysitting, Heartbreak Hotel, Contact, Hope Floats, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and the enjoyable comfort-food sitcom Hot in Cleveland. She was married to producer David Obst, and her brother, Rick Rosen, was a founder of the Endeavor talent agency. Obst, who wrote her dishy memoirs, Hello, He Lied, in 1996, was a long-time and outspoken defender of women in the movie industry: “Directing is the last frontier for women in the movie business. We are studio heads, we are producers and we are writers, but we are not directors in any numbers. The studios are certainly complicit, but I think there’s some part of it that is women not saying: ‘I want this job!’ Somehow, women haven’t felt empowered to say, ‘Give the money to me to make the movie.’”