Actress From Major ’90s TV Shows Dies: Jessie Jones Was 75

Jessie Jones has died.

The playwright, who appeared in many major ‘90s TV shows, passed away on March 20, according to an obituary. She was 75.

Written by her creative partner Jamie Wooten, the obituary states that Jones died of a “long illness.” Wooten also confirmed the news to PEOPLE on Wednesday. “Jessie was an unbelievably talented and kind woman, and knowing her life’s work will continue – bringing laughter to theaters around the world – brings great solace,” Wooten said in a statement.

Born on Aug. 21, 1950, in the panhandle of Texas, Jones won an essay/speech contest in high school that led her to travel with other winners to Washington, D.C., and it “changed everything for her.” After falling in love with the nation’s capital, she vowed she would one day live there, which she eventually did. Jones attended the University of Texas at Austin and did a lot of theatre and design. She did work for President Lyndon Johnson and Ladybird at their television station in Austin, where she ultimately met one of her dearest friends, Nicholas Hope Wilkinson.

He asked her to be the lead in his play, A Friend of the Family, to which she agreed. The two were determined to move to New York to make theatre their life, so much so that they set up shop in a small town in Texas, where they made cheesecakes from scratch to sell and deliver. Their business was so successful that it financed their entire move to the Big Apple.

Jones made her acting debut in an episode of Hooperman in 1989. She went on to appear in many shows throughout the ‘90s, including Night Court, Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Perfect Strangers, Who’s the Boss?, Fudge, Grace Under Fire, Weird Science, Melrose Place, and You’re the One. Films include Switch, For Their Own Good, Caught in the Act, My Brother’s Keeper, and Border Line.

Her final credits were in singular episodes of Judging Amy and Cold Case in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Along with acting, Jones wrote the screenplay for 2001’s Kingdom Come with David Dean Bottrell, as well as two episodes of Teacher’s Pet in 2001 and 2002 and an episode of For Your Love in 2002. She, Wooten, and Hope wrote several plays together, including Velvet Cake War, Christmas Belles, and The Savannah Sipping Society.

Jones is survived by her younger sister, Ellen Jones (and her husband Jim McCarthy), and her big sister, Laura Jones. She is also survived by her niece Margaret McCarthy, and her nephews Tommy McCarthy, Todd Hyso (Jeri Ann), and Paul Hyso (Meri Dawn), grand-nieces and cousins, and Wooten, as well as “her many close friends around the globe, as well as her treasured extended theatre family.”