‘L.A. Law’ Legend Dies From ‘Undisclosed Illness’: Terry Louise Fisher Was 79

Another L.A. Law legend has died.

Variety reports that co-creator Terry Louise Fisher died on Tuesday at 79 in Laguna Hills, California.

Her cousin, Sharone Rosen, shared that she died in her sleep from a long, undisclosed illness. Fisher is best known for co-creating legal drama L.A. Law with the late Steven Bocho. The series ran for eight seasons, from 1986 to 1994, and Fisher served as a supervising producer and writer for some of the early episodes. Her writing for the NBC drama won her a shared Primetime Emmy Award in 1987 and two nominations in 1988. In total, she was nominated for seven Emmys and won three throughout her career.

Fisher was born in Chicago on February 21, 1946, but moved to Los Angeles when she was a teenager, where she attended UCLA as an undergraduate student. She graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 1968 and worked for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, later shifting to entertainment law, working for multiple studios. During her career as a lawyer, she wrote two books, published in 1976 and 1979. After 10 years of practicing entertainment law, Fisher turned to writing full-time in LA.

Her first film, Your Place… or Mine, released in 1983 and starred Bonnie Franklin and Robert Klein. She co-wrote the film with Steven Brown, who was her writing partner on Cagney & Lacey. Fisher wrote and produced the CBS police procedural until 1985, and co-wrote reunion films Cagney and Lacey: The Return and Cagney and Lacey: Together Again.

In 1990, Fisher and Bocho co-created ABC dramedy Hooperman, which starred John Ritter and Debrah Farentino and ran for two seasons. Two years later, she created the short-lived drama 2000 Malibu starring Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Beals. Other credits include Blue Bayou, Bar Girls, This Girl for Hire, and Sister Margaret and the Saturday Night Ladies. Although Fisher’s final credit comes from writing Cagney & Lacey: Together Again in 1995, she did technically get credit for the 2000 L.A. Law reunion movie, L.A. Law: The Movie, written by William M. Finkelstein, for co-creating the series with Bochco.

Terry Louise Fisher also worked on the primetime soap opera pilot Daughters of Eve starring Sophia Loren, but it was not picked up during the 1995-96 season. She is survived by Dale Gordon, Ken Rosen, Charlie Rosen, and Sharon Rosen. Fans can pay tribute to Fisher by streaming all seasons of L.A. Law now on Hulu.