'Roseanne' Legend Dies From Colon Cancer: Sister Confirms Passing of Eric Gilliland

Gilliland was a producer and writer on 'Roseanne' from 1992 to 1996.

By Megan Behnke

Hollywood is mourning the loss of television producer and writer Eric Gilliland. Best known for his work on Roseanne in the '90s, Gilliland died of colon cancer on Sunday, his sister Lisa confirmed to Variety. He was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Awards in 1992 for the Season 5 episode "The Dark Ages," and also received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2019 for the historical sketch comedy series The Who Was? Show on Netflix. One of his final jobs was working as a consulting producer on Roseanne spinoff series The Conners for two episodes of Season 2 in 2019.

Gilliland began working in Hollywood in the late '80s as part of the production staff for an episode of Amen in 1986. The following year, he wrote two episodes of Women in Prison and served as a program consultant. Prior to Roseanne, he wrote multiple episodes of Who's the Boss, Living Dolls, Married People, and The Wonder Years. During his time on Roseanne, he wrote 11 episodes and served as producer on 100 episodes, either in a co-producer, supervising producer, executive producer, or co-executive producing role.

He did not stop after Roseanne and only continued to land more television shows throughout his career. On the producing side, he was an executive producer on two episodes of That's Life, a consulting producer on 12 episodes of That '70s Show, a consulting producing and executive producer on 27 episodes of My Boys, and a co-executive producer for four episodes of Mr. Sunshine, on top of his work on The Conners. For writing, he's done That '70s Show, Days Like These, Welcome to New York, Hopeless Pictures, My Boys, Mr. Sunshine, and Bitter Party of Five, among others.

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Tributes have already been pouring in for Gilliland. Modern Family co-creator Steven Levitan wrote on Facebook, "Weird, I know, but I found myself thinking this morning that Eric Gilliland would have taken some perverse pleasure in knowing that, of all people, he was outlived by Dick Van Dyke. That's one of the ways Eric and I bonded back in 8th grade, over our mutual love for The Dick Van Dyke Show. And Monty Python, Jack Benny, The Carol Burnett Show, SNL and bad puns. (Yes, people, we started a pun club)."

Eric Gilliland made quite an impact on television, especially Roseanne. While it's a disappointment he didn't get to work on The Conners for very long, at least his legacy will last a lifetime.

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