Terry Louise Fisher Dies: ‘L.A. Law' Co-Creator & ‘Cagney & Lacey' Writer Was 79
Terry Louise Fisher, the co-creator of L.A. Law and a writer for Cagney & Lacey, has died. She was 79.
The three-time Emmy winner died in her sleep Tuesday in Laguna Hills, CA following a long, undisclosed illness, Fisher's cousin Sharone Rosen told Variety.
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Born February 21, 1946 in Chicago, Fisher attended law school at UCLA in the '60s before working at the Los Angeles District Attorney's office and going into entertainment law. After publishing two novels, A Class Act (1976) and Good Behavior (1979), she quit law to pursue writing full time.
Fisher began writing for Cagney & Lacey in 1983 before co-creating NBC's L.A. Law with Steven Bochco in 1986, running for eight seasons until 1994. Her time on the show ended following a 1988 legal battle with Bochco and 20th Century Fox.
'One thing that I don't want women to feel is … that they can't take on the big boys, because they'll get you — that was the one thing I was upset about,' Fisher told the Los Angeles Times in 1988. 'Some people think (the TV industry) is an old boys network. I've never thought so. I got a lot of really upsetting letters from women who viewed it that way.'
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Fisher and Bochco also co-created the ABC series Hooperman, which ran for two seasons, starring John Ritter as the titular San Francisco police inspector.
She later created the short-lived Aaron Spelling CBS drama 2000 Malibu Road in 1992, featuring a young Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Beals.
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