Creator of ‘Social Studies’ and Emmy winner Nancylee Myatt dies at 68; chose a peaceful, dignified end after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Nancylee Myatt, a bold and versatile television writer-producer whose credits ranged from stage plays to teen dramas and animated hits, died Sept. 23 in Basel, Switzerland.
She was 68. Her wife and longtime collaborator, Paige Williams Bernhardt, confirmed Myatt’s death and said Myatt — after a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment in 2021 that progressed to Alzheimer’s dementia in 2023 — “elected to end her life peacefully and with dignity.”
Myatt’s path to television was shape-shifting and resolutely creative. Born in 1957 and raised with strong ties to the Cherokee community in Oklahoma, she studied at the University of California, Irvine and began as an actor and playwright in Los Angeles.
Her early stage work included several locally produced plays — sharp, character-driven pieces with titles like Two on the Aisle for Murder, Slumber Party and Nothing So Simple as Love — that showcased a writer comfortable with both humor and heart.
A turning point came when Myatt completed Warner Bros.’ writers’ workshop in 1990 and steered her career toward television. She emerged as a rare female voice in writers’ rooms of the era — later describing herself as a mentee of Norman Lear — and was the sole woman staff writer on the early-’90s sitcom The Powers That Be.
Her TV résumé reads like a tour of beloved network shows: she contributed to the final seasons of Night Court (including the series finale), wrote and produced on CBS’s The Five Mrs. Buchanans and Fox’s Living Single, and served as a producer on series such as Life with Roger, Cleghorne! and Muddling Through.
Her own series, Social Studies, debuted in 1997 under Dolly Parton’s Sandollar Productions and gave Myatt a creator’s platform — a chance to shape teen-centered comedy from the ground up. She also worked extensively in animation, earning a Daytime Emmy for her writing on Disney’s Teacher’s Pet and scripting episodes of Recess and Lloyd in Space.
Myatt adapted teen novels for television, shepherded the teen drama South of Nowhere as a showrunner, and even penned an unaired pilot — Nikki & Nora — that later found new life as a cult curiosity and inspired a webseries spin.
She was reportedly co-writing a new teen pilot called Cupidity with Ralph Maccio at the time of her passing.
Myatt is survived by her wife and partner, Paige Williams Bernhardt, and by numerous friends and collaborators across theatre, animation and television.
In lieu of flowers, donations have been suggested to the Alzheimer’s Association Louisiana Chapter and the National Spay Alliance Foundation (NSAF Savannah), causes her family identified as meaningful.
Nancylee Myatt’s career is a reminder that influence in Hollywood isn’t only measured by long-running hit shows or headline-making awards. It’s also measured in the quieter currency of mentorship, in the pilots that never aired but taught a room how to stretch, and in the animated episodes that taught a generation to laugh without talking down to them.
Myatt’s trajectory — from stage to sitcoms to animated Emmy recognition — shows the craftsmanship of a writer who could pivot effortlessly between formats while staying true to character and community.
Her decision to control the end of her story is deeply personal and complex; reporting it respectfully matters, but so does honoring a life that kept creating until the end.
