John Masius, Writer and Producer on ‘St. Elsewhere,’ ‘Touched by an Angel’ and ‘Providence,’ Dies at 75

John Masius, the writer and producer who won two Emmys for his work on St. Elsewhere and created the uplifting network dramas Touched by an Angel and Providence, has died. He was 75.

Masius died Saturday at his home in Los Angeles after a nine-month decline from Als, his ex-wife, actress Ellen Bry, announced. She played nurse Shirley Daniels on St. Elsewhere.

Masius, who started out in the early 1980s on the CBS drama The White Shadow, also created the 2009-11 TNT medical show Hawthorne, starring Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Vartan, and he also wrote and/or produced for NBC’s L.A. Law and Showtime’s Dead Like Me during his long career.

With frequent collaborator Mark Tinker, Masius developed NBC’s St. Elsewhere, set at a fictional Boston hospital. He wrote and produced for the show during entire six-season run (1982-87), receiving writing Emmys in 1984 and ’86 amid 14 nominations for his work there.