Eric Gilliland, ‘Roseanne’ Writer and Producer, Dies at 62

Eric Gilliland, the prolific TV writer and producer who worked on such classic sitcoms as Roseanne , The Wonder Years and That ’70s Show , has died. He was 62.

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Gilliland died Sunday of colon cancer in New York City, his sister, Lisa, told The Hollywood Reporter .

Gilliland’s career started in the 1980s, when he was a member of the production staff during the first season of the Sherman Hemsley-starring sitcom Amen and as a writer and story editor on Who’s the Boss?

Most notably, he served as a writer and producer on Roseanne from 1992-96, and his work on the sitcom was recognized with a WGA Award nomination for the season 5 episode “The Dark Ages.”

Though Gilliland left Roseanne during its second-to-last season, he served as a consulting producer on its spinoff The Conners in 2019. He also reunited with Roseanne stars John Goodman and Roseanne Barr in his NBC pilot Downwardly Mobile in 2012, which ultimately wasn’t picked up by the network.

After Roseanne , Gilliland worked as a writer and consulting producer on That ’70s Show from 1998-99 and as a writer and producer on My Boys from 2006-10. He received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2019 for his writing on the Netflix sketch comedy series The Who Was? Show. His final credit was for the 2021 podcast The Cinnamon Bear: A Holiday Adventure .

Shortly after news broke of Gilliland’s death, friends including comedian Dave Hill and Ryan Reynolds took to social media to remember him, with the Deadpool star calling the writer-producer “kind, gentle and funny as hell.”

“I had Eric as a friend for 27 years,” Reynolds wrote. “He was the first bigtime meeting I had at the start of my career. He’d finished working as a writer on ROSEANNE and had a swank bungalow office on the Fox lot in LA. I was nervous as hell to meet him. I’d gotten into my cups the night before and the hangover wasn’t helping. My head was pounding like crazy, but it was my stomach that worried me … I had those horrible little tell-tale burps. Badness was brewing.”

Reynolds recalled that Gilliland “wasn’t how I imagined a seriously successful comedy writer. He was so approachable. When he smiled, his nostrils flared and his eyelids lowered by half. Imagine Pixar, but Pixar is Eric’s face. It felt like I’d known him forever. And there are hundreds, if not thousands of bartenders, cashiers and shopkeepers in dozens of countries who feel the same.”

Roseanne star Michael Fishman also paid tribute to Gilliland on Instagram , remembering him as a “great writer.” The actor added, “They always take the best. I know they’re laughing hard. Endless dry wit and an encyclopedia of knowledge, Eric Gilliland is unforgettable.”

Lisa Gilliland shared that her brother would have wanted everyone to get a colonoscopy.

Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.