Manny Coto, the Cuban-born writer and producer who received an Emmy for his work on 24 and spent four seasons in american horror story and two more in american horror stories, has died. She was 62 years old.
Coto, whose childhood love for star trek and Super-8 cinema led to a 40-year career in film and television, died Sunday at his home in Pasadena after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokesman announced.
Coto also worked on the last two seasons of UPN Star Trek: Company (2003-05) and in the last three seasons of Showtime’s Right handed (2010-13). Taking the reins from the former as showrunner in season four, he was called an unsung hero, creating a series of episodes that brought classic elements back to his beloved franchise.
His “love of star trek It permeated his life and his worldview,” said his family. “In addition to being known for an apt impression of William Shatner that he left to his staff of stitch writers, he believed in the promise of the future and the limitless potential of humanity.”
Coto shared the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006 for producing the fifth season of the series starring Kiefer Sutherland. 24his first with the Fox drama. He stayed with the show through its eighth and final season, then wrote and produced the sequels, 24: Live Another Day and 24: Legacywhich aired in 2014 and 2016-17, respectively.
Coto served as an executive producer on the FX anthology series american horror story in 2018-22 and american horror stories in 2021-22. He also led a delivery of Stories“Wild”, in 2021.
Coto created and executed next for Fox in 2020 and created odyssey 5, which ran for two seasons (2002-03) on Showtime. The latter starred as Peter Weller in the story of a space shuttle crew going back in time five years to prevent Earth’s destruction.
In 1990, Coto and his writing partner Brian Helgeland teamed up to the ticking man, a script about a bomb squad officer chasing a cyborg equipped with a nuclear weapon. It was the first feature film script to sell for at least $1 million, though it was never produced.
In an era when spec script sales were through the roof, Coto and Helgeland exchanged ideas over the phone. “Let’s not hang up until we come up with an idea that we can sell for a million dollars,” Helgeland said. After some discussion, it was Coto who suggested, “What if a nuclear bomb becomes sentient?”
Manuel Hector Coto was born in Havana on June 10, 1961. His father, also Manuel, was a doctor, and his mother, Norma, was a teacher.
When Fidel Castro’s regime rewrote textbooks to reflect pro-Castro ideology and indoctrination, the Cotos resolved that their children would not grow up in a totalitarian state. In February 1962, mother and son immigrated to the US as the father was forced to stay behind. (They would meet in Tampa in a few months.)
Raised in Orlando, near Walt Disney World, Coto used his father’s Super 8 camera to make a horror film called Meatabout a disembodied hand that stalked his younger brothers, Jorge, Juan Carlos and Normi.
That was followed by the incredible bulge, which features his friend and high school wrestler Tico Perez in green body paint jumping around Bishop Moore High School. Coto also worked summers at the Haunted Mansion at Disney World.
Coto attended Loyola University in New Orleans and came to Los Angeles in 1983, where he began working in commercials. He met actress Tippi Hedren and convinced her to star in a short film he conceived for her, a murder mystery called Spin. That helped him get into the American Film Institute.
In AFI, his horror short, jack in the boxscored him a 1988 episode of the reboot alfred hitchcock presentswhere he wrote and directed a new version of Spin. He then directed a 1989 episode of the syndicated series. monsters.
Then he directed Playroom (1990), a horror thriller about a doomed archaeologist played by Christopher McDonald; Cover up (1991), a political thriller starring Dolph Lundgren; and star child (1997), a science fiction family film starring Joseph Mazzello.
dr. giggles, a horror film he co-wrote and directed in 1992, garnered cult status and a recent Blu-ray reissue of Shout! Factory.
For the Disney Channel, he directed the 2001 telefilm Zenon: The Zequel.
In addition to his sister and brother Juan Carlos, survivors include his wife, visual effects supervisor Robin Trickett, whom he met in odyssey 5; children Manny, Riley, and twins Charlotte and Finley; mother Norm; and eight nieces and nephews.
Coto’s hobbies included model trains, complete tours of wild doctor and The shadow and a backyard vineyard that produces 200 bottles of zinfandel/petite sirah a year.
Coto wrote the label, which reads in part: “Raised under the California sun, and with the laughter of our four children… this is a humble wine rich in fruit and character for you to enjoy every time you need a special surprise. ”
