Hollywood legend dies after tragic melanoma battle as heartbreaking last words revealed

Anna Sandor, the co-creator of the long-running CBC series Hangin' In, has died at the age of 76, the Hollywood Reporter announced. The Hollywood legend died on November 1 of complications from melanoma at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, her family confirmed.

Her daughter, Rachel Sandor Stone, said: "She was spunky and she was sharp. She was strong-willed, warm and kind, but unfiltered. And she was selfless. One of the last things she said to the palliative care team before she passed was that everyone has a story; the VP of a bank and a homeless person both have stories worth learning."

Hangin' In, the CBC dramedy that starred Lally Cadeau as a social worker counselling teenagers, was one of the few TV series created by a woman at the time, although Sandor shared credit with Jack Humphrey and Joe Partington.

The show aired for seven seasons between 1981 and 1987 and boasted the first onscreen credit for budding young actor Keanu Reeves. Sandor later moved away from the series format for her first movie script, the 1984 CBC telefilm Charlie Grant's War.

She spent months researching the true story of a Vancouver diamond broker who forged paperwork to help Jews escape Nazi-occupied Vienna, which inspired the beloved TV drama.

Jim Bawden from the Toronto Star wrote at the time: "Charlie Grant's War packs an emotional wallop that will stay with you for some time. It's the best Canadian TV drama in some time, an almost perfectly realised blend of fine script, direction and skilled acting." She later won an ACTRA award for the film.

Sandor continued to write TV movies in Canada before making the move to Hollywood, where she teamed up with her then-husband, William Gough, on Tarzan in Manhattan.

The 1989 CBS film became an instant hit and was directed by Michael Schultz and starred Joe Lara. It put a modern-day spin on the beloved Edgar Rice Burroughs character.

The writer also earned an Emmy nomination for writing the lauded 1992 NBC telefilm Miss Rose White, starring Kyra Sedgwick and Amanda Plummer. It was based on the Barbara Lebow play and centred on two sisters reckoning with their divergent experiences during World War II.

Sandor scooped up an Emmy for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and was also nominated for a WGA award in addition to landing her first Humanitas Prize.

She was born in Budapest, Hungary, on March 4, 1949, to Holocaust survivors Agnes and Paul Sandor. Her father sadly died when she was just five years old.

The writer went on to enrol in Harvard Collegiate Institute for high school, where she took drama classes and was late accepted into the University of Windsor, where she was in the first class of the university's School of Dramatic Art.

After the writer graduated from university in 1971, she went on to act in productions, teach theatre workshops for children, and write poetry in her spare time. In 1975, her composition caught the attention of actor-screenwriter Louis Del Grande, who convinced her to better utilise her talents in the writers' room.

When Del Grande was hired to be the head writer for King of Kensington, a CBC sitcom about a shopkeeper who acts as a fixer for the residents of the multicultural neighbourhood in Toronto, he brought Sandor to the writing staff. The show became a huge hit, starring Eugene Levy, John Candy, and Mike Myers, and ran for five years before coming to an end in 1985.

Sandor and Gough tied the knot in 1982 and collaborated on an ACTRA-nominated episode of the comedy-mystery series Seeing Things, as well as a short story titled "An Evening at the Opera."

She is survived by her daughter, son-in-law Adam, and her granddaughters Dani and Gabi. A celebration of her life will take place on December 6, in San Diego. Donations in her memory can be made to the OnStage Playhouse.