NANCYLEE MYATT, R.I.P.

This is one tribute I never expected to write. And sincerely wish I didn’t have this reason to do so.

I recently learned that my great old friend, writer and producer Nancylee Myatt, is no longer on this level of life. It’s taken me a while to come to terms with it, partially because I feel absolutely awful that we’d lost touch for many years. But, having been a big part of my life for well over a decade before that, she’s always been in my heart and mind, including thinking about her very recently, though I had not a clue that she was going through a health issue.

So please indulge me while I share some special memories of my lovely pal.

Nancylee and I met on a commercial audition when we were young actresses. We realized right away that we looked similar, mostly because we knew what we looked like, but also because we were up for the same part. (That happened to us a lot after that, which we loved, with Nancylee usually getting the gig!) We were sitting across from each other in the waiting area on that first audition, and she started a conversation, saying she recognized me from my TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue. The funny thing was that she didn’t even watch at her home because she didn’t have the appropriate cable system! But she knew of my show because the television company she worked for at the time always showed it to their employees. (She told me what that was but I’ve since forgotten the reason.) And between our similar looks, our same sense of humor, and our mutual admiration, we became friends that very first day! And she said the magic words—“Let’s do lunch!” And we did, just a couple of days later.

Right away, we decided to work on projects together. We tried to get an all-female improv troupe going, but Nancylee, being the loyal pal to all of her friends, scuttled it when I nixed one of her best friends during the auditions—she didn’t want to leave the girl out. (I totally applaud that loyalty, of course. And I wasn’t being mean—I just didn’t think the girl was funny, so I felt she’d weigh the group down.)

Then we worked really hard on a treatment for a reality show where we would do all kinds of regular-person jobs, as girls who had absolutely no experience, so we’d be sure to mess-up, hence the comedy. Nancylee knew a lot of show biz people at the time, so I have no idea to whom she showed our proposal, but the next thing we knew, a version of that very same idea became a TV show for…Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie! So we were out, of course. Darn.

Outside of acting, Nancylee was a production secretary back then, usually on successful sitcoms. And she always invited me to her sets to get me in front of the bigwigs in attempts to boost my career. How many competing actresses do that?! (She did amusingly give me the advice to “not dress like a camera slut,” though—because of my usually-tiny dresses—which made us both laugh.)

Nancylee and I were so close that, despite both of our sets of parents living across the country from us, we knew each other’s fams! Once, when I was having a garage sale at my old apartment, (yes, that is how long I’ve known Nancylee,) knowing that I had just very reluctantly dumped many years worth of TV Guides, she showed-up with her parents, and had her dad, Pinky, ask me if I had any TV Guides for him to buy! My heart stopped at first, thinking I could have had a big sale and made someone happy at the same time, and then Nancylee started laughing, so I got their prank. Good one, Nance.

At that point in my life, I was having a birthday soiree every January, and then Nancylee would throw a Valentine’s fete exactly a month later. So we were the beginning-of-the-year party girls together.

She’s one friend whose home I was at quite a bit. We were the same young age, but she was already married, with a house. I knew her husband, and then her next boyfriend, (after the divorce,) and later on, her girlfriends. She, of course, knew Mr. X. While working on the team producing a comedy pilot he was supposed to be on, Nancylee was even privy to the secret information about just what happened when he had gotten the role and then mysteriously lost it immediately, (with one of the producers even calling him and saying, “You are now, and have always been, my one and only choice.”) We were so confused. So she risked her job by slipping me that private, behind-the-scenes info, so we would know just what the truth was. (The real situation would never, ever have occurred to us, nor to anyone! The lead girl’s father thought that he looked like Mr. X, so when X won the role, the father insisted that he play it instead! So the producers had to choose an actor who looked totally different, to avoid a big problem with the father. Shame.) That was so kind of Nancylee to let us know what really happened with it.

A few years into our friendship, Nancylee wrote a movie about a group of girlfriends from college. She wanted me to be in it, but we couldn’t agree about which role I should play, so I wound-up doing basically a cameo, (shooting in the middle of the night, no less, in a diner in the South Bay,) but that was fine with me because I was just happy to support her and be included in her work.

I could go on and on about so many of our happy times—our many meals and events, hours on the phone giggling and breaking down the news of the world (and of our friends,) and also just being there for each other in hard times. But you get the drift.

The last time I saw Nancylee Myatt was at The Magic Castle in Hollywood. She had a new serious girlfriend, and wanted to take her to that private club, with which I had an in, so I was happy to set it up for them. I was out someplace else with a guy friend that night, but I wanted to stop by the Castle for a minute to make sure everything was going smoothly for Nancylee and her gal pal. I was hoping that my own friend, (who was one of my club guys, so I was a tad concerned that he might not want to go someplace as grown-up as the Castle,) wouldn’t try to talk me out of using our time to go help others. But, as soon as I mentioned Nancylee’s full name, he went nuts, in a good way. It turns-out that he was an aspiring writer, and knew of Nancylee and her work! And he was dying to meet her! Being her friend made me a hero in his eyes. I love that.

Sadly, we just lost touch shortly after that. We just wound-up having very different lives, (she became a very successful TV writer and producer, while I reverted to teen-age life and ran hip-hop clubs with my very young posse, while still doing my TV show; my life was lived late at night while Nancylee was a normal person with normal life hours,) and despite all the social media out there, it’s very difficult to me to find time to keep up with most people these days; I seem to be either constantly working or dealing with crazy life problems. I saw her name on a mutual pal’s Facebook post in the past year, and excitedly wrote to that person to find Nancylee. But we failed to get in touch, something that I’m absolutely sick over right now. I’m ashamed of myself for not trying harder. I have to admonish everyone to please not make that mistake with anyone you really care about. You never know when it might be too late.

Please forgive me if any of this doesn’t make sense; I can’t stop crying through the entirety of writing it.

My heart goes out to her wife, loved ones, and friends. And me, of course. This is such a loss to all of us, and the world, actually.

R.I. P. Nancylee Myatt.