Monica Johnson

Monica Johnson (February 21, 1946 – November 1, 2010) was an American screenwriter whose film credits included Mother, Lost in America, Modern Romance, Jekyll and Hyde... Together Again and The Muse. Her television credits included The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne & Shirley and It's Garry Shandling's Show. She was a frequent collaborator with Albert Brooks.

Johnson was born Monica Lenore Belson in 1946 in Colorado but was raised in El Centro, California, and spent her early years in medical and dental assistants’ school.

Her brother, Jerry Belson, an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter and film producer, hired her to type scripts for the TV series The Odd Couple around 1972; noticing that his sister added jokes to the scripts, which met with the producers' approval, he suggested that she partner with Marilyn Suzanne Miller to form a writing team. Initially working under her married name Monica Mcgowan in 1973, she and Miller wrote three scripts for The Mary Tyler Moore Show. For the second script, having remarried, she was credited as Monica Mcgowan Johnson. By the time of the third script in 1974, she was credited as Monica Johnson, the professional name she used for the rest of her career.