Michael Sloan , the writer-producer who co-created with Richard Lindheim the durable 1980s TV series The Equalizer , died August 13. He was 78.

His death was announced by his family, which includes his wife of 35 years, the actor Melissa Sue Anderson , who starred in NBC’s Little House on the Prairie in the 1970s and ’80s. The family announcement did not name a place or cause of death but noted that he passed away peacefully.

Michael Fred Sloan was born to a show business family on October 14, 1946, in New York City. His grandfather, Fred Stone, was a vaudeville performer who played the Scarecrow in the 1902 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz , and his parents Paula Stone and Michael Sloane were Broadway stage producers.

The family moved to London when Sloan was young,

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