David Davis, the screenwriter who created such comedy series as “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Taxi”, has died at the age of 86, according to Variety.

David Davis died on November 4 in Los Angeles, his death was confirmed on Saturday by his daughter Samantha Davis-Friedman.

Davis was known for his work on MTM Television. He wrote the scripts for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rod and helped create two Hall of Fame sitcoms.

After he stopped writing in 1979, Davis worked as a consultant on television and film projects, including the ABC series The Phenomena and films such as 1987’s Broadcast News and the 1983 Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment.

Born in Brooklyn in 1936, Davis began his television career as a script supervisor on early 1960s comedies such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island. In the mid-1960s he became an associate producer on such series as My Mother Is a Machine and He and She, and from 1967 a comedy with Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentice.

Davis was involved in creating The Bob Newhart Show for Newhart. The series aired on CBS from 1972 to 1978. Davis continued the Taxi series, which ran from 1978 to 1983. The series was created by Davis along with James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels and Ed Weinberger.