Caitlyn Jenner’s Ghostwriter Found Dead Near Runyon Canyon

William Hasley, a television writer and screenwriter who spent decades working in Hollywood — and who ghostwrote a 1996 self-help book with Caitlyn Jenner — was found dead Saturday evening in the Hollywood Hills near Runyon Canyon. He was 78.

LAFD spokesman Jamie Stewart said Hasley was found in an area north of Nichols Canyon Road at around 7:05 p.m. Air rescuers were lowered to him by helicopter and medical treatment was given on scene. He was pronounced dead where he was found.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office has not determined a cause of death.

A neighbor told the New York Post he had just seen Hasley that same day. “I just saw him on Saturday carrying groceries,” the neighbor said. “It’s very sad he had to die all alone like that.”

Hasley grew up in Pittsburgh, played football and ran cross-country at Marshall University. He came to Hollywood with a dream, like many do, and started where a lot of writers start — in animation. He wrote for the cartoons “The Smurfs” and “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” at Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. He then picked up live-action gigs with “Murder, She Wrote.” “Kung Fu.” “Highway to Heaven.” “Ghost Stories.” “Swift Justice.” “The Young Riders.” He wrote feature screenplays for Universal, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox, and pilots for Castle Rock, Columbia, Universal, and Warner Bros. He was a member of the Writers Guild of America. He was teaching screenwriting at UCLA when he died.

He and Jenner became friends on an earlier project — an Olympics-related collaboration, according to his biography. That friendship led to a book deal. Simon & Schuster published “Finding the Champion Within” in 1996. It used Jenner’s athletic career as the spine of a ten-step self-help program. His ex-wife, actress Robin Riker of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” survives him.

His death is the second in less than a year to hit Jenner’s inner circle. Sophia Hutchins, Jenner’s 29-year-old manager and close friend, died July 2, 2025, after the ATV she was riding on Decker Canyon Road near Jenner’s Malibu home rear-ended a car and plunged 350 feet into a ravine. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

It is also the third hiking death in the Hollywood Hills area in recent weeks. On May 24, Brian Spina, 40, collapsed in cardiac arrest on the Runyon Canyon trail while hiking with his young son Charlie and a friend. He became unresponsive on the trail. A fellow hiker began chest compressions while rescuers were called. He was hoisted out by helicopter but died in the air. His wife Marissa and two sons, James and Charlie, survive him.

“There is nothing more thrilling than touching another with the words you have written,” Hasley wrote in his UCLA instructor bio. “I challenge you to challenge yourself.”