LOS ANGELES -- Melissa Mathison, writer of original screenplay E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial and the bigscreen adaptation of The Black Stallion, has died, according to multiple reports. She was 65.
Mathison, who had recently adapted Roald Dahl's The BFG for Steven Spielberg's upcoming feature, had been battling neuroendocrine cancer and died at her Los Angeles home, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Mathison was married to Harrison Ford from 1983 to 2004 and had two children, Malcolm and Georgia, with the Indiana Jones actor. She was his second wife, and though the on-again, off-again couple first separated in the late 1990s and legally separated in 2001, they didn't finalize their divorce until three years alter, long after Ford began dating Calista Flockhart.
"Melissa had a heart that shined with generosity and love and burned as bright as the heart she gave E.T.," Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, which first reported her death.
Mathison worked closely with Spielberg on the E.T. script, writing for days at a time and regularly visiting his editing suite to go over pages. She delivered the finished screenplay in about two months, and was at the Oscars, nominated for Best Original Screenplay (which she lost to Ghandi) some months later.
An adaptation of the popular children's book The Black Stallion was her breakout in 1979, which followed assistant roles on The Godfather: Part II and Apocalypse Now -- the set where she first met Ford in 1976.
Her final work, The BFG, is set for release in 2016.