Manny Coto, Writer-Producer on ’24’ and ‘American Horror Story,’ Dies at 62

Manny Coto, the Cuban-born writer and producer who received an Emmy for his work on 24 and spent four seasons on American Horror Story and two more on American Horror Stories, has died. He was 62.

Coto, whose childhood love of Star Trek and Super-8 moviemaking led to a 40-year career in film and television, died Sunday at his home in Pasadena after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer, a family spokesperson announced.

Coto also worked on the final two seasons of UPN’s Star Trek: Enterprise (2003-05) and on the final three seasons of Showtime’s Dexter (2010-13). Taking the reins on the former as showrunner in season four, he was called an unsung hero, creating a run of episodes that returned classic elements to his beloved franchise.

His “love of Star Trek permeated his life and his worldview,” his family noted. “In addition to being well-known for a spot-on William Shatner impression that left his writing staffs in stitches, he believed in the promise of the future and the boundless potential of mankind.”

Survivors include his younger brother, Juan Carlos Coto, a writer and producer on series including Nikita and 9-1-1.

“I started as a PA on his Super-8s,” he wrote on Instagram. “He was my inspiration and my guiding light — in the craft, and in life. I have lost a brother and a best friend.”

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Coto shared the Emmy for outstanding drama series in 2006 for producing the fifth season of the Kiefer Sutherland-starring 24, his first with the Fox drama. He stayed with the show through its eighth and final season, then wrote and produced the sequels, 24: Live Another Day and 24: Legacy, that aired in 2014 and 2016-17, respectively.

Coto served as executive producer on the FX anthology series American Horror Story in 2018-22 and American Horror Stories in 2021-22. He also directed an installment of Stories, “Feral,” in 2021.

Coto created and ran neXt for Fox in 2020 and created Odyssey 5, which ran for two seasons (2002-03) on Showtime. The latter starred Peter Weller in the story of a space shuttle crew thrown back in time five years to prevent the destruction of Earth.

In 1990, Coto and writing partner Brian Helgeland teamed on The Ticking Man, a screenplay about a bomb squad officer in pursuit of a cyborg equipped with a nuclear weapon. It was the first feature screenplay to sell for at least $1 million, though it was never produced.

In an era when spec script sales were soaring, Coto and Helgeland were brainstorming on the phone. “Let’s not hang up until we come up with an idea that we can sell for a million dollars,” Helgeland said. After hashing it out, it was Coto who suggested, “What if a nuclear bomb became sentient?”

Manuel Hector Coto was born in Havana on June 10, 1961. His father, also Manuel, was a doctor, and his mother, Norma, was a teacher.

When the Fidel Castro regime rewrote textbooks to reflect pro-Castro ideology and indoctrination, the Cotos resolved that their kids would not be raised in a totalitarian state. In February 1962, mother and son emigrated to the U.S. as dad was forced to remain behind. (They would reunite in Tampa in a few months.)

Raised in Orlando near Walt Disney World, Coto used his father’s Super-8 camera to make a horror film called Flesh, about a disembodied hand that stalked his younger siblings, Jorge, Juan Carlos and Normi.

That was followed by The Incredible Bulk, featuring his friend and high school wrestler Tico Perez in green body paint leaping around Bishop Moore High School. Coto also worked summers at the Haunted Mansion at Disney World.

Coto attended Loyola University in New Orleans and came to Los Angeles in 1983, when he began working in commercials. He met actress Tippi Hedren and convinced her to star in a short film he conceived for her, a murder mystery called Twist. That helped him gain entry into the American Film Institute.

At AFI, his horror short, Jack in the Box, scored him a 1988 episode of the rebooted Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where he wrote and directed a new version of Twist. He then directed a 1989 episode of the syndicated series Monsters.

He then helmed Playroom (1990), a horror thriller about a doomed archeologist played by Christopher McDonald; Cover-Up (1991), a political thriller starring Dolph Lundgren; and Star Kid (1997), a family sci-fi film starring Joseph Mazzello.

Dr. Giggles, a horror film he co-wrote and directed in 1992, has garnered cult status and a recent Blu-ray reissue from Shout! Factory.

For the Disney Channel, he directed the 2001 telefilm Zenon: The Zequel.

In addition to his sister and brother Juan Carlos, survivors include his wife, visual effects supervisor Robin Trickett, whom he met on Odyssey 5; children Manny, Riley and twins Charlotte and Finley; mother Norma; and eight nieces and nephews.

Coto’s hobbies included model trains, full runs of Doc Savage and The Shadow and a backyard vineyard that yields 200 bottles of a zinfandel/petite sirah a year.

Coto wrote the label, which reads in part: “Nurtured in the California sunshine, and with the laughter of our four children … this is a humble wine rich in fruit and character for you to enjoy at every occasion in need of a special surprise.”