Yahoo Lifestyle Allyce Ozarski Dies: ‘Baskets’, ‘SMILF’ & ‘I Love That For You’ Producer Was 41
Allyce Ozarski, an Emmy-nominated TV producer on I Love That for You, Baskets, SMILF, I Love You, America and two upcoming series from Vince Gilligan and Will Ferrell, has died. She was 41. Her family said she died January 24 of breast cancer in Los Angeles.
Ozarski shared an Emmy nom for Outstanding Sketch Variety Series as producer on Sarah Silverman’s I Love You, America in 2018. Her producing credits also include The L Word: Generation Q, Problematic with Moshe Kasher and Haunting of the Mary Celeste.
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Raised in Poway, northeast of San Diego, Ozarski was selling rugs when a chance meeting with a TV director led to her first showbiz gig. After serving as travel coordinator on the Noggin surfing series Beyond the Break in 2007, she worked as a production coordinator or assistant into the mid-2010s on TV shows including NBC’s The Cape, Up All Night and A to Z; HBO’s Togetherness; and ABC Family’s Lincoln Heights.
She moved up to production manager on episodes of HBO’s Insecure and FX’s Better Things and Baskets. She served as co-producer or producer on later seasons of the quirky rodeo-clown dramedy Baskets, which starred Zach Galifianakis and Louie Anderson.
She also was a producer on the final second season of Showtime’s Frankie Shaw comedy SMILF and on the premium cabler’s Super Pumped. Ozarski went on to become an executive producer on sequel drama The L Word: Generation Q for Showtime, where she was under an overall deal.
“I’m so grateful to have known her, to have worked with her, to have built something with her,” Generation Q showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan said of Ozarski. “Her confidence made me a better creator, and, perhaps more significantly, her seemingly endless patience made me a better mother. She was and is my North Star.”
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She also is an exec producer on Gilligan’s upcoming series starring Rhea Seehorn and Golf, the comedy series starring and co-created by Ferrell.
Ozarski and her producing partner Anna Dokoza recently co-founded Funny Adjacent Productions to develop and produce a wide range of projects in both narrative and unscripted formats.
Her family said Ozarski always fought for safer working conditions for her film crews and elevated those with whom she worked, adding that she will be remembered as a powerful presence who cared deeply about every little detail, her sense of humor and her integrity.
Ozarski is survived by her husband, director Jonathan Haug; their 4-year-old daughter, Harley Haug; her parents Robert and Idelma Ozarski; and brothers Adam Ozarski and Marc Ozarski. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests making a donation to Harley’s Scholar Share Education Fund here, using code S3K-662.
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