Catherine Cyran, an Emmy-nominated director, producer and writer, died on Dec. 24. She was 59.   

The filmmaker, known for three installments of the Prince & Me franchise, died in Vancouver, B.C., following a battle with cancer, a rep confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

Before beginning her career in film, the Brooklyn native graduated from Harvard and moved to London for the Royal Shakespeare Company as a management consultant. Once she returned to the United States, she worked as a political issue advisor for some campaigns in Massachusetts and also went to Stanford Business School for a bit. 

Eventually, Cyran decided to move her life to Los Angeles to pursue filmmaking. She started by working under prolific filmmaker Roger Corman, writing and producing low-budget movies, including A Cry in the Wild, Slumber Party Massacre III and Bloodfist II. 

In 1993, she wrote and directed her first feature film, White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild II, which got her an Emmy nomination. Her other credits include Dance Waters, True Heart, Sawbones, Christmas Do-Over and several holiday movies for Hallmark, such as Our Italian Christmas Memories, which premiered in November 2022. Cyran also wrote Honey 3: Dare to Dance and co-wrote Werewolf: The Beast Among Us. 

When she wasn’t directing and producing, Cyran wrote the novel, Island of the Last Great Auk, which was adapted from her screenplay, The Last Story. In 2014, her screenplay won the Canadian International Film Festival award for excellence in writing. 

Cyran was a longtime member of the Writers Guild of America, as well as the Directors Guild of Canada and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 

She is survived by her brother, Christopher Cyran, and her longtime partner, director Louis Morneau.