Ellen Weston, the actress, soap opera writer and behind-the-scenes Hollywood force who moved from Broadway stages to classic TV sets and daytime drama writers’ rooms, has died. She was 87.

Weston died May 28 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, her friend, producer and manager Susan Zachary, told The Hollywood Reporter.

For decades, Weston was one of those rare Hollywood talents who seemed to do a little bit of everything. She acted on Broadway, appeared on some of TV’s most recognizable shows, wrote for daytime soaps, helped craft TV movies and even penned lyrics for dozens of songs recorded by pop star Lesley Gore.

Older TV fans may remember Weston from her turn on Get Smart, where she played Dr. Steele, a glamorous CONTROL chemist who also worked as a showgirl, during the NBC spy comedy’s third season in the late 1960s.

She also appeared on S.W.A.T. in 1975, playing Betty Harrelson, the wife of Steve Forrest’s tough-guy Lt. “Hondo” Harrelson.

But Weston’s career stretched far beyond those credits.

Born Ellen Rachel Weinstein in New York on April 19, 1939, she grew up the daughter of educators and was drawn to show business at a young age. Still, even as a child, she understood that fame came with a dangerous pull.

In a 1968 interview, Weston said she used to imagine herself as a twin.

“One was always the adorable, well-loved star. The other was the poor soul, the nebbish,” she said. “Show business always seemed so untouchable, like Cinderella. But I also always felt instinctively that there was something destructive about it and sensed some imminent danger in wanting it so badly.”

That complicated relationship with fame did not stop her from chasing the spotlight.

Weston studied at the Performing Arts High School, Hofstra University, NYU and Hunter College before landing on Broadway in 1960 as an understudy in Toys in the Attic, the drama starring Jason Robards Jr. and Maureen Stapleton and directed by Arthur Penn.

The following year, she appeared in A Far Country as the sister of Sigmund Freud, played by Steven Hill. In 1962, she joined the long-running comedy Mary, Mary, replacing Betsy von Furstenberg in a cast led by Barbara Bel Geddes.

On television, Weston built an impressive résumé that stretched across some of the best-known shows of the era.

Her credits included Run for Your Life, N.Y.P.D., Bonanza, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Mannix, Bewitched, Hawkins, Harry O, Barnaby Jones, The Bob Newhart Show, Cannon, Baretta and Wonder Woman.

Soap fans, however, knew her from both sides of the camera.

Weston played Robin Fletcher on CBS’ The Guiding Light in 1963 and 1964. She later appeared as Carol Pearson and Karen Gregory on NBC’s Another World from 1964 to 1965, and as Suzanne Thurston on CBS’ The Young and the Restless from 1978 to 1980.

Years later, she returned to daytime TV as a writer.

She wrote for the CBS soap Capitol in 1986 before being hired in 2003 by Guiding Light executive producer John Conboy to serve as co-head writer on the long-running drama.

“I like to think of every day as a mini-movie,” Weston once told Soap Opera Digest.

Her work on Guiding Light earned her a Writers Guild of America Award. She stayed with the show for about two years before being replaced by David Kreizman.

Weston also made a surprising mark in music.

She teamed up with Lesley Gore, the singer best known for It’s My Party and You Don’t Own Me, during a major creative chapter in Gore’s career. Weston wrote seven songs with Gore for the 1972 album Someplace Else Now, Gore’s first LP in five years.

She later wrote all the songs for Gore’s 1975 album Love Me by Name, which was produced by Quincy Jones.

Trevor Tolliver, author of You Don’t Own Me: The Life and Times of Lesley Gore, wrote that Weston and Gore created about 60 original songs together, praising the mix of Gore’s musical instincts and Weston’s gift for words.

Weston was not finished reinventing herself.

Later in life, she went to law school and worked in business affairs at CBS. She also found success writing and producing TV movies. One of her credits was the 1999 ABC movie And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story.

Her personal life included marriages to music engineer Ami Hadani, co-founder of the Los Angeles recording studio TTG, and composer Marvin Laird. Both marriages ended in divorce.

She is survived by her son, Jon Weston, a sound designer.

In a touching statement, Weston’s friends remembered her as much more than a performer or writer. They described her as “a rare person who had both right and left-brain proficiency,” saying she was just as comfortable with a legal brief as she was with a knitting needle.

They also called her a trusted “consigliere” who offered advice, compassion and loyalty to those closest to her.

“She was beyond a loyal friend — she was a fierce advocate for every single one of us,” her friends said.

Even near the end of her life, Weston kept moving, creating and learning.

Her friends said she remained stylish, active and full of curiosity, still dancing and taking new classes. Her latest passion was pottery, a class she continued until about a month before her death.

After a life spent acting, writing, producing, studying law and creating music, Weston leaves behind a Hollywood story filled with reinvention, talent and old-school glamour.