Born to a musical family in Chicago, David Odell loved music first and longest—from the classical canon to the bawdy, down-home blues—but his inventiveness found an outlet in any medium he chose. He wrote and directed musicals at New Trier High School, and later acted in productions at Harvard College (A.B. '67), where he improvised any dialogue he couldn't remember—often improving the script. He studied Latin, Greek, and English Literature, immersing himself in the pantheon of yarn-spinners from Homer to Shakespeare.

As a new grad, he wrote technical manuals for mainframe computers by day—and churned out screenplays by night. In 1972, to pursue his love of movies, he moved with his new bride from Manhattan to Los Angeles. His many writing credits include "The Dark Crystal" and The Muppet Show, for which he won an Emmy Award. Of all his creative work, Odell cherished his time with Jim Henson, with whom he also worked on "The Muppet Movie." He often said that Henson was the only true genius he ever worked with.

Odell was a dedicated union member, serving on the Credits Committee of the Writers Guild of America West. He was called upon countless times to apply his creative and analytical gifts to credit arbitrations—following structure and character development through dozens of drafts by multiple writers. He said it was a form of therapy to help writers get the credit they deserve.

In his own writing, he saw no meaningful distinction between lowbrow and highbrow, as long as the work was funny and challenging in some way. "Talking down to an audience" was not in his repertoire.

To speak of David is to overuse the word "brilliant": brilliant wit, brilliant student of human nature, brilliant chef. But most of all: Brilliant lover of family.

His house in Pacific Palisades was a continual Algonquin Roundtable of journalists, priests, screenwriters, actors, and up-and-coming Broadway playwrights and documentary filmmakers. He loved people who disagreed with him, as long as they were witty. He made wonderful dinners, played the baby grand piano in the living room for his guests, and then asked some provocative questions to get them all started.