Vida Spears

{{short description|American television producer and writer (born 1956)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Vida Spears

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| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1956|4|8}}

| birth_place = Baldwin, Nassau County, New York, U.S.

| death_date =

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| occupation = Television producer, writer

| years_active = 1984–present

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}}

Vida Spears (born April 8, 1956) is an American television producer and writer. She is best known as the co-creator, with Ralph Farquhar and Sara Finney-Johnson, of the UPN sitcoms Moesha, starring Brandy, and The Parkers, starring Countess Vaughn and Mo'Nique.

Before Moesha, Spears and Finney-Johnson had been a long-term writing team, the first African-American female writing team in the television industry.{{Cite book |last1=Wolff |first1=Jurgen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=viBjDwAAQBAJ&dq=%2522vida+spears%2522&pg=PT324 |title=Successful Scriptwriting: How to write and pitch winning scripts for movies, sitcoms, soaps, serials and v ariety shows |last2=Cox |first2=Kerry |date=2011-05-30 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-59963-482-1 |language=en}} A native of Baldwin, New York and a graduate of Michigan State University, Spears also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Writers Guild of America.{{Cite book |last=Bois |first=William Edward Burghardt Du |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ES4rAQAAIAAJ&q=vida+spears |title=Crisis |date=1989 |publisher=Crisis Publishing Company |language=en}}

Her other credits as a writer include The Jeffersons, Married... with Children, 227, and The Parent 'Hood. Along with Finney-Johnson, she served as a writer and story editor on The Facts of Life and Family Matters, where they also later served as producers.{{Cite book |last=Adamo |first=Gregory |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKoT6p_elBEC&dq=vida+spears&pg=PA36 |title=African Americans in Television: Behind the Scenes |date=2010 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-1-4331-1039-9 |pages=36–38 |language=en}}

Spears and Finney-Johnson departed Family Matters in 1996 to create Moesha with Ralph Farquhar, where they served as showrunners. When Moesha series regular Countess Vaughn was spun off into her own series, The Parkers, Spears remained with Moesha while Finney was in charge of The Parkers.{{Cite web |last=Braxton | first=Greg|date=1999-12-02 |title=Co-Creator of TV Hit 'Moesha' Fired |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-02-fi-39659-story.html |access-date=2020-08-22 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} Following an alleged dispute with Brandy and her manager, her mother Sonya Norwood, Spears was dismissed from Moesha in 2001 and joined Farquhar and Finney-Johnson on The Parkers instead.