‘MADtv’ writer and producer

Lauren Dombrowski, 51, a stand-up comedian who was a co-executive producer and writer for Fox’s late-night comedy series “MADtv,” died of cancer Oct. 8 at her Los Angeles home, said her husband, Marko Babineau.

After graduating in 1979 from Boston’s Emerson College, Dombrowski became one of the few women who regularly performed in the city’s comedy club scene, which also nurtured the careers of her friends Denis Leary and Steven Wright.

“Lauren was one of the funniest people ever to grace this Earth,” Leary said in a statement. “She made me laugh out loud every single time we saw each other.”

After watching her perform in 1985, a Boston Globe critic wrote that she was “a younger, hipper answer to Joan Rivers.”

Dombrowski moved to Los Angeles more than a dozen years ago and steadily rose through the ranks at “MADtv.”

“She was hysterically funny, truly one of the funniest people I’ve ever met,” Michael Hitchcock, a co-executive producer of “MADtv,” said last week in the Boston Globe.

Born in 1957 in Lynnfield, Mass., Dombrowski grew up wanting to be a comedian.

Her twin sister, Lynne DiCristina, said “wicked stage fright” caused her sister to pursue an offstage role in comedy, the Globe reported.

Dombrowski learned she had cancer 10 days after her honeymoon in 2001.

She actively counseled women in self-help groups and held a comedy fund-raiser last fall in Malibu to benefit cancer research at the City of Hope.