She accepted, but some of the fizz had gone out of it all. But she fizzles in epic fashion, brought down by corporate dysfunction, unvarnished sexism, self-sabotage, weaponised industry gossip and scalding news media scrutiny. It sounds too ethnic, too Jewish. ''If they didn't want me to schedule, they wouldn't have given me the job.''. (Tartikoff was 31 when he took over at NBC.) ''I'm kidding, Jeff,'' Tarses says. Before she blasted through glass ceilings for female executives in the TV industry, Tarses played a major role in the development of modern TV classics, including two tentpole entries in NBCs iconic Thursday night must-see TV lineup: Friends and Frasier., Despite being a mega power player, Tarses once humbly said, [Im] a genuine fan of the medium. The audience laughs. When she can't reach him she stares into the middle distance, looking worried. Tarses died of complications from a previous cardiac event on Monday, according to numerous outlets, who cited a statement from her family. The piece portrayed Ms. Tarses as a nervous girl who swung erratically between arrogance and insecurity. '', It was when Iger ran the entertainment division that ABC was No. She asked why, and Iger told her, simply, that she needed the help. Jamie Tarses died on February 1, 2020. Biz Markie, DJ And 'Just A Friend' Rapper, Dies After Stroke In April July 17, 202111:19 AM ET Heard on All Things Considered Andrew Limbong Rapper and DJ Biz Markie has died. Iger, the head of ABC, had his doubts, too, but he believed it was too late to turn back and had faith in Tarses' development skills. Thomas Gibson and Jenna Elfman in 1998 in Dharma & Greg, a popular sitcom that Ms. Tarses developed at ABC. She was . ''What would the premise be?'' You think of her as a girl, and it changes how you do business with her. '', But move on to where? The Stars of That '70s Show: Where Are They Now? It should be an easy day, a typical pilot-season day like the ones she had, and was fond of, at NBC. Jamie Tarses, the first woman to run a network entertainment division, died Monday morning due to complications from a cardiac event she suffered last fall. She was 56. Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was "complications from a cardiac. The ads seem to discourage viewing; they seem to emphasize why TV is, in fact, bad, and they don't successfully replace ABC's old-fashioned image with anything concrete. After leaving ABC, Tarses worked on several other series over the years, including Happy Endings and most recently Amazon's The Wilds. He had his own problems, receiving sometimes 10, 12 calls a day from Eisner asking about this show or that cost. Alex Murdaugh Receives Life Sentence: What Happens Now? HBO was moving into original programming with shows like Sex and the City, further diluting the talent pool. She is survived by her partner Paddy Aubrey; their children, Wyatt and Sloane; her parents, Jay and Rachel Tarses; her siblings, Matt and Mallory Tarses; her sister-in-law, Katie Tarses; three nieces; and a nephew. Despite her age and reputation, Tarses did not develop any particularly daring pilots: there were no potentially groundbreaking shows like ''Seinfeld'' or ''The X-Files.'' Jamie Tarses attends the Women In Film 2018 Crystal + Lucy Award at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.Credit:Getty, Karey Burke, who ran ABC from 2018 to 2020 and is now president of 20th Television, a leading TV studio, said of Tarses in a statement: She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself.. Ms. Tarses resigned last week as president of ABC Entertainment, ending She needs a protector, and without Harbert or Ovitz, she was left with Iger, who was 3,000 miles away in New York and not interested in watching out for her on a daily basis. And still, if they succeed it's something of a losing battle: network viewer erosion is inevitable. ''We should do something to start building up to the last 'Roseanne,' '' Bader says. She was the first woman and one of the youngest people to hold such a post in an American broadcast network. What lawsuit? Tarses smiles. One of the big debates during the closed-door Tarses-Iger-Eisner fall-scheduling meetings going on this week is whether to free up Wednesday night at 10, traditionally the hour given to ''Prime Time Live,'' and put in a new drama, ''The Practice,'' a law show created and produced by David E. Kelley (''Chicago Hope,'' ''Picket Fences''). Upstart broadcast competitors the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. Writer: The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. [12][13][14] She resigned in August 1999 with two years remaining on her contract. The News of Her Demise May Not Be Exaggerated. ''But Eisner wasn't bad. It is true that Hollywood can be sexist, and it is difficult to be the first woman anything, and turning around ABC would be a tough job for anybody. For some in the community, Tarses' oversleeping confirmed rumors about her after-hours behavior -- her being out on the town with Morton or friends, staying out until all hours of the night. Or silently suffering through another attack. Jamie runs and hides. Network entertainment presidents are in charge of promos, which advertise the network and its shows. [22] In 2010, she produced several television series, including Mr. Sunshine, Happy Endings, and Franklin & Bash. That automatically created jealousy and resentment., Yes, she made mistakes. Even so, Ms. Tarses was criticized at times as showing poor judgment. In June 1996, at just age 32, Tarses became the first woman to be named entertainment president at a major network when she took the role at ABC. When she arrived at ABC in the spring of 1996, Ms. Tarses was the second-youngest person ever to be the lead programmer of a network. Robert Iger, who had also recommended Tarses, was supportive of the choice. Whom to believe, what to believe -- it's all exhausting. She had invented a new. Michael Eisner, the head of Disney, needed to be reassured in the wake of the sexual-harassment leak, and is said to have never been fully convinced that Tarses belonged at ABC. ''It's up against the birth of the baby on 'Mad About You' '' -- the NBC hit that helped push ''Roseanne'' off its Tuesday-night perch. Anyone can read what you share. He talks, but she doesn't seem to hear. ''She did great,'' Iger says, sounding relieved. Our hearts go out to her family during this difficult time and we honor her legacy.. ", Photo: Greg Doherty/Patrick McMullan via Getty, Richard Belzer, 'Law & Order: SVU' Star, Dead at 78. Weeks later, when the network announces that a 47-year-old ABC executive named Stuart Bloomberg will become chairman of ABC Entertainment -- will be put in charge of Tarses and loom as an invitation for her to leave -- she will seem almost relieved. Jamie Tarses, who became the first woman to head a major network entertainment division during a tumultuous run in the 1990s at ABC, died Monday of complications from a cardiac event last fall, her family confirmed. Once Tarses accepted Ovitz's offer to go to ABC, there was the matter of her existing contract. Still, Jamie Tarses is not just any woman, and the criticisms of her are personal and specific: it is this 33-year-old, this woman, with her mix of insecurity and ambition, confidence and self-destructiveness, brilliance and lack of executive skills, who has them wondering. In the last couple months, it has become clear that while Iger is on her side, he is also in New York and is not particularly interested in her pilot whirl. And they have to negotiate, deftly, the perilous maze that is the TV business -- knowing whom to stroke, when to give up, how to say one thing and then, the following day, precisely the opposite. "She was never happier than when she was with Wyatt and Sloane. The Prime Video surprise hit was the last show Tarses launched before she had a stroke in the fall of 2020, just a . Tarses was involved in various charitable organizations, including Young Storytellers, which reaches out to youths by promoting the power of storytelling. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Bader sits facing Tarses' desk. Her father is veteran TV producer Jay Tarses, who created such shows as The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. Her brother, Matt, is also a writer-producer. '', The Men in Tarses' Life: Ovitz, Morton and Harbert. He would say that they were hateful, horrible people who should be shot on sight.. ''I need this to work,'' Tarses says. Stephen Battaglio writes about television and the media business for the Los Angeles Times out of New York. Tarses served as manager of current comedy programming where she oversaw series such as Cheers and A Different World before she continued to earn various promotions, eventually becoming involved in the development of series such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Blossom, the outlet reported. Bader nods, apparently uncertain if this is a joke. Nicholas has previous work experience with Billboard, POPSUGAR, Bustle and Elite Daily. Getty Images. After working as an assistant on NBC's Saturday Night Live, Tarses went on to a role as casting director for Lorimar Productions. '', Smoking her way through the canyons, Tarses stares at the road ahead. Around the same time, Warren Littlefield renewed his contract with NBC for five years, thereby blocking Tarses' path to that network's top programming rung. (Mr. Ohlmeyer blamed Mr. Ovitz for the rumor and publicly called him the Antichrist, leading to a media frenzy.) Tarses says the play is not autobiographical--he has been married for 30 years and has three grown children--but that he had wanted to write for some time about marriage and mortality. Jamie Tarses, who broke the glass ceiling for female TV executives as the first woman to run a network entertainment division, passed away this morning from complications stemming from a. I had anticipated that he was going to come in and wipe the board off and say goodbye. ''It's been a year and there are still the rumors. Within a few hours of meeting her, I felt like Id known her for years, said longtime friend and collaborator Gabrielle Allan-Greenberg, in the family's statement. Updated She was 56. This is how an easy day turns into something else. Tarseswho spent nearly a decade as an executive at NBC and has produced such series as Happy Endings, Franklin & Bash, and the upcoming TBS comedy Your Family or Mine was the lucky bidder. But Ovitz had been Eisner's choice, and this was Ovitz's first big hire, and Eisner was willing to go with his choice. Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday in Los Angeles at 56. After graduation, in 1985, she spent a year as a production assistant on ''Saturday Night Live'' in New York, then went back to Los Angeles and joined the casting department at Lorimar, working on shows like ''Perfect Strangers.'' So, on a Sunday evening in mid-February last year, Harbert, who was still unaware of the Tarses discussions, received a phone call at home from Warren Littlefield informing him that Jamie Tarses was about to be given his job. Jamie Tarses, the first female president of a broadcast network, died Monday followingcomplications from a cardiac event last fall, her family confirmed in a statementprovided by Sony Pictures Television, where she had a production deal. her, sparking a nasty internal political battle that she lost. ''Jamie did not want to call and tell Kelley the bad news herself,'' says an agent close to the negotiations. '', The ABC announcement is held at Radio City Music Hall and begins with several staged tableaux -- two kids watching ''Home Improvement,'' some guys in a bar staring at ''Monday Night Football,'' a young couple enjoying ''The Drew Carey Show'' and an executive in a high-backed leather chair watching ''N.Y.P.D. Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday . Harbert, who had been at ABC nearly 20 years -- his entire professional life -- immediately called Iger in New York, who reassured him that he was not being fired, but would be moved up. But she was under contract at NBC. Ari Emanuel lets his AI alter ego open Endeavors earnings call, WGA chief negotiator David Young replaced due to illness ahead of key talks with studios, WGA asks members to vote on key demands in bargaining with studios. The scene is then played again, only slower or faster or with a line punched up or a reading a shade warmer. Her bosses, including Robert A. Iger, then chairman of the ABC Group, had been applying patches to the situation. They divorced in 1996. She doesn't want anyone to know she smokes. they can tell you in their sleep.''. She was 56. CNNs Sandra Gonzalez contributed to this report. It's the worst trait you can have. William Morris Endeavor, which represented Tarses, called her a pioneer in every sense who always fought for strong creative work. Tarses was only 32 when she was named president of ABC Entertainment in June 1996. Understanding writers wants and needs probably began by growing up in a household with her dad who wrote and produced comedies. Iger looks the part. And there is, as always, a pilot by a star producer (Steven Bochco), along with a few novelty ideas that are usually too risky or test too poorly to make it onto the schedule. Watch TV.'' '', Iger, or What It Means to be Presidential. She is small and dark and is wearing black pants and a tan blazer, the sleeves of which have been hastily hemmed with safety pins. ''The only thing I don't like is the name. Jay Tarses was born on 3 July 1939 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Even after leaving ABC in 1999,Tarses went on to pursue a prolificcareer as a producer with hits including "My Boys," "Happy Endings," and "Marry Me," through Sony. -- Tarses has to figure out what to do with ''Roseanne. She worries that she has earned few allies inside ABC, which, as her first season with the network reaches its end and she prepares her first fall schedule, is still mired in third place behind NBC and CBS -- mired and sinking. She was a mentor and friend, and many of us owe so much to her. Lewis, meanwhile, has just been left by his second wife and is rearing two uncontrollable children. After spouting some strategically jiggered, statistics and boasting that ABC scored big, with adults aged 18 to 49, which is all anyone at any network really cares about, Tarses goes through the schedule. [8], In September 1987, Tarses was hired by NBC Productions' Brandon Tartikoff as the manager of creative affairs. Tarses asks. As Warren Littlefield, her boss there, put it, ''She completely understood the process.''. In 1998, ABC hosted more than 100 television critics and entertainment journalists from across the United States at a promotional event in Pasadena, California. [18][19] Tarses was a consultant for Studio 60. The cause of death was heart complications from a. They had not thought as much of her presentation of the schedule as she thought. [2], She served on the board of directors and the advisory board of directors for Young Storytellers, an arts education nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles. Vicious infighting ensued, what The Wall Street Journal later deemed a case study in dysfunctional corporate relationships.. And I don't know if I'll get the credit if we succeed. In 1996, about 49 percent of prime-time viewers watched ABC, CBS or NBC, down from roughly 74 percent a decade earlier, according to Nielsen data. She thought little of that talk. Sara James Tarses (March 19, 1964 - February 1, 2021) was an American television producer and television studio executive. Amanda Peet, who played Jordan McDeere, the head of fictional network NBS on the NBC show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, said her character "is loosely based" on Tarses. Tarses and her staff arrive on May 10 for a series of crucial meetings. Tarses decides to call Iger in New York for his advice. (''What am I going to do, lie?'' They joked about it at dinner. She can't reach him and checks the time. TERI HATCHER WAS ALMOST JAMIE. Jamie Tarses Children. His coverage of the television industry has appeared in TV Guide, the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Fortune, the Hollywood Reporter, Inside.com and Adweek. ", "Jamie Tarses Dies: Trailblazing TV Executive & Producer Was 56", "Tarses-Morton Split Blamed for Sitcom Downfall", "Jamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56", "Jamie Tarses, first female TV network entertainment head, dies at 56", "Fox Developing Family Comedy 'Bastards' From 'Butter' Scribe", "Amazon Studios Names Full Cast of 'Really' Comedy Pilot From Jay Chandrasekhar and Jamie Tarses", "Milwaukee's new show now called "Backyards and Bullets", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jamie_Tarses&oldid=1134947833, This page was last edited on 21 January 2023, at 17:30. But the same could be said about any guy in Hollywood especially then and none of them had the added pressure of breaking a glass ceiling.. ", Women:50 most powerful women in entertainment, In 1996, Tarses was appointed president of ABC Entertainment, one of the youngest executives to lead a large network entertainment division. ''TV Is Good,'' more than the new schedule, reflects Tarses' age. Not long before Harbert left, Ovitz was fired from Disney after only 14 months. It was that accusation again: girl. To ABC, Tarses represented youth and, more important, a key to the secrets of NBC, the No. Tarses left ABC in 1999 and went on to become an independent TV producer for a number of networks, turning out such shows as Happy Endings, Franklin & Bash and My Boys. She had a project in production for Disney+ called The Mysterious Benedict Society. She also produced The Wilds for Amazon Prime. In the new show, Tarses explains, Roseanne will be a single mom who relocates to Las Vegas and moves in with a black comedian named Simply Mahvelous. Letterman soon broke off contact with ABC and Ovitz and eventually fired Morton, telling friends that Morton, who had long wanted to head Letterman's production company, was not supporting Letterman's interests but his own. Jamie Tarses, Trailblazing TV Exec, Dies at 56 WME, the agency that represented Tarses, said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened by the . And then, Tarses had Morton attending network promo meetings in New York. Michael Ovitz, the polarizing former power agent, had become Disneys president. ''This may sound sexist, but women are emotional and Jamie is particularly emotional. Iger now had to convince her to accept essentially the same job she had had at NBC -- No. Jamie Tarses, the first woman to run a network entertainment division, died Monday morning due to complications from a cardiac event she suffered last fall. he says later. Jamie had a remarkable ability to engage writers to understand their twisted, dark, joyful, brilliant complexity and really speak their language and help them achieve their creative goals, said Warren Littlefield, who was NBCs president of entertainment from 1991 to 1998. Tarses had a stroke in the fall of 2020, spent time in a coma, and then died in Los Angeles on February 1, 2021, at age 56 from what a family spokesperson called "complications of a cardiac event". There is something distinctly feline about her.
