Tarses' brother, Matt Tarses, reflected on his sister's life in a statement released on Monday to The Wrap. LOS ANGELES A young, female executive arrives in the mens locker room that was broadcast television in the 1990s and snaps a few towels of her own, working with writers to shape juggernaut comedies like Mad About You and Friends. She is so good at spotting hits that she becomes, at 32, the president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a networks top programmer. William Morris Endeavor, which represented Tarses, called her a pioneer in every sense who always fought for strong creative work. [15], Tarses was the subject of what Bill Carter of The New York Times called an "unflattering profile" written by Lynn Hirschberg in The New York Times Magazine in July 1997, in which she "was portrayed as an embattled executive whose competence and professionalism was being questioned in Hollywood show business circles".[13][16][17]. he asks. Tarses says. Bader nods, apparently uncertain if this is a joke. She was the ultimate fan. Tarses died of complications from a previous cardiac event on Monday, according to numerous outlets, who cited a statement from her family. ''The Laybourne rumors created something of a backlash,'' she says. ''I'm just kidding. Sara James Tarses was born in Pittsburgh on March 16, 1964 to Jay and Rachel (Newdell) Tarses. They have three children. Tarses had made it through scheduling and then a meeting with the affiliates in Florida. That was when, through her boyfriend, Morton, she began talking to Ovitz. In 1998, ABC hosted more than 100 television critics and entertainment journalists from across the United States at a promotional event in Pasadena, Calif. ABC stars were also invited, including a young Ryan Reynolds, then appearing on a sitcom called Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. As the evening wore on, reporters witnessed Ms. Tarses and Mr. Reynolds go outside and become amorous. He is tall and handsome and has a steady, focused gaze. She left ABC with one popular sitcom, Dharma & Greg, and one comedy that was a hit with critics, Aaron Sorkins Sports Night. Jamie's new. Iger looks the part. Ms. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Mr. Ovitz, but it continued to hound her, making the young Ms. Tarses appear as someone who would do anything to get ahead, as Ms. Hirschberg wrote. Jamie Tarses Dies: Trailblazing TV Executive & Producer Was 56 https://t.co . Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Tarses decides to call Iger in New York for his advice. Upstart broadcast competitors the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB were siphoning young adult viewers away from the US Big Three networks. He was 57 years. [2][7][9] In 1991, she passed on her father's pilot about jazz musicians, called Baltimore. Just two weeks before, the rumor was that Stuart Bloomberg was being brought from New York to supervise Tarses. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different? She will be remembered as a mentor and role model for many, including myself, and an inspiration to the entire creative community for generations to come. ''The only thing I don't like is the name. Others stubbornly viewed her as a callous climber. Valentine, who is smart and is responsible for the biggest hit on ABC, ''Home Improvement,'' is said to have problems with Tarses, to think she is unfit for her job. This story has been shared 137,985 times. '', Iger, or What It Means to be Presidential. Her agent Rick Rosen confirmed the death, citing a family statement that said the cause was complications from a cardiac event. And yet, there are those, like Ovitz, who underestimated Iger's corporate savvy. ''He would say that they were hateful, horrible people who should be shot on sight. You think of her as a girl, and it changes how you do business with her. She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve, and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself, said Karey Burke, a friend and former colleague who now heads 20th Television. Jamie Tarses died on February 1, 2020. ''He was fun to play with. On the surface, her Years ago they competed only with one another. ABC badly needed fresh hit shows and Tarses, who had worked at NBC, had a reputation for serving up a steady supply especially zeitgeist-tapping sitcoms. He is on crutches and has a bandaged foot, having slipped on the sidewalk outside Spago last night. But if we fail, I'm sure Iger will not get the blame.''. The ABC scheduling meetings drag on for nearly a week. She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve, and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself. Were working to restore it. Under the terms of her release from NBC, Tarses, who left in the middle of development season, could not begin at ABC for four months. It's April 3, six weeks before the announcement of ABC's fall '97 schedule, and Tarses, wearing a black suit with a blue shirt, is engulfed by a black leather chair behind a very cluttered desk in her office, which looks out over the Century Plaza Hotel. ''Jamie was an excellent developer of shows,'' says Littlefield, her former boss. 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 cardiac event she suffered in early fall.She was 56. ''Simply Mahvelous?'' It's the worst trait you can have. The work is a blast. Not long before Harbert left, Ovitz was fired from Disney after only 14 months. ''And how you say it and when you say it determines how successful you'll be at the job. Getty Images. Tarses returns to her seat below the monitor. '', Distrust, or What She Learned From Dad And Dean Valentine. Jamie Tarses died in Los Angeles on February 1, 2021, at age 56, according to Tarses' family. You will be charged ''. [18][19] Tarses was a consultant for Studio 60. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. Jamie Tarses attends a 1998 screening of From The Earth To The Moon in Century City, California. He swiftly promoted Ms. Tarses to the networks comedy development department, where she worked on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which turned Will Smith into a household name; the oddball Wings, set at a New England airport; and Blossom, centered on a teenage Mayim Bialik. ''It's a job where you get to say yes or no a lot,'' says Ted Harbert, whom Tarses replaced as president for entertainment at ABC. Jamie Tarses Affair Is a Case Study Of a Meltdown on the Small Screen - WSJ About WSJ News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and. And the final call on many of these things is her call. She suffered a stroke late last year and had spent a long period in a coma. "She was never happier than when she was with Wyatt and Sloane. Friends, which she had helped develop, was the envy of every network. Tarses, embarrassed and angered, did not return Iger's calls for a few days. Ms. Tarses (pronounced TAR-siss) broke a Hollywood glass ceiling in 1996, when she became president of ABC Entertainment. [20] Later, she had a company called FanFare Productions at Sony Pictures Television. The Prime Video surprise hit was the last show Tarses launched before she had a stroke in the fall of 2020, just a . The family moved to suburban Los Angeles, where her father became a successful sitcom writer (first on The Bob Newhart Show). ''If they didn't want me to schedule, they wouldn't have given me the job.''. Tarses considers this for a moment. He has been married to Rachel Newdell since June 9, 1963. Still, he says that he plans to stand by her. She was 56. And still, if they succeed it's something of a losing battle: network viewer erosion is inevitable. While she headed off to Tuscany with Morton, Iger worked to convince Harbert to stay, because if he left right then, there would be no one running the entertainment division in the middle of development season. The implication, in all the talk, was that this was not how a network executive acted -- this was how a girl acted. 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. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, How NBCs Must See TV risk takers of the 90s are still launching groundbreaking TV. ''I didn't want to be out of the creative process and just do scheduling and promotion, and she didn't just want to do creative,'' he says. ''And that's her problem. It is also true that women -- some women -- have succeeded in Hollywood. he repeats. Some people spent more time trying to assassinate internal rivals than actually doing their jobs., After a year at ABC, Tarses, who had alienated some colleagues by not returning calls and missing morning meetings, gave the journalist Lynn Hirschberg unfettered access for an 8000-word cover story in The New York Times Magazine. After helping launch hits such as Dharma & Greg, Spin City, Sports Night and The Practice, Tarses resigned in 1999 amid high-profile power struggles and corporate restructuring by ABCs parent company, Disney. They have to deal with the affiliates, which own and run local stations. Asked about this, Tarses says: ''People truly believe that Iger is going to program the network. Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. He also fought for ''Twin Peaks'' and ''N.Y.P.D. Her most recent credits include "The Wilds" (2020) onAmazon and "The Mysterious Benedict Society" (2021) onDisney+. She left ABC with one popular sitcom, Dharma & Greg, and one comedy that was a hit with critics, Aaron Sorkins Sports Night. She also put The Practice, a popular legal drama from David E. Kelley, on the ABC schedule. Jamie Tarses threw in the towel at Disney-owned ABC last week, resigning her post as president of ABC Entertainment after some three years on the job. ''It's fine to have the desire to be head of a network,'' Harbert says, ''but when it comes to Jamie, it's hard to know exactly what happened. ''Oh, look,'' Tarses exclaims to her assistant, Chris von Goetz. It is an afternoon in early may, near the end of pilot season, the frantic time when TV executives decide on their schedules of shows for the fall, and Jamie Tarses, the 33-year-old president of ABC Entertainment, is driving her Range Rover from her office in Century City to a meeting across town. ", "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our longtime friend and client," the agency said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. Already a member? 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. 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. Tarses' rise at ABC coincided with the start of my career as a cub reporter, covering the network TV business in Los Angeles, and one of my first duties was to chronicle the tenure of the young . She unabashedly loved television and was an executive who made writers feel safe and heard. She had invented a new. Talking this spring with Iger about Tarses, he seems supportive but vague about her. You have the sense that, in the end, Iger usually wins. Watch TV.''. Iger seems certain of Tarses, certain of the future. The audience laughs. 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.. '', A Day at the Office, Toying With 'Roseanne' and Others. Bader sits facing Tarses' desk. Alas, her reign at NBC would only last 11 months. Watch TV.'' '', Smoking her way through the canyons, Tarses stares at the road ahead. 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. True or not, it's history. She ultimately resigned in 1999. She came in under cruel and unusual circumstances, and TV is still a male-dominated, chauvinistic world, and they just do not want that young, articulate, talented, outspoken woman to succeed. Tarses was a consultant on another Sorkin show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a 2006 NBC drama set inside a Saturday Night Live-type sketch comedy show. My entire existence has been about defending myself. ''When I was president of entertainment, I learned that the worst thing I could be was arrogant,'' he says. Unlike Harbert, Tarses lacked management skills. There is something distinctly feline about her. Jamie Tarses, the first woman to head a network entertainment division, has died. ''He had no place in the process,'' Iger explains. when Tarses removed a ''Murder One'' mini-series from the sweeps lineup, Bochco, incensed by her lack of respect, fired off an angry letter to Iger; Iger then faxed it to Tarses. 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. ), After graduating from Williams College, she started her career in 1985 as an assistant at "Saturday Night Live" andmoved to NBC Entertainment two years later, where she helped developiconic TV shows including "Friends" and "Mad About You. Even so, Tarses was criticised at times as showing poor judgment. '', The Men in Tarses' Life: Ovitz, Morton and Harbert. Jamie Tarses, the first-ever woman to oversee programming at a major broadcast network, died on Monday, the New York Times reports. Bader, who is rather earnest, isn't certain if Tarses is fooling around or not and says nothing. She perfected that understanding as she became a development exec.. (Photo by Greg Doherty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images). You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms. ABC badly needed fresh hit shows, and Ms. Tarses, who had worked at NBC, had a reputation for serving up a steady supply especially zeitgeist-tapping sitcoms. Jamie had a stroke during the fall of 2020 and died in Los Angeles. With regard to Tarses' often-stated desire to create a network identity for ABC that is younger, more urban, hipper, he says, somewhat surprisingly: ''Jamie doesn't really know. Harbert could leave after six months if he so desired. ''Because I'm really rooting for CBS.''. Even so, Ms. Tarses was criticized at times as showing poor judgment. A scene is played; Tarses studies one of the monitors and then sends Bukinik with her desired changes to the director. 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. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Ovitz, but it continued to hound her, making the young Tarses appear as someone who would do anything to get ahead, as Ms Hirschberg wrote. Tarses stares a second, as if to say, What did I do now? Brandon Tartikoff, NBCs much-admired entertainment chief, became her mentor. 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. All Rights Reserved. The agents and studios take over entire floors of hotels, set up conference rooms, install extra phone lines and lobby for their shows, new and old. The audience laughs, again, but the message is very confusing. Shows get less of a chance and executives get less of a chance. Laybourne's seeming unwillingness to publicly deny her interest in Tarses' job is suspicious, and Eisner, despite all the turmoil at the network, has never issued a statement of support for Tarses. Although popular with writers and producers, Bloomberg can be awkward with more corporate types. Did Jamie Tarses have a stroke? Iger, after all, has his own boss to placate, and Eisner is not happy with how the network is performing. And she is not wrong to be worried. The cause of death was heart complications from a cardiac event last fall, according to a family statement. Credit:Getty. Tarses death was confirmed by her family. FRIENDS executive Jamie Tarses has died at just 56 after reportedly suffering from complications following a cardiac event. a meteoric rise that at one point made her the youngest person and only The article, which pointedly discussed Tarsess hairstyle and feminine way of sitting, helped colour the rest of Tarses career. 'Hiller and Diller.' Tarses was exposed to television from an early age:Her father, Jay Tarses, created NBC's "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd," as well as "Buffalo Bill." By the end, ABC had changed 13 hours out of a 22-hour schedule. One of Tarses' first executive decisions at ABC was to push for Morton to have a production deal at the network. ''Hey, Bob,'' she says, as Bader listens in. ''Bob sent me a funny fax.'' The cause of death was heart complications from a. Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday in Los Angeles at 56. Upstart broadcast competitors the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. "The allotment was to work on one room," Shamshiri notes. ''Take our picture,'' she shrieks. Tarses soon after she was appointed president of ABC Entertainment in 1996. The complaints were, immediate and loud: she didn't return phone calls; she didn't encourage her staff; she couldn't figure out how to integrate her sensibility. She asked why, and Iger told her, simply, that she needed the help. She then worked as a casting director for Lorimar Productions, filling roles for mid-run Perfect Strangers. Katie Couric Calls Barbara Walters 'the OG of Female Broadcasters' in Tribute After Her Death, Paying Tribute to the Celebrities Who Have Died in 2023. her, sparking a nasty internal political battle that she lost. But being a great developer does not necessarily mean you will succeed as a network entertainment-division president. 3. Morton has an easy charm and seems to know everyone in the business on both coasts. Jamie Tarses, the producer and groundbreaking TV executive who as president of ABC Entertainment from 1996-99 became the first woman to serve as head a network entertainment division, died. ''Maybe we should get a song,'' she says flirtatiously. '' Let's try and embrace as many families viewing as we can, but let's embrace quality.'' Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was "complications from a cardiac. Her age, along with her status as the first woman to have that prestigious job, resulted in an unusual amount of scrutiny, often negative. Three years ago, Jamie Tarses arrived at ABC television as a 32-year-old When not working, Nicholas can be found playing with his 5 dogs, listening to pop music or eating mozzarella sticks. ''I was popping out a tape,'' Tarses says rather defensively, ''and the dial was on CBS. The piece portrayed Tarses as a nervous girl who swung erratically between arrogance and insecurity. Tarses smiles. Whether Tarses' style bothered Harbert is hard to say. 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. He had his own problems, receiving sometimes 10, 12 calls a day from Eisner asking about this show or that cost. While at ABC, she helped develop and greenlight Dharma & Greg. A lot of it was pure sexism, said Betsy Thomas, a screenwriter and friend. Her last project, The Mysterious Benedict Society, is currently listed as in post-production for the Disney+ streaming service. '', This is in March. Jay Tarses. 1, where it had been only four years before. Refresh for updates Pioneering TV executive Jamie Tarses is being remembered in Hollywood today as a "fun, funny, brutally honest" and a "driving force" in some of the most beloved television series of a generation. She was highly creative herself and, of course, came from a family of writers.. He created and produced The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd and The Slap Maxwell Story, co-created Buffalo Bill (with Tom Patchett), and was an executive producer for The Bob Newhart Show.. Tarses was born in Baltimore, Maryland.He graduated from Williams College in 1961. ''Don't worry. So were cable channels. a case study in dysfunctional corporate relationships. Tarses ponders a moment and then writes her fax reply: ''We already have a mini-series about a guy who swallows a penny and dies and a woman who takes too big a bite of steak and dies, but if you want this, too, we'd be happy to do it.''. What's wrong? Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was complications from a cardiac event. ''You can discuss the pros and cons of every show only so many times, and then you have to render a decision. But Bochco's letter to Iger is a rather typical Hollywood-style power play. A kind of last straw may have come when Tarses gave the go-ahead to a fall pilot -- which Eisner and Iger had turned down for the schedule -- as a midseason replacement show; furious, Iger ordered her to cancel the show. In a statement, 20th Television president Karey Burke said, Jamie was a trailblazer in the truest sense of the word. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as Minnie Mouse in one article and scarily ruthless in another. We will miss her greatly.. I had anticipated that he was going to come in and wipe the board off and say goodbye. 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.