She graduated from Massachusetts Williams College in 1985 with a degree in theater, and quickly scored a low-profile job as an assistant on Saturday Night Live, followed by a stint as casting director for Lorimar Productions. (Photo by Greg Doherty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images). Jamie Tarses, who in 1996 became the first woman to serve as entertainment president of a broadcast network, died on Monday. Tarses quickly developed strong relationships with actors and writers and was renowned for her ability to find and develop material, which led to her rise at the network. Some things are systemic problems with ABC. He began working with the brand as an Editorial Intern in early 2020, before later transitioning to a freelance role, and then staff positions soon after. CNN 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. ''Bloomberg was being told by the boyfriend how to do his job.''. 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. A lot of it was pure sexism, said Betsy Thomas, a screenwriter and friend. Tarses walked into a mess at ABC. (Neither Ohlmeyer nor Tarses will discuss the allegations for the record.) She does not want to talk about the problems with Iger, or the problems Iger believes she was having inside the office and out. To calm herself, Tarses lights a cigarette. All network heads make promises they can't keep, but they deal with it. 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. As an executive and producer, she was a champion for storytellers, having been raised by one of the all-timegreats, Burke said. Tarses' day began with a pile of scripts, breakfast at 8 with an agent at the Peninsula Hotel (''He was 15 minutes late,'' she keeps mentioning) and some talk concerning casting for a pilot about a genie. Less than 24 hours after dining with her parents and Morton, Tarses got the news that Bloomberg was being brought in above her. Bader asks. She broke barriers as a woman in the TV industry and turned out hit after hit, only to see it all fizzle under a very public spotlight. After graduating from Williams College, she became an assistant casting executive on Saturday Night Live before joining Lorimar Television. 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. Jay Tarses was born on July 3, 1939 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. In 1987, she jumped to NBC, where she prospered. "Jamie was a pioneer in every sense, breaking the glass ceiling of the television industry, and embodying the passion and tenacity that made her someone who was always ahead of her time. ''Do you want me to use euphemisms?'' Ms. Tarses (pronounced TAR-siss) broke a Hollywood glass ceiling in 1996, when she became president of ABC Entertainment. Tarses helped pave the way for female creatives, as she was the first . relationships? Her legs folded under her, she rolls her chair back and forth, back and forth. Whether Tarses' style bothered Harbert is hard to say. Iger knows that turning ABC around will be difficult. She was 56. ''Hiller and Diller'' stars Kevin Nealon (of ''Saturday Night Live'') and Richard Lewis (of baggy black, tennis shoes and stand-up) as a comedy-writing team. and then realizes this is silliness, nothing to worry about. 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. 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. "For all her talent and success in entertainment, the thing Jamie was proudest of and most consumed by were her two kids," he said. At ABC, she ran into a political minefield the network had recently been acquired by Disney and left the job after three years. Tarses died of complications from a previous cardiac event on Monday, according to numerous outlets, who cited a statement from her family. A Disney+ series, The Mysterious Benedict Society, which Tarses worked on as an executive producer is expected to premiere later this year. The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC shortly before Ms. Tarses arrived, heightening Wall Street scrutiny and intensifying corporate politics. Sitting at the dinner table in Woodland Hills, a San Fernando Valley suburb of Los Angeles, Jamie would dissect her father's scripts and critique his jokes. The legendary NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff hired her in 1987, and she worked her way up through various creative positions to oversee comedy development. Look, he needs the schedule to work. She asked why, and Iger told her, simply, that she needed the help. Jamie Tarses attends a 1998 screening of From The Earth To The Moon in Century City, California. Harbert was kept in the dark. She can't reach him and checks the time. As Jeff Bader wanders into her office for the scheduling meeting, Tarses looks blank. 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.. To some, she was the victim of a misogynistic television industry. ''But we live in a universe now where the average household has 50 channel choices, and you need a sensibility. 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. 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. ", Photo: Greg Doherty/Patrick McMullan via Getty, Richard Belzer, 'Law & Order: SVU' Star, Dead at 78. She might sell her house in Pacific Palisades. ''This is the first time since I've taken this job that people, on the whole, were impressed. When Michael Ovitz became president of the Walt Disney Company in August '95, he saw hiring a new programming chief as one of his first tasks. Her hair, a mass of curls that falls past her shoulders, is piled up on her head like a corona. ''But Eisner wasn't bad. And that's what ABC was after. Watch TV.'' Jamie was a pioneer in every sense, breaking the glass ceiling of the television industry, and embodying the passion and tenacity that made her someone who was always ahead of her time," read the statement. First, there is Steven Bochco, the creator and executive producer of ''N.Y.P.D. The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC, unfettered access for an 8,000-word cover story. Upstart broadcast competitors the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. Tarses was a television executive who developed and worked. She was 56. Tarses was involved in various charitable organizations, including Young Storytellers, which reaches out to youths by promoting the power of storytelling. Jamie Tarses answers questions at the Television Critics Assn. It's no wonder I feel a little paranoid and beat up.''. Gossip swirled in Hollywood that she solved the problem by claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Don Ohlmeyer, a senior NBC executive. It is also true that women -- some women -- have succeeded in Hollywood. Once someone is typecast in Hollywood, even as an executive, getting people to see that person in a different light can be a never-ending battle. Getty Images. Bader tries to convince Tarses that they can promote this last ''Roseanne'' episode, turn it into an event, but Tarses is not buying his pitch. There is a vase of beautiful cabbage roses on the desk and a bottle of Crystal Light. 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. The work is a blast, she told the Los Angeles Times after her departure from ABC in 1999. Why did Jamie Tarses have a stroke? Writer: The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. '', Smoking her way through the canyons, Tarses stares at the road ahead. What lawsuit? Morton has an easy charm and seems to know everyone in the business on both coasts. She had invented a new. This in reference to Jamie Tarses, a producer on The Wilds who passed away. When speaking, he stares into his subject's eyes, as if they were a camera trained on him. She had shepherded the cuddly Mad About You and the neurotic Frasier to NBCs prime-time lineup. The audience laughs, again, but the message is very confusing. 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''). ''Take our picture,'' she shrieks. She was 56. She thought little of that talk. We've received your submission. And the final call on many of these things is her call. Jamie was a trailblazer in the truest sense of the word. And he had, in Tarses' case, an explosive means of setting her free: sexual harassment. The article, which pointedly discussed Ms. Tarsess hairstyle and feminine way of sitting, helped color the rest of Ms. Tarsess career. But she was under contract at NBC. 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. In the weeks that follow she will decide to stay at her job at least for a while, and ABC will issue statements maintaining that the new, arrangement is going to work just fine. Tarses asks. Jamie runs and hides. 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., Jamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/business/media/jamie-tarses-dead.html. Iger, after all, has his own boss to placate, and Eisner is not happy with how the network is performing. He talks, but she doesn't seem to hear. 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.. ''That appeals to every network.'' 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. ''You know what looked good?'' Now there is cable and the Murdoch-owned Fox Network and homes with two or three TV sets tuned to different shows and computers linked to the World Wide Web. -- Tarses has to figure out what to do with ''Roseanne. [2][3] Her younger sister, Mallory Tarses, is a fiction writer and high school English teacher,[4] and a younger brother, Matt Tarses, is a producer and screenwriter (The Goldbergs, Scrubs, Sports Night). We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription. The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC shortly before Tarses arrived, heightening Wall Street scrutiny and intensifying corporate politics. ''You'd think a company this big could end this,'' Tarses says of the article, sounding despondent. Some things are her fault. Tarses asks. '', This is in March. 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. (Ohlmeyer blamed Ovitz for the rumour and publicly called him the Antichrist, leading to a media frenzy.) We'll have a meeting and I can tell if she's hurt by something, like I've wounded her personally. They are harder on her than they have ever been on me. ''Style and Substance,'' shooting at a sound stage across the lot, is a highly regarded Disney pilot for CBS with a lead character roughly based on Martha Stewart. Still, he says that he plans to stand by her. ''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. Jamie Tarses Death. '', A Day at the Office, Toying With 'Roseanne' and Others. Robert Iger, who had also recommended Tarses, was supportive of the choice. In 1996, Michael Ovitz recruited Tarses to be president of ABCs entertainment division, making her the first woman to hold that title. I just dont want to play any more, she told The Los Angeles Times when she left 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. Be patient. ''TV Is Good,'' more than the new schedule, reflects Tarses' age. Young, striking and powerful, Jamie Tarses has embodied the glamorous face of the media business since she was appointed president of ABC Entertainment three years ago. Some things are just goofs. ", WME, the agency that represented Tarses, remembered her as a "pioneer in every sense. ''I'm going there now,'' Valentine says. 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 was the first woman to be made president of a network's entertainment division (NBC) and the youngest--she was a huge driving force behind the success of "Friends" and "Mad About You." Despite her awful hairdo in this photo, she was quite attractive, and had affairs with TV stars like Matthew Perry and Ryan Reynolds. 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". Discovery Company. ''Why was your TV set on CBS?'' Jamie Tarses attends a 1998 screening of From The Earth To The Moon in Century City, California. "She was never happier than when she was with Wyatt and Sloane. She was 56. At one promo meeting, Morton is said to have told Stuart Bloomberg, then president for creative services at ABC Inc. and the person running the meeting: ''The spot should go like this: 'ABC's new. The cause of death was heart complications from a cardiac event last fall, according to a family statement. 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. Blue'' and ''Murder One.'' Prominent members of the TV community, along with members of her own staff, have rattled off their grievances to Iger, and he is starting to worry: maybe Tarses is not the one. So how The rest of the room is spare -- the chairs and tables are light-pine country-cozy, there are two overstuffed couches covered in pink chintz and there's a very big TV. She smiles, stands up and makes her way down some rather steep stairs to a podium on the right of the stage. HBO was moving into original programming with shows such as Sex and the City, further diluting the talent pool. There wasnt a puzzle, mystery, or riddle she couldnt solve, which made her a brilliant editor, storyteller, and producer.". 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. In terms of the series programming, there will be no change. During meetings, she will pull her knees up to her chest and curl her body into a ball, and when particularly agitated she will perch in a chair with both feet underneath her, like a cat about to leap. But Harbert was a loyal company man, and he adapted. Jamie Tarses in 1996. When she returned from Italy early in June, ready to sign her own deal, she was walking into a different plan than what she had in mind before she left NBC. [15], In 2005, Tarses partnered on a production company called Pariah Productions with producer Gavin Polone. The rest of this nonsense I dont need., Since then, Tarses had been active as a producer, serving as an executive producer on the series Primeval, My Boys and Happy Endings.. 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. Not long before Harbert left, Ovitz was fired from Disney after only 14 months. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as Minnie Mouse in one article and scarily ruthless in another. '', But move on to where? And still, if they succeed it's something of a losing battle: network viewer erosion is inevitable. She was highly creative herself and, of course, came from a family of writers. (Her father, Jay Tarses, wrote for The Carol Burnett Show and created The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, an acclaimed comedic drama, from 1987 to 91. They divorced in 1996. This isn't what someone with a production deal gets to do; this is what her boyfriend gets to do. If it works, he'll be confident. He also fought for ''Twin Peaks'' and ''N.Y.P.D. Her cause of death is stated to be complications from a cardiac event. To ABC, Tarses represented youth and, more important, a key to the secrets of NBC, the No. she couldn't do the suit part of the job. [26] Tarses also dated Robert Morton, executive producer of Late Show with David Letterman. ''I was a little sad when Ted left,'' Tarses said in May. Tarses decides to call Iger in New York for his advice. Let her do her job.''. When they have, the cliche holds: they have to be better than their male equivalents to end up equal. She had the ability to make writers feel safe and to get the most out of them. ''This is a great day,'' she says. Jamie Tarses, one of the most dynamic television executives of her era who helped build NBC's Must-See TV lineup and went on to become the first woman to lead a Big Three network programming . That automatically created jealousy and resentment., Yes, she made mistakes. In the fall of '95, Morton began dating Tarses, then separated from Dan McDermott, head of Dreamworks Network Television. He had his own problems, receiving sometimes 10, 12 calls a day from Eisner asking about this show or that cost. (Her brother, Matt, is also a producer. Her talent and contribution to our community will be sorely missed.. You may change your billing preferences at any time in the Customer Center or call 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. . Did Jamie Tarses have a stroke? We will miss her greatly. Blue.'' She perfected that understanding as she became a development exec.. property for sale in falmouth with sea views on did jamie tarses have a stroke on did jamie tarses have a stroke He is a writer and producer, known for The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1987), Teen Wolf (1985) and Open All Night (1981). 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. Tarses grew up in the business -- her father, Jay Tarses, created, among other groundbreaking shows, ''The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,'' the first so-called dramedy. Friends, which she had helped develop, was the envy of every network. I've got a billion brain cells. Although popular with writers and producers, Bloomberg can be awkward with more corporate types. In particular they are frantically searching to hold on to the 18-to-49-year-olds that advertisers want most to reach. ''He had no place in the process,'' Iger explains. The rest of this nonsense I dont need.. She unabashedly loved television and was an executive who made writers feel safe and heard, the agency said in a statement. Jay Tarses. ''We should do something to start building up to the last 'Roseanne,' '' Bader says. Disney had just acquired the company for $19 billion from Capital-Cities/ABC, and the Disney people, including its chairman and C.E.O., Michael Eisner, who had once been an executive at ABC, had no real blueprint for how to get the failing network to No. He has been known to seem completely uninterested in management discussions. Nicholas writes and edits anywhere between 7 to 9 stories per day on average for PEOPLE, spanning across each vertical the brand covers. 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. Or silently suffering through another attack. 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. This is how an easy day turns into something else. ''And how you say it and when you say it determines how successful you'll be at the job. And nothing will make the decision for you and nobody wants the responsibility, so there's a lot of stalling going on. ''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. ''Are you questioning my loyalty, Jeff?'' 2 in network entertainment -- though with a better title. But they were not pleased. 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. ''TV Is Good'' is a huge departure for ABC, a message likely to be lost on its rural, heartland base. [7][27] She had two children, Wyatt and Sloane, with her partner Paddy Aubrey, an executive chef and restaurant owner. As for the cause of her death, Jamie Tarses died of cardiac arrest. My father hated executives, Tarses said. He began talking to Ms. Tarses about taking over ABC. ABC was a snake pit in those days, said Jon Mandel, who ran MediaCom, a television ad-buying agency. At NBC, Tarses had forged close relationships with writers and producers and was thought to be brilliant at fixing and polishing a script. Michael Ovitz, the polarising former power agent, had become Disneys president. I just dont want to play anymore, she told The Los Angeles Times when she left ABC. 1 among 18-to-49-year-olds. What's wrong? ''This means that everything is in flux much sooner than it has to be. Sign up to Stock Advisor for $79 for 1 year, Save 15% on orders of $100+ with Kohl's coupon, How Chilis Is Prepping for Tough Times, Starting With the Fries, Electric Vehicles Are Shattering the Barrier to Adoption that Could Matter Most, The Surprising Ways Walking Delivers a High-Intensity Workout, U.S. The Wide Shot brings you news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production and what it all means for the future. She seems to trust no one and is tense nearly all the time. 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. [21], Tarses was co-producer of My Boys, a comedy about a female sports reporter starring Jordana Spiro, on TBS cable television network from November 28, 2006, until September 14, 2010. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. It is hip and self-referential, while ABC's new shows are not. Anyone can read what you share. She has just heard that Newsweek is planning to run an article claiming that Geraldine Laybourne, the former president of Nickelodeon and the current president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks, will be brought in to supervise her. ''I hear the first run-through went great.''. ''I'm behind her 100 percent. Tarses resigned in 1999. 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.'' Blue.'' After quitting ABC in 1999, Ms. Tarses avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. From the first, no one believed that the marriage of Harbert and Tarses would work. I always felt I had to do it on my own. The trailblazing TV executive paved the way for women in the entertainment industry as the first woman to head a major broadcast network, ABC. Years ago they competed only with one another. Tarses can feel the hate, she says. I want to stand for quality across the board. 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. He is on crutches and has a bandaged foot, having slipped on the sidewalk outside Spago last night. ), 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. And, finally, ''Hobbies, schmobbies. William Morris Endeavor, which represented Tarses, called her a pioneer in every sense who always fought for strong creative work. She joined NBC in 1987 in the current comedy programming division (shows already on the air), where she monitored scripts for shows such as Cheers and A Different World, starring Lisa Bonet. He had been influential in getting her the job, and now he was gone. He was busy defending himself. 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. 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. Jamie Tarses, a fast-rising television executive who shepherded hit NBC comedies such as "Friends" and "Frasier" to prime-time success, then spent three tumultuous years at ABC as the first. Iger can leave her alone for only so long. We will miss her greatly.. Credit:Getty. Watch TV.''. Jamie had a stroke during the fall of 2020 and died in Los Angeles. 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. [1] She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. People now have some confidence that I can do this job.''. 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. Dwek is not well known, and although he is said to have good taste, he is mostly seen as someone who will not threaten his boss. What she didn't realize was how much she needed him. 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. Tarses was much more concerned about Laybourne, who is more of a suit. Tarses, who was 32 when she took the job, had a tumultuous three-year run at ABC at a time when it was still being absorbed into the Walt Disney Co., which had acquired the network a year before she arrived. Looking up at the screen, Tarses introduces some ads that flesh out the campaign. Iger, who was in Los Angeles for a Disney board meeting, told her himself, in her office. Ms. Tarses had a stroke last fall and had been in a coma for an extended period, according to the New York Times. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Let's try and embrace as many families viewing as we can, but let's embrace quality.'' Jamie Tarses, the TV executive and producer who was the first woman to head a Big Three network entertainment division, was remembered Monday by former colleagues and television executives as a. Tarses was born into the industry as the daughter of famed comedy writer-producer . ABC stars were also invited, including a young Ryan Reynolds, then appearing on a sitcom called Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. [20] Later, she had a company called FanFare Productions at Sony Pictures Television. People said she was simply setting up her boyfriend, that she wanted him around for reassurance. But the town hates her, and I'm not sure even hits will fix that.''. Shows get less of a chance and executives get less of a chance.