(4 of 5)
Tarses went off to Williams College, where she majored in theater, and spent a year as a production assistant on Saturday Night Live in New York City. Back in Los Angeles, she worked as a casting director for Perfect Strangers and other shows before joining the NBC programming department. (In 1993 she married Dan McDermott, a TV executive; they were divorced last year.) Her skills at developing comedy material are widely admired. "She completely understands the creative process," says James Widdoes (Dave's World, Boston Common). "She's very specific about what she likes and doesn't like." Producer Dennis Klein (The Larry Sanders Show, last season's Cosby) describes her as "very smart and not ego driven. She's terrific at pinpointing flaws." Klein worked on a quirky comedy pilot for Tarses this spring, The 900 Lives of Jackie Frye; though the show was not picked up, he praises her as "very supportive of its offbeat elements. She didn't want to smooth down the edges. She wanted to keep the edges."
Though primarily identified with NBC's hip urban comedies, Tarses rejects the implication that she's a one-trick pony. "We're always going to try to do shows that skew younger and more urban, because that's the desirable audience. But I think the biggest mistake you can make is to be derivative. At NBC we put the best shows on the schedule. One year it was Seinfeld, the next year it was Mad About You, the next year Frasier, the next year Friends. You put them together, and all of a sudden look what we have--sophisticated urban comedy. But we didn't say, 'That's what we are.' Shows inform the network identity rather than the identity informing the shows."
Though a comedy specialist, Tarses now has to do everything from scheduling made-for-TV movies to (despite her fear of public speaking) giving talks to advertisers and affiliates. Yet she rejects the notion that she's too inexperienced for the job. "I was at NBC for eight years. I was exposed to every aspect of what a person in the job that I have now does. There have been many people prior to me in this job at various networks who had far less direct experience in all aspects of programming."
Most insiders think Tarses' job is safe for now, if only because Disney and ABC can ill afford the embarrassment of another high-profile executive shake-up. Last December, Michael Ovitz, the former superagent who spearheaded the effort to hire Tarses, resigned after a troubled 14-month tenure as Eisner's No. 2 executive. The news division is currently going through a rocky transition, as longtime president Roone Arledge has been promoted and his successor, David Westin, is weathering a messy scandal over his affair with the network's top public relations executive, Sherrie Rollins.