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A New Jersey native, Littlefield worked as a truck driver and foreman of a concrete-mixing crew before getting into TV. He joined NBC in comedy development in 1979, worked his way up and succeeded the charismatic Tartikoff as president of NBC Entertainment 12 years later when Tartikoff left to become chairman of Paramount Pictures.
NBC was dominant in the ratings then, but morale was falling: many of its hits (Cosby, The Golden Girls, L.A. Law) were past their prime, and Littlefield admits he didn't move fast enough to make changes. When Don Ohlmeyer, a former NBC Sports exec, was brought in to oversee the network's entertainment division in 1993, many figured Littlefield would get the ax. Yet he survived--even through the dark days when NBC was being derided for having lost Letterman, who initially drew great ratings on CBS. "The scariest thing was when Dave came on that first year," he says. "I really had to question all of my instincts." He attributes the late-night turnaround to his having pushed Leno to evolve "from a talk show to a comedy hour."
Now Littlefield's days of anonymity--and buffoonery--may be over. Last month he drew a packed auditorium when he spoke at the Harvard Business School. And when he was rushing down New York City's Madison Avenue not long ago, a homeless man greeted him by name. Just what a network programmer longs for: a mass audience. --Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles