Brandon Tartikoff

Infobox Person
name = Brandon Tartikoff


caption =
birth_date = birth date|1949|1|13|
birth_place = Freeport, New York
death_date = death date and age|1997|8|27|1949|1|13|
death_place = Los Angeles, California
spouse = Lilly Tartikoff

Brandon Tartikoff (January 13, 1949 — August 27, 1997) was a television executive who was credited with turning around NBC's low prime time reputation with such hit series as "Hill Street Blues", "L.A. Law", "ALF", "Family Ties", "The Cosby Show", "Cheers", "Miami Vice", "The Golden Girls", "Knight Rider", "The A-Team", "St. Elsewhere", "Night Court", "Hunter", "Highway to Heaven", "Matlock", "Remington Steele", "A Different World", "227" and "Empty Nest".

Tartikoff also helped develop "Punky Brewster", for which he named the title character after a girl he had a crush on in school. Brandon, the pet dog on "Punky Brewster", was named after Tartikoff. He was also involved in the creation of "" and "Beggars and Choosers".

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Freeport, New York, Tartikoff was a graduate of the Lawrenceville School and Yale University, and started his career at WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois. While attending Yale, Tartikoff worked as an account executive and sales manager of WNHC-TV in New Haven, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale, he took a series of jobs in advertising and local television. Tartikoff spent vacations in Los Angeles looking for a job in network television. His parents were both survivors of the collision of two 747s on Tenerife, Canary Islands in 1977. ["Newsweek" 3/1977]

Career at NBC

Tatrikoff was hired as a program executive at ABC in 1976. One year later, he moved to NBC (after being hired by Dick Ebersol to direct comedy programming). Tartikoff took over programming duties at NBC from Fred Silverman in 1981.cite book|last=Barbera|first=Joseph|title=My Life in "Toons": From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century|year=1994|publisher=Turner Publishing|location=Atlanta, GA|isbn= 1-57036-042-1|pages=188-189] At age 31, Tartikoff became the youngest president of NBC's entertainment division.

When Tartikoff took over, a writers' strike was looming,Fact|date=August 2008 affiliates were defecting,Fact|date=August 2008 and the network had only three prime time shows in the Top 20: "Little House on the Prairie", "Diff'rent Strokes" and "Real People").Fact|date=August 2008 Johnny Carson was reportedlyFact|date=August 2008 in talks to move his landmark late-night talk show show to ABC. The entire cast and writers of "Saturday Night Live" had left that late-night sketch-comedy series, and their replacements had received some of the show's worst critical notices.Fact|date=August 2008 Tartikoff and his new superior, the highly well-regarded former producer Grant Tinker, turned the network's fortunes around.

As head of NBC's Entertainment Division, Tartikoff's successes included "The Cosby Show", for which Tartikoff had pursued actor-comedian Bill Cosby to create a pilot after having been impressed by Cosby's stories when Cosby guest-hosted the "Tonight Show".Fact|date=August 2008 Tartikoff wrote a brainstorming memo that simply read "MTV cops",cite book |last= Janeshutz |first= Trish |authorlink= Trish Janeshutz |title="The Making of Miami Vice" |publisher=Ballatine Books |location=New York |date= 1986 |pages=P. 12 |isbn= 0-345-33669-0] cite journal |last=Zoglin |first=Richard |authorlink= |date=1985-09-16 |title=Cool Cops, Hot Show |journal=Time Magazine |publisher=Time Inc. |volume= |issue= |pages= |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959822,00.html |accessdate= 2007-11-02] cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1D91438F93AA25757C0A96E948260 |title=Guiding No. 1: The Man Who Programs NBC |date=1988-04-19 |accessdate=2008-02-08 |last=Boyer |first=Peter J. |work=New York Times] cite web |url=http://www.nbc.com/Vintage_Shows/Miami_Vice/about/index.shtml |title=About the Show |work=NBC Universal, Inc. |accessdate=2008-05-28] and later presented the memo to series creator Anthony Yerkovich, formerly a writer and producer for "Hill Street Blues". "Knight Rider" was inspired by a perceived lack of leading men who could act, with Tartikoff suggested a talking car could fill in the gaps in any leading man's acting abilities.Fact|date=August 2008

During the casting process of "Family Ties", Tartikoff was unexcited about Michael J. Fox for the role of Alex P. Keaton. However, the show's producer, Gary David Goldberg, insisted until Tartikoff relented, saying "Go ahead if you insist. But I'm telling you, this is not the kind of face you'll ever see on a lunch box". Some years later, after the movie "Back to the Future" cemented Fox's stardom, Fox good-naturedly sent Tartikoff a lunch box with Fox's picture on it and a note inside reading "To Brandon: This is for you to put your crow in. Love and Kisses, Michael J. Fox". Tartikoff kept the lunch box in his office for the rest of his career.Fact|date=August 2008

Johnny Carson broke the news of his retirement in February 1991 to Tartikoff at the Grille in Beverly Hills. For several days only Tartikoff and, at the time, NBC Chairman Bob Wright knew of the planned retirement.

Tartikoff wrote in his memoirs that his biggest professional regret was cancelling the series "Buffalo Bill", which he later went on to include in a fantasy "dream schedule" created for a "TV Guide" article that detailed his idea of "The Greatest Network Ever".

Appearances on NBC's shows

During his time at NBC, he made appearances in several of the network's shows. He hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 1983 and appeared as himself in an episode of "Saved by the Bell", where, very tongue-in-cheek, he shortly entertains the notion of a "show about a high school principal and his kids," before scoffing at the idea. During his 1983 appearance on "Saturday Night Live", one skit featured Tartikoff in a black leather ensemble, with the words "Be There" spelled out in rhinestones on the back of his jacket. "Be There" was NBC's slogan during the 1983 - 1984 season, a fitting example of clever hidden advertising. He also appeared as himself in episodes of "Night Court" and "ALF", and in the background of one of the final episodes of "Cheers". David Leisure also played Tartikoff in an episode of "ALF".

Post-NBC career

He left NBC in 1991, moving to Paramount Pictures to become its chairman. A year later, Brandon left that post to spend more time with his daughter, Calla, who was injured in a car crash near the family's Lake Tahoe home.

In 1994, he made his comeback to national TV with "Last Call", a short-lived late-night discussion show he produced. That same year he also produced "The Steven Banks Show" for PBS. Later that year, he began a brief run as chairman of New World Entertainment. Just prior to his death, Tartikoff served as the chairman of the AOL project "Entertainment Asylum", for which he teamed with Scott Zakarin to build the world's first interactive broadcast studio.

Family

Tartikoff was married with 2 daughters. Wife Lilly Tartikoff and daughter Calla own a restaurant in West LA called Colony Cafe.Fact | date=August 2008

Death

Tartikoff died on August 27, 1997 from Hodgkin's Disease, with which he had three separate bouts over 25 years.

The "Deep Space Nine" sixth-season premiere "A Time to Stand" began with a title card reading "In memory of Brandon Tartikoff". A similar card appeared at the end of the ninth-season premiere, "The Butter Shave", of "Seinfeld".

He was interred in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Parodies

Tartikoff was parodied in the 1989-1990 CBS series "The Famous Teddy Z" as network president "Landon Tarmac."

References

External links

*imdb name|0850748
* [http://www.tvparty.com/80nbc3.html BRANDON AT THE BAT]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0850748/news News for Brandon Tartikoff]
* [http://www.teevee.org/archive/1997/08/29/index.html The Two-Edged Legacy of Brandon Tartikoff]