Sara James Tarses was born in Pittsburgh on March 16, 1964, to Jay and Rachel (Newdell) Tarses. The family moved to the suburb of Los Angeles, where his father became a successful sitcom writer (first on The Bob Newhart Show).
Mrs. Tarses studied at Williams College in Massachusetts, studied theater structure and received a theater degree in 1985. She was a production assistant on “Saturday Night Live” in New York for a season before returning to Los Angeles in 1986 to become casting director for Lorimar Productions. She joined NBC in 1987 in the “current” comedy programming division (programs already on the air), where she monitored scripts for programs like “Cheers” and “A Different World”, starring Lisa Bonet.
Brandon Tartikoff, the admired head of entertainment at NBC, became his mentor. He quickly promoted Mrs. Tarses to the network’s comedy development department, where she worked on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which made Will Smith a household name; the eccentric “Wings”, set in a New England airport; and “Blossom”, centered on a teenager Mayim Bialik.
Tarses’ departure from NBC was ugly.
Michael Ovitz, the former polarizing power agent, became president of Disney. He started talking to Mrs. Tarses about taking control of ABC. But she was under contract with NBC. There were rumors in Hollywood that she had solved the problem by claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Don Ohlmeyer, a senior executive at NBC. (Ohlmeyer blamed Ovitz for the rumor and publicly called him “the Antichrist”, leading to a media frenzy.) Mrs. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Ovitz, but she continued to pursue it, making the young woman Tarses appears as someone “who would do anything to make progress,” as Hirschberg wrote.
When she arrived at ABC in the spring of 1996, Ms. Tarses was the second youngest person to be the main programmer for a network. (Tartikoff was 31 when he took over NBC.) Her age, along with her status as the first woman to have that prestigious job, resulted in an unusual amount of scrutiny, often negative. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as “Minnie Mouse” in one article and “frighteningly unforgiving” in another.
Karey Burke, who ran ABC from 2018 to 2020 and is now president of 20th Television, a major TV studio, said of Tarses in a statement: “It destroyed stereotypes and ideas about what an executive could achieve and paved the way for the others, at a cost to her. “
After leaving ABC in 1999, Ms. Tarses avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Several television pilots failed, but she ended up finding some modest hits, including “My Boys”, a comedy created by Thomas and centered on a sports journalist, and “Happy Endings”, a sitcom that dusted off the “Friends” formula.