Word: tartikoff
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Away from the Hollywood power-breakfast scene, Tartikoff struck out on his own road to recovery. First he produced shows for New Orleans TV, among them a quiz program called N.O. It Alls, which he hopes to adapt for other cities. As his daughter's condition has improved, he has plunged back into his old world, this time as seller rather than buyer. "Anybody who has been in a position of power for 14 years," he observes, "says no far more often than he gets to say yes. And people remember those nos. I'm sure there...
...Tartikoff, 45, won't exactly be panhandling next week at the annual * convention of the National Association of Television Program Executives. He will be peddling Last Call, a new late-night talk show featuring a panel of journalists and critics (among them former Esquire editor Terry McDonell, entertainment critic Elvis Mitchell and London Times correspondent Sue Ellicott) discussing the day's news. Designed as a sort of hip McLaughlin Group, the pilot looks more like an MTV remedial class for the news-impaired (after trading quips about Michael Jackson, these hang-loose journalists scoot over to a pool table...
Whatever the fate of Last Call, Tartikoff will be just about everywhere next season. "To use a baseball metaphor ((as he does repeatedly)), I have a slugging percentage of about .600," he says. "For every 10 things I've brought to market, six of them will end up in homes." Some have unusual venues. He is developing two shows for PBS: a 13-week comedy series starring offbeat stage performer Steven Banks, and Under New Management, a Coronation Street-style serial with topical humor, set in a New Orleans restaurant-bar. For CBS he is producing Nashville...
...could nurture a "quality" show such as Hill Street Blues while singing the praises of Punky Brewster. "He has an absolute disdain for anything intellectual," says one less-than-admiring colleague. "He'd rather eat hamburger than steak." Yet in a world of slick network suits, Tartikoff has always been one of the most articulate, thoughtful and candid programmers around...
...also one of the most tenacious. Tartikoff has survived two bouts of Hodgkin's disease; in 1982 he underwent a year of chemotherapy while continuing to run NBC programming. His car accident served merely to emphasize again where his priorities lay. "I don't know how many times a person has to be clobbered over the head to be reminded of what's important in life and what's not important," he says...