Word: tinkered
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Norman Conners--Tinker's, 888 Tremont St., Boston...
...thrills, laughter and tears. But last week, after a chaotic three-year run on NBC, The Fred Silverman Show was canceled. Silverman, 43, resigned as president of NBC when his new boss, RCA Chairman Thornton Bradshaw, 63, refused to guarantee him a free hand. Fred's successor: Grant Tinker, 55, whose MTM Enterprises has produced such classy fare as Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, Lou Grant and NBC's own Hill Street Blues. Says TV Consultant Mike Dann: "Tinker has the best reputation in the industry. He's also the first network head in 30 years...
...president of Atlantic Richfield (Arco) oil company for 16 years before replacing Edgar Griffiths at the helm of RCA, is known as the Mountie of American corporate chiefs: he always gets his man. This spring he was headhunting for a successor to Silverman. In May he had lunch with Tinker, whom he had never met, at Perino's in Los Angeles. "My impression was that Bradshaw was just doing his homework for his new job, getting the feel of the medium," Tinker recalled as he relaxed last week at the Hôtel La Voile...
Bradshaw had other ideas. "It definitely crossed my mind," he says, "that if and when the time came to replace Silverman, this is the man I'd like to have." The two men met again three weeks later. "After lunch at Perino's," Bradshaw recalls saying to Tinker, "I thought you'd be the ideal person to run NBC. Is that a ridiculous thought?" "As a matter of fact, it isn't," came the reply. "Fine," said Bradshaw, "it's settled." The Silverman Era was over...
...word of the change spread along Broadcasting Row in Manhattan and through the Hollywood production centers, condolences for Silverman were mingled with hosannahs for Tinker-as if John the Baptist had been beheaded and the Messiah proclaimed on the same day. Said George Schlatter, producer of Laugh-In and, for Silverman, Real People: "Freddie is imaginative, inventive, aggressive. He tried a lot of things, but unfortunately they didn't work. But then, TV is a monster. It eats up shows, performers and executives. Grant will be taking on a tremendous amount, but there's an enormous sense...