For Tartikoff, Juggling Job, Family Became Too Much : Resignation: Paramount chief says he could no longer run studio and help daughter recover from auto crash.

He was the wunderkind of prime-time television and the P.T. Barnum of pop culture--spinning gold out of fast-food movie fantasies such as “Wayne’s World” and “The Addams Family.” He gave America “Cheers” and “The Cosby Show,” and he encouraged a generation to proclaim, “NOT!”

But in the end, hard reality intruded on Brandon Tartikoff’s gilded world and forced him to announce Thursday that he will relinquish his post as chairman of Paramount Pictures after only 15 months on the job.

The causes were as unpredictable as they were painful. The first blow came on a cold New Year’s Day nearly two years ago when Tartikoff’s only daughter was critically injured in an auto accident at Lake Tahoe, from which she continues to battle for recovery. The second came on the studio lot, oddly enough, where Tartikoff was perpetually at loggerheads with Stanley R. Jaffe, the strong-willed president of Paramount’s parent company in New York.

The strained relationship came to a head two weeks ago during a Jaffe-organized meeting of Paramount executives at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel outside Palm Springs. People who attended the meeting said Tartikoff’s presentation of Paramount Pictures’ business plan paled in comparison to the one by the parent company’s book publishing division, Simon & Schuster.

By turning in his resignation, Tartikoff, 42, finally made public what he had confided to a close circle of friends months before--that he could no longer juggle the twin responsibilities of attending to his daughter in New Orleans and managing a major film studio in Los Angeles.

Hollywood’s most charmed career, which started when the jocular Tartikoff was named NBC Entertainment’s youngest president at age 30, is expected to remain in limbo for at least six months. Jaffe was appointed Thursday to replace Tartikoff on an interim basis.

“In this industry, you have to go in ready to fight the good fight every day,” said one associate who asked not to be identified. “But at the same time he was expected to be there for his daughter. It was an emotional roller coaster ride, and he had to get off.”

Tartikoff leaves a great deal of unfinished business at Paramount, where the movies he put into production are just starting to appear in theaters. He showed an affinity for light fare with films such as “Wayne’s World” and a planned film adaptation of “The Brady Bunch.” But he also suffered his share of box office embarrassments, including “Cool World.”

Tartikoff’s decision to resign apparently started to take shape months ago. He confided his plans to some associates as early as last summer, when 9-year-old Calla Tartikoff took a turn for the worse in rehabilitation. Friends say the pressure was especially intense on Tartikoff’s wife, Lily, who was largely left alone with their daughter in New Orleans, where Calla is being treated by one of the country’s leading physical therapists.

In a final effort to bring his two worlds together, Tartikoff offered to buy a house for the therapist and move her to Los Angeles. But when that plan failed, he told his bosses at Paramount Communications--Chairman Martin S. Davis and Jaffe--during a meeting last week in Jaffe’s suite at the Hotel Bel-Air that he was resigning.

Tartikoff offered to reimburse the $100,000 spent to redecorate his offices. He turned down offers to convert his contract, which has 3 1/2 years remaining, into a production deal, and he received no buyout.

Ironically, Paramount’s publicity department had just started to spread word that 1993 would be “the year of Brandon Tartikoff.”

“We had a breakfast meeting scheduled and I went to Stanley’s suit and said: ‘Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while,’ ” Tartikoff said Thursday after attending an emotional meeting with senior executives on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. “ ‘This is not a situation for which you are responsible. What I’ve come to realize is that I’m shortchanging my family and shortchanging you by trying to juggle these two situations.’ ”

“They sensed I had arrived (at the decision),” Tartikoff added. “There was nothing they could do to change the situation. I had been using the Paramount plane to fly back and forth to New Orleans. It was unrewarding. I felt it was unfair of my wife to be shouldering the whole experience. I think it was pretty clear I had arrived at this decision and worked it out.”

Tartikoff’s move was widely praised in the hard-edged world of Hollywood, where corporate ladder climbing and the pursuit of multimillion-dollar salaries tend to overshadow family concerns. One executive said Tartikoff’s decision was 80% based on his daughter’s physical ailments and only 20% because of his battles with Jaffe.

The move also pointed up the pressure-cooker nature of the job, where executives are only as good as their last picture, and where a leave of absence is unthinkable.

By contrast, Tartikoff was given time to grow at NBC, where he made his mark by tuning into the 1980s appetite for baby boom generation sitcoms such as “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties” and “Cheers” that vaulted NBC to the top of the ratings heap.

Tartikoff was also unusually adept at creating goodwill. He charmed the press with his easy wit, and he furthered his legend by making goofy guest appearances on his own programs--such as “Saturday Night Live.”

He was seen as an inspired choice for the job at Paramount last year after Frank Mancuso was forced out in the wake of such big-budget failures as “The Godfather, Part III” and “The Two Jakes.”

But in his brief tenure, Tartikoff was unable to fully overcome a reputation as an interloper in film. Though his brash manner served him well at NBC, it offended some film executives who saw him as questioning their way of doing business.

Tartikoff’s detractors relished the failure last year of his first production, the hastily made “All I Want for Christmas.” But the studio’s fortunes improved soon afterward with a string of hits including “The Addams Family,” “Star Trek VI” and “Patriot Games.”

Tartikoff truly hit his stride with “Wayne’s World,” a spinoff from the “Saturday Night Live” skits that took in more than $120 million at the domestic box office. He also began work on “The Firm,” a movie based on the best-selling novel and starring Tom Cruise.

Some critics accused him of catering to “dumb boys,” but Tartikoff also fulfilled his mandate to cut costs by largely concentrating on cheap films with broad appeal. That success, however, did nothing to diminish constant rumors of friction between Tartikoff and Jaffe.

Sources close to the studio said that Jaffe, a former producer on the Paramount lot, frequently interfered in daily operations of the studio, even though he was contractually forbidden from doing so. Jaffe was also blamed for getting Paramount involved in two recent failures: “1492,” which the studio distributed, and “School Ties,” which Paramount produced and distributed.

“Working for Stanley Jaffe and Martin Davis is like stereophonic meanness and Brandon was caught between these two people,” one industry executive said.

To some observers, a bifurcated management system emerged in which each executive took on films that struck his fancy. Gradually, but plainly, that system undercut Tartikoff’s authority. “Tartikoff was promised a lot when he took the job, but he got less than he was promised,” one industry source said. “After awhile you get tired of that game.”

Jaffe declined to comment Thursday. Tartikoff denied that the friction was serious.

“Whatever problems may have existed in that period of adjustment, those were ironed out,” Tartikoff said. “In certain cases he (Jaffe) was right to argue his position, but I had authority to green-light pictures.”

Despite Tartikoff’s problems, friends say he remained involved in day-to-day studio affairs. Producer Mace Neufeld, who has 20 projects in development at Paramount with his partner, Robert Rehme, met with Tartikoff on Tuesday.

“Everything seemed on track,” Neufeld said. “He spent a lot of time in New Orleans, but he dealt with things very quietly. No one saw this coming.”

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