She was the president of ABC Entertainment from 1996 to 1999, the first woman and one of the youngest people to hold such a post in an American broadcast network.
[15] Tarses was the subject of what Bill Carter of The New York Times called an "unflattering profile" written by Lynn Hirschberg in The New York Times Magazine in July 1997, in which she "was portrayed as an embattled executive whose competence and professionalism was being questioned in Hollywood show business circles".
[13][16][17] Amanda Peet, who played Jordan McDeere, the head of fictional network NBS on the NBC show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, said her character "is loosely based" on Tarses.
[21] Tarses was co-producer of My Boys, a comedy about a female sports reporter starring Jordana Spiro, on TBS cable television network from November 28, 2006, until September 14, 2010.
[26] Tarses also dated Robert Morton, executive producer of Late Show with David Letterman, and Matthew Perry.
[2] Tarses had a stroke in the fall of 2020, spent time in a coma, and then died in Los Angeles on February 1, 2021, at age 56 from what a family spokesperson called "complications of a cardiac event".