Love Is All Around

Grant Almerin Tinker was born in Stamford, Connecticut on January 11, 1926. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1949 and joined NBC as an executive trainee, but left in 1954. He went into advertising and for seven years developed programs for television first for McCann-Erickson and later for Benton and Bowles. He rejoined NBC in 1961 and was put in charge of West Coast programming. In Los Angeles, he developed I Spy, Dr. Kildare, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. He returned to New York as the head of programming in 1966, but quit in 1967 to return to California. He developed television series for Universal including It Takes a Thief and Marcus Welby, M.D. and for 20th Century Fox.

In 1970, he became president of MTM Enterprises, a company he founded with his second wife, Mary Tyler Moore. The company produced The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant. By 1981, Tinker was hired to resurrect NBC to help with their ratings. As chairman and chief executive of NBC from 1981 to 1986, he helped put many series on the air including The Cosby Show, Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Family Ties, St. Elsewhere, and Miami Vice. He resigned from NBC in 1986.

With Gannett, the media conglomerate, he later formed GTG Entertainment and produced a newsmagazine for television and other shows. However, it wasn't successful and the company was dissolved in 1990. He received a personal Peabody Award. His book, Tinker in Television: From General Sarnoff to General Electric written with Bud Rukeyser, was published in 1994. He died on November 28, 2016 at the age of 90.

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