Brandon’s Fade-Out

The charmed career of Brandon Tartikoff — at 43, head of Paramount Pictures after leading NBC television to Cosby-esque heights during the ’80s — has been shadowed by personal calamity: two bouts with cancer and last year an auto accident that grievously injured his 9-year-old daughter. The private side has won out, as Tartikoff relinquished his Paramount post last week to spend more time with his recuperating child. His 15-month reign included the rough seas of the plodding Columbus epic 1492: Conquest of Paradise and the register-ringing teen-twitter Wayne’s World.