Meet Tom Werner.

STUDIO CITY, Calif. -- During a particularly bleak moment for the Red Sox earlier this year, owner John W. Henry and chairman Tom Werner took a walk around Henry's exclusive neighborhood in Boca Raton, Fla.

Henry, as he often does, waxed philosophical. He told Werner that, in his opinion, the two of them, both well into their 50s, have just 20 good years left to live. Werner agreed. With so little time, Henry said, they needed to find a way to enjoy everything -- even the setbacks.

``We have to make the best of these 20 good years," Henry recalls saying.

Not too long after, Werner came out with the script for a new sitcom that will premiere on NBC this week. The title: ``Twenty Good Years."

It may be the first time that two Red Sox owners have jointly dreamed up a television series, but that's only because they have not been at it that long. The two now are so close that they e-mail back and forth for hours during the middle of the night -- astonishing, considering that just five years ago, they barely knew each other, and each harbored his own dream of being the primary face of the team.

It is this knack for nurturing exceptionally close relationships with powerful people, and allowing them to share the limelight -- a rare trait in Hollywood -- that has fueled Werner's ascension to the top of the two worlds he inhabits, television and baseball.

Around Boston, Werner has remained relatively anonymous, known primarily as the Red Sox owner who once dated television star Katie Couric. Although he originally led the group that was ultimately successful in buying the team in 2001, he agreed to step aside as principal owner when it became clear their bid would lose without the resources of Henry, a wealthy commodities trader. (The New York Times Co., parent of the Globe, also owns 17 percent of the team.)

The two have since become fast friends.

``I am always disappointed when I hear Tom is heading back to Los Angeles for a while," Henry said.

During the season, he said, ``We live and die together on each pitch."

In Hollywood, Werner was half of the phenomenally successful production team of Carsey-Werner, whose credits include ``Roseanne" and ``The Cosby Show," two runaway hits that revitalized comedy in the 1980s.

After longtime partner Marcy Carsey recently decided to leave the business, Werner has found himself two more partners with equally solid credentials: comedy titans Eric Gold and Jimmy Miller, who until recently teamed up to manage stars such as Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres, and Will Ferrell.

To Werner, keeping a low profile comes easily.

``I've always thought the most comfortable place to be is behind the camera," he said, adding after a moment, ``part of it is that I'm a bit shy."

Shy, perhaps, in public. For example, on the set of ``Twenty Good Years" this summer, he remains mostly in the background, watching intently. He steps in on key issues of character development but is careful not to throw his weight around, sending word to the actors after one scene to ``let it build a little more."

But it's away from the camera where Werner does his work. In a single day in Studio City recently, he speaks twice to Major League Baseball's commissioner, Bud Selig, participates in a conference call with other MLB principals, exchanges e-mails with pitcher Curt Schilling, and fields a dozen or more e-mails and calls from Sox executives.

The Hollywood calls fall in between.

Werner is heavily involved in nearly every Red Sox decision, whether from his office in Studio City or at Fenway Park.

At times, his dual roles can force him to perform a difficult balancing act. On the set during baseball season, Werner gets so carried away checking the Sox score on his BlackBerry that he sometimes gets in trouble.

``They yell at him because of the light and the clicking," said his assistant, Maria Ciaravino. ``They say, `Who's got the cellphone? Shut that off.' "

Once while filming scenes for ``That '70's Show," another of Werner's productions, he interrupted actor Ashton Kutcher mid-sentence to take a call from Red Sox president Larry Lucchino.

Kutcher later said, ``What's more important, this show or the Red Sox?"

Werner replied, ``Right now, it's the Red Sox."

If the Sox have been losing, and that was often as the season wound down, Hollywood's agents know to tread gingerly. Before talking to Werner, they ask his staff, ``Is it a good day?"

Werner's Hollywood career has paid unexpected dividends to his life in baseball. In fact, if not for television and Werner's ability to strike up friendships, the current group of Sox owners might never have come together.

Werner, 56, first met ski magnate Les Otten, another part owner of the team, when Otten asked a mutual acquaintance to arrange a walk-on role on Werner's show, ``3rd Rock from the Sun."

Though Werner did not know Otten, he went over to talk to him and even introduced him to the show's star, actor John Lithgow.

A few years later, it was Otten who approached Werner with the plan to buy the Sox, and he asked Werner if he would like to go in on it with him.

``Honestly, Tom's incredible graciousness was why Les thought about it," said the mutual friend, Paul Wachter. ``I've been involved in a lot of Hollywood stuff. For the big honcho to really pay that much attention to the friend of a friend is uncommon.

``Only Tom would do something like that."

Werner nurtured his interests in both baseball and television at Harvard, where he once roped a roommate into helping him make a documentary about Opening Day at Fenway Park. After graduation, Werner joined ABC as a researcher for about $100 a week. He turned down a competing offer at then-unknown news show called ``60 Minutes" because he worried it would not last.

At ABC Werner formed the relationship that would transform his professional career: He became close to Carsey, then his boss. While at the network, the two helped create ``Mork & Mindy," ``Taxi," and ``Happy Days." Werner eventually gained control of the network's primetime lineup, and a coveted corner office.

``His relationship with Marcy Carsey was one of the great relationships in all of show business," Wachter said. ``There was no fighting, no egos. It wasn't like the Hollywood shark sort of thing."

Carsey eventually struck out on her own, and she lobbied Werner to go with her. It was an enormous risk. Carsey agreed to mortgage her house and Werner would have to commit to spending his life savings on the project. Even his wife was opposed.

But Werner took the leap anyway. At the beginning, Carsey-Werner was so poor that the two developed elaborate strategies to avoid picking up the check for business lunches.

Not too long afterward, they signed up Bill Cosby for a show. They had confidence in the idea, but it appeared they were the only ones: All of the networks rejected it, Werner said. Finally, the two struck an agreement with NBC, but at great personal cost -- each episode would run more than $100,000 into deficit, which the two would pay for themselves.

``When it turned out to be a monster hit, we all breathed a sigh of relief," Carsey said.

Carsey and Warner went on to make shows such as ``Roseanne," ``Grace Under Fire," ``Cybill," and ``3rd Rock from the Sun."

Carsey attributes the success of their partnership to teamwork. ``He and I always had to deal with each other: If we couldn't talk each other into it, we just abandoned it. My approach was a little more instinctive; his was a little more intellectual and thoughtful. In that way, it was a very good match up."

Carsey and Werner relished making shows that were unconventional, and that often drove their success. Though Cosby had wanted the character on his show to be a limo driver, Carsey and Werner talked him into playing a professional instead -- the key breakthrough that garnered national attention for the show.

Carsey and Werner's formula -- comedies with sophisticated writing and solid acting -- worked.

Werner said his biggest television skill is assembling talent -- from actors to writers to producers. Even with the right ingredients, though, not every show works.

``It's a little like baseball -- you can be a .300 hitter and be a star," he said. ``I think our average is a little better than that, but not everything we touched worked out."

For ``Twenty Good Years," Werner wanted to reunite with Lithgow.

Initially, the actor wasn't interested in another television show. But once again, Werner's knack for building relationships paid off.

Though it is unusual for actors and executive producers to strike up friendships in Hollywood, Lithgow said, Werner visited the actor when Lithgow had major surgery a few years ago -- and Lithgow remembered.

``I don't think I'd have said yes to anyone but Tom," Lithgow said.

Sasha Talcott can be reached at stalcott@globe.com.