BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MISS AMERICA LIVE TELECAST
Miss America 2008 is getting a major makeover, and you can expect a whole new look to the 87-year-old tradition when Hollywood producers add in glitz, glamour, sizzle and sex appeal to Saturday’s live telecast on TLC cable TV from the Planet Hollywood Resort casino.
For the first time ever, viewers will even be able to choose their own contestant. About 20 minutes into the show, hosted by Entertainment Tonight’s Mark Steines and right after the judges have been introduced, the 15 semi-finalists will be named followed by a 16th beauty selected by viewers who have voted in secret over the internet at the end of each of the four, one hour Miss America: Reality Check specials that have led up to this final showdown.
Meet the judges who are looking for that one and only “IT” girl as winner takes all:
Sarah Ivens, editor in chief of OK magazine; Robin Meade, CNN Headline News anchor; Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Olympic gold medalist; Kim Lyons, star of NBC’s The Biggest Loser; Jason LaPadura, High School Musical casting agent; Trace Ayala, Justin Timberlake’s partner in Wm. Rast Denim; and James Arthur Ray, leadership development executive. Their scoring is based on private interviews with each contestant (25%), talent (35%), eveningwear (20%), lifestyle and fitness in swimsuit (15%) and that knuckle-crunching on-stage question (5%).
During Saturday’s show the semi-finalists will be cut from 16 to 10, and then down to eight. In the final ballot of the remaining top-five contestants, each judge ranks the order each should finish and the outcome is based solely on the point totals resulting from the final ballot. Grammy Award winning producer Anthony Eaton and two-time Emmy Award winning director Bruce Gowers have been charged with creatively reinventing the classic to yield an unforgettable live event.
Eaton has produced for Madonna, Janet Jackson, David Bowie and Tim McGraw. Gowers has directed for Prince, the Rolling Stones, The Primetime Emmy Awards and So You Think You Can Dance.
I talked with the judges yesterday and asked each one just exactly who they were looking for as the new Ms. America:
*Head judge and self-confessed wrist-slapper, Robin Meade, who is a former Miss Ohio from the 1992 Miss America pageant: “Somebody who knows and has an opinion about current events and is not shy about expressing it.” Robin told me that she’s filming her own behind the scenes video for her Robin Meade Express, which she’ll post on CNN.com
*Sarah Ivens: “I’m looking for the girl who takes your breath away. Not a waxwork, but with that sparkle. Someone who walks in a room and captures attention from everybody, yet is still somebody all can relate to and has an interesting and moving story to tell. I’m so impressed already with their glamour and being so dignified. It speaks so well to their self-confidence. I don’t want a Stepford wife. I’m not going for the tradition of the past. I’m looking for the candidate who thinks differently than before and can be true to themselves.” Sarah told me that the new Miss America will be in OK’s New York offices on Monday for her first official photo-shoot for the magazine’s issue next week!
*Jackie Joyner-Kersee: “I’m looking for passion and sincerity; someone who is convinced they will succeed at their dream and knows what they’ll do once they win. Somebody who is independent, confident and approachable. Somebody who can speak to the President and still relate to the janitor in the cafeteria.”
*Trace Ayala: “I’m looking for their real energy, their feelings; that they can pull this off. I’m looking for the less traditional in some of them. It’s nice to see them dress down a little bit and be real instead of being all gowns and hair.”
*Kim Lyons: I’m looking for those who can take care of their bodies. The contestants who are genuinely comfortable and confident in their own skin and not pretending to be someone they aren’t.”
*Jason LaPadura: “I don’t want their interpretation of what they think the winner should be. I’m looking for the real personality that can immediately project Miss America ’08. An original who is not afraid of taking a chance.”
*James Ray: “She is the woman who represents our country, so she must know what she wants out of life. She has to have those Five Pillars from “The Secret.” She’s comfortable dressed up in a gown, or can wear a uniform with our soldiers and get down and dirty with them. My big question will be, ‘can she hold our attention?’”
Brent Zacky, VP of programming for TLC, gave LUXE LIFE a full inside advance peek at the new look changes this year. The writer/producer/director of True Hollywood Story has used Vegas for many of his previous E! Entertainment TV shows, including Ryan Seacrest’s Paradise City, Party at The Palms and Nearly Famous: Vegas Showgirls. Here’s our one-on-one conversation:
Robin Leach: Why did TLC, which does not seem a likely TV home for a beauty pageant, take on the challenge of making the rather staid and ratings-soft Miss America contest a project for the channel?
Brent Zacky: TLC is known for our makeover shows. What Not To Wear is one of our highest rated shows, and I personally saw it as a great opportunity to take Miss America and make over these women who are all about crowns and gowns, big hairspray and makeup, and we give them a makeover. We have brought in some great stylists and makeup artists and we really tried to give them the tools to be as beautiful as they are. These are beautiful young women, you see them in rehearsal walking around without their makeup and you realize they are all naturally beautiful. Hopefully throughout the show they learned they don’t need as much hairspray or as much makeup and we allowed our audience to get to know these women individually. I think it has built an audience that may not have tuned in to watch the live show, and it will also carry the audience who watches no matter where it goes.
RL: Strictly from a TV viewpoint, explain in your mind why the ratings sank for something that is such a tradition and American legacy.
BZ: It is tough for me; I am not a historian of Miss America. It has been a tradition for so long, people would gather around the television and watch the program together. That has not happened over the years. It may be because there is an influx of TV shows and there is more competition, and it maybe that Miss America became a woman that was just too perfect. Perfect hair, perfect makeup and everything.
RL: Isn’t that what everybody wants, though?
BZ: I think we want a woman who is real and relatable. Perfection can be found in being real. I don’t think anyone is perfect, no one is that put together, and I think that maybe made Miss America untouchable. This time she is real and relatable. Real women can look at her and say, “I can look like that; I can wear clothes like that.” They can do their hair and makeup according to what they feel makes them and, more importantly, Miss America’s foundation, which is about scholarship, learning, community works and the inner part of what Miss America is.
RL: Personal observation: TV has been destroyed by the bad apple at the bottom of the barrel which then corrupts everything good above it. Because we have gone to more and more train wreck TV, how do you resist going that step down in order to beef up the ratings, which in a sense goes against the wholesomeness and cleanliness of Miss America?
BZ: It is the most interesting challenge. If you look at all the programs that we have, I am fairly new to TLC, but it is a network that you can feel good about watching and is about the struggles of real people, so you can see the drama and the ups and downs, but you don’t feel dirty, and you don’t feel like you watched a program that hits rock bottom. I think drama can be found in every decision. You wake up in the morning and everyone has some sort of decisions to make, it may not be high drama, it may not be life and death, it may be something between your wife and your self. I think we can tell good stories. It is always going to come back to good storytelling. If we can tell a story that has some good, dramatic conflict in it, and see people change and grow and learn and pick themselves back up, I think that is really important. I think that is what we try to do.
RL: What changes will we see on the live show on Saturday that has been tradition before? In the reality show, you have chopped off contestant’s hair; you have made them real and modern. How do you change the structure of a show?
BZ: One of the biggest changes is that America is voting in a 16th finalist. That is a huge change. You can got to the website and vote. It is a secret ballot that will be revealed on stage America’s Choice will come about 20-minutes or so from the beginning of the show, right after the 15 semi-finalists are revealed. I think the pacing will be good. We have made tweaks to the overall show so that it really is a competition to become Miss America. In addition to our host, Mark (Steines) from Entertainment Tonight, we will have our own Clinton Kelly from What Not To Wear. He will be an onstage as well as an off-stage reporter with a camera. He will be able to talk to various people throughout the show. The biggest thing that will change in the show is the women themselves. We really hope the lessons they learned in the Reality Check will carry over to the finale.
RL: Judging from the reality series, we will see different hairstyles! Will we see different gowns? Are we going to see different talent?
BZ: They were all given advice on our program, then they all went back to their respective states and worked very closely with the directors at the state level. I am not an expert, but they come up with everything. We will know soon enough if they have changed anything.
Now go vote for America’s Choice, tune in and watch!
It’s a busy day on the Ms. America calendar. First at 11 a.m. this morning, the nine finalists for the Quality of Life Awards will be trimmed down to just three winners.
Our Miss Nevada, Caleche Manos, who speaks for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, is one of the finalists. The others are Miss Alabama, Jamie Langley; Miss Florida, Kylie Williams; Miss Massachusetts, Valerie Amaral; Miss Minnesota, Jennifer Hudspeth; Miss North Carolina, Jessica Jacobs; Miss Oklahoma, Makenna Smith; Miss Rhode Island, Ashley Bickford; and Miss Tennessee, Grace Gore.
The winner receives a $6,000 scholarship, the runner-up wins a $4,000 scholarship and third place gets a $2,000 scholarship. The Quality of Life Awards began in 1988 to recognize Miss America competitors who excel in their commitment to community service. As the world’s largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women, the Miss America organization last year contributed more than $45 million in cash and scholarship money. Afterwards, TV personality Phyllis George (Miss America 1971) and Vegas hostess Lynn Weidner (Miss New Jersey 1971) throw a luncheon at Mariposa
inside the Neiman Marcus store at Fashion Show Mall for all the former Miss Americas, including 2007 winner Lauren Nelson.