DAVID SMITH GETS TWO WHOLE PAGES IN TV GUIDE AND A PHOTO INSET ON THE COVER!On the cover, they show David and Evan back to back, David is looking at the camera, smilin' that southern smile, and Evan has just enough of a grimace to show those adorable dimples and he's looking at David sideways - Evan looks a little irked.
Inside, the photo just shows a picture of David with his hands on his hips wearing a leather shirt and buttoned down just enough to show some pec cleavage. He's wearing a white cowboy hat and some kind of necklace. The necklace is like a plus sign only with two small bars centered above the middle bar (hard to explain), it's almost like An American Lung Cancer symbol only briefer. He has an ambiguous smile on his face, and I guess those Crest White Strips really do work!
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Is the next Joe Millionaire hiding a real-life fortune under his Stetson? A second helping of JOE by David Hochman
Years from now, when the reality TV bubble bursts and networks run out of shocking twists, Fox will probably still be scheming to keep this Joe Millionaire character going. Look how they've freshened hip up already. The first Joe, Evan Marriott, couldn't ride a horse to save his life. Now they've lassoed - gotta take the ass out of lassoed
- a real-life Texas rodeo cowboy, David Smith, for the job. Marriott lived large on his supposed $19, a year construction worker's pay. Poor Smith squeaks by on a mere 11 grand, lives in a trailer and, unlike Marriott, doesn't have an underwear modeling career to fall back on. (Though, if truth be told, Smith does have a rich daddy in the oil business.) The new Joe even has a juicier lie. Whereas Marriott humiliated 20 beautiful American womer-er, tried to find his soul mate - by posing as a chateau-dwelling heir to $50 million, Smith gets to canoodle with 14 European babes at a posh Italian villa by pretending he's inherited $80 mil.
"It was real different from my usual lifestyle," says Smith, 24, who is all "thank yous" and "yes sirs" during a recent interview in Los Angeles. "You go to Europe and they're drinking $5 bottles of water, I'm used to drinking out of the horse trough."
The second coming of Joe Millionaire brings an old adage to mind. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me...and the other 40 million viewers who tuned in last winter to watch Evan choose down-to-earth Zora over snooty Sarah in the endlessly hyped finale. OK, so Sarah turned out to be a bondage film actress and the winners never spoke again, but it made for great TV. Needless to say, Fox had to do a sequel.
"We went through a hundred different concepts for Joe 2," says Gail Berman, Fox Entertainment president. One possibility as to let a gaggle of beauties vie for two Joes (one rich, one poor), and there was talk of a Josephina Millionaire. "The trouble is, we knew the other networks would quickly try every other twist," says Fox executive VP of alternative programming Mike Darnell. "The best way to do it again was simply to do it again."
If only it were that simple. Practically everybody in America knew the Joe Millionaire premis, so Darnell had to move production to Europe, where the first season has never aired. Producers gathered women from places like Sweden, Czech Republic and Germany and gave the finalists lie detector tests to make sure they didn't know the big secret. "Right before we went into the villa, one girl admittted she'd heard the name Joe Millionaire before but didn't know what it meant," Darnell says, "We replaced her immediately."
Finding the new Joe was a little easier. He just walked out of the men's room at a rodeo in Mesquite, Texas. Or at least that's how Fox is playing Smith's discovery. The 6 foot, blue-eyed broncho rider insists he's a real cowboy and would sooner be kicked by a Clydesdale than go Holywood. He said he doesn't even mind surviving on $11k a year. "When I'm not in my trailer, I sleep in my truck" he says. Of course, Fox's press materials fail to mention that Smith's daddy made a killing in the oil business, and as Smith admits when pressed, "My dad's done everything for me. I've never had to work." Hmmmm, maybe this new Joe realy does have dough.
But why let reality get in the way of reality TV when there are stereotypes to exploit and money-grubbing hotties to bamboozle? "Once gain, the show plays up the tired cliche of women as gold diggers. Not every woman needs a man to give her expensive jewelry to make her happy," says Amy Sohn, sex columnist for New York magazine.
Perhaps not, but just in case, the necklaces Joe gives away this season are more valuable than the last. Joe's and his rendezvous with the ladies more lavish. He goes on elaborate "nationality dates," where the women celebrate their home countries - sort of like Epcot with romance and better food. There's even talk that Smith fell in love. All he'll say is, "These women were amazing. I was very emotional when it came down to making the final choices."
Filming in Europe wasn't without its hiccups. For one, Paul Hogan, back as the butler is now a celebrity. "It was mostly American tourists we had to keep an eye on," he says. "We didn't want the women knowing. I was being recognized." Hogan coached Smith on how to keep up the illusion. "David turned out to be a much better liar than Evan," he says.
Ah yes, Evan. The lovable lunk drops by for a cameo in an upcoming episode. "Basically, it's a 'Where's Waldo?' moment," Marriott says. meanwhile, he's traded construciton jobs for tooling around Hollywood in a $50k Mercedes and making cameo appearances on Charmed, MadTV and Cedric the Entertainer Presents. This fall, he'll play a criminal informant on the syndicated She Spies and voice a character in a Simpsons episode. There's only one problem, and it may be the most shocking twist of the whole Joe Millionaire sage. Marriott is still single.
For a rundown of JM's women, go to http://www.tvguide.com/joe