BIO CHANNEL PREMIERES TWO NEW ORIGINAL SERIES

WHY I RAN

AN ADRENALINE-FUELED HALF-HOUR SERIES CHRONICLING SOME OF THE COUNTRY'S MOST DANGEROUS HIGH SPEED POLICE CHASES DEBUTS SEPTEMBER 1 AT 10PM ET/PT

New York, NY, August 19, 2008 As part of its recently announced expanded development slate, Bio Channel will launch two new original series this September, WHY I RAN and WATCHING THE DETECTIVES.

WHY I RAN

Across the country, real-life high-speed police chases rivet viewers to the TV screen. We've heard the eyewitness accounts, seen the police point of view, but no one has ever been able to go inside the mind of the driver...until now. In WHY I RAN, debuting Monday, September 1 at 10:00pm ET/PT on Bio Channel, we hear for the first time from the actual people who have led the police on some of the most dangerous high-speed pursuits ever.

Stories for season one of WHY I RAN include: a single mother of two who runs from police at 140 mph on a crowded San Diego freeway; a man who steals a car from a local dealership and takes police on a pursuit that ends in gunfire; a divorced father of three who goes on a rampage in his 18-wheeler that results in a multiple car pile-up on a Houston freeway; a mother of five with a van full of children who leads police on chase down a two-lane Texas highway: and a young man with his little brother in the passenger seat who leads police on a chase through the streets of Glendale, California, ending in a three car crash.

Executive producers for Bio Channel are Robert Sharenow and Elaine Frontain Bryant. Supervising producer is Jessica Morgan. WHY I RAN is produced for Bio Channel by Intuitive Entertainment. Executive producers are Mechelle Collins and Kevin Dill.
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"Men hate short hair," says Patti Stanger, CEO and owner of The Millionaire's Club, and star of the hit Bravo series The Millionaire Matchmaker. Oh yeah, apparently women are not too fond of small-time earners, either.

Hey, this is some big money advice you are getting, so take notes! You see, Stanger knows a thing or two about what men want (and women want), and she's got a list of deep-pocketed clients, and a burgeoning bank account, to prove it. That's because her pragmatic mating wisdom (like "men date organically and women have to date strategically") doesn't come cheap. Membership into the Millionaire Club tips the scales at $50,000 per year for exclusive services based out of one of Stanger's offices in California, New York, Florida, Canada and the U.K.

Stanger is a selective matchmaker, her business model entails working with only five males per month, per city. And her ability to predict chemistry runs in her genes: Stanger comes from three generations of matchmakers, but she charges far more than her mother and grandmother (who on occasion received a chicken dinner in exchange for their love connections).

Now she capitalizes on her familial talents, reading body language and making successful partnerships. As the former CEO of Great Expectations, Patti saw an emerging market for her special talent: Finding men wives or girlfriends. With recruiters in every city, Stanger subjects potential millionaire clients to rigorous interviews before getting to work on getting the dates.

To that end, Stanger also believes women need to adhere to traditional gender roles to develop long lasting love connections with her clients. The L.A. Matchmaker says, "Men have to learn to be men. Women have to learn to be women. The feminization of men has made them metrosexual, lazy or both."

One person who is far from lazy, however, is Stanger. As a result of her intensive, personalized care, Stanger says, "I have never had any debt. My company is completely debt-free. I have never needed to give back money to a client." However, some clients are even beyond Stanger's help. The Bravo series followed some not so suave millionaires, one client was a roller skating rapper named Robby; and surprise, surprise, he had trouble finding the "right" woman because he refused Stanger's advice.

And for those wondering, Gay Millionaires Club for Men and Women is on the way. Stanger is currently looking for startup capital to launch similar services for gays and lesbians. Filming for Season Two is well underway and Stanger wants MainStreet Readers to be prepared for some surprises. The matchmaker landed a six figure book deal with Simon & Schuster. The book, How to be Your Own Matchmaker: 10 Easy Steps will be hitting shelves by next spring.
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You are who you date. No matter how independent a woman you may be, outsiders still judge you by the company you keep. Like a commodity that rises and falls with the market, your personal stock rises and falls by who is on your arm.

This week, Anne Hathaway's stock took yet another dip when it became known that a kid's charity run by her longtime boyfriend, Raffaello Follieri, is being investigated by the New York State attorney general.

Every time this guy screws up, newspapers and magazines run a picture of poor Anne. So this week, instead of promoting her new summer flick, "Get Smart," she has to dodge questions about why she still dates such a loser.

Her social and personal value plummets all because she can't ditch this dud.

Of course, the opposite is also true. Dating up can increase the value of both parties. Brad and Angelina, for instance, hit the couples jackpot when they hooked up.

"The more A-list and beautiful each member of the couple is, when they get together it just quadruples their worth and how much people want to hear about them," says Sarah Ivens, editor-in-chief of OK! magazine.

This is why everyone and their mother want to see more and more and more of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They bolster each other's value.

On the other hand, John Mayer - who has a reputation for hopping from one starlet's bed to the next - only lowers Jennifer Aniston's social stock.

And while a celebrity's index rises and falls based on her latest tryst, the same is true for the average woman's.

Don't think that people aren't judging you by whom you choose to settle down with. They do. So take a good look at your relationship and see if he is the one lowering your value.

"Especially in New York, your dating portfolio is important," says Patti Stanger, Bravo's "Millionaire Matchmaker." "You are like a stock portfolio. Looks, smarts, education and who you date. So let's say you date a bad dude and then you keep dating those over and over again. Your stock goes down in your own community."

Watch out for guys who've dated a lot of your friends, or who have a reputation as a player. Their wandering eye can make you seem like another face in the crowd. Also, loafers and moochers, no matter how cute, can make you appear cheap or lazy by association. The guiding principle is simple: If they don't treat you like a million bucks, other people won't either.

Stanger says that in choosing a mate, look for stability. Focus on good qualities that are perceptible from the outside of a relationship: a good job, poise and, most importantly, his behavior when he is around you.

It also can't hurt if he's a super-rich, wildly famous celebrity.

Stanger's classic example of a woman who raised her dating stock is Shoshanna Lonstein. Remember when she was just an another cute girl from the upper East Side?

"Well, then she dated Jerry Seinfeld for a few years and poof, she has a rich Wall Street husband and her own fashion label," Stanger explains.

Her stock went through the roof.

So in choosing a potential mate or even just a summer fling, make sure to choose wisely. You never know who may be watching.
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In an era when television tells you what not to wear, what not to weigh and how to decorate your house, Patti Stanger will tell you who not to date — for a healthy fee. Most people know her as the host of the Bravo show Millionaire Matchmaker, and her clients, mostly men, pay upward of 20 grand to be introduced to potential wife material. Armed with her list of ironclad rules, culled from Mom’s advice and her own life experience, including once serving as marketing director of the It’s Just Lunch dating service, Stanger came up with a business plan to defeat what she calls “the feminization of America.”


To the untrained ear, Stanger is bossy, slightly obnoxious and direct. In New York, where the third-generation matchmaker is from, it’s “to the point.” I find her to be fearlessly open and chatty one morning in Marina del Rey, while she gets her makeup done for a TV shoot. “You know, I got my business idea from reading the L.A. Weekly,” she proclaims. “You guys used to have this alternative section in your classifieds called “the edge,” and there’d be ads for ‘millionaire seeking girl’ or ‘girl seeking generous benefactor.’ I would place ads and get leads. I got really good at writing — use this word, not that — it’s what got me on the map.”

A lot has happened for Stanger in nine years, and with the advent of the TV show she finds that her clientele is changing. “Our usual clients are calm and content, but the show brings crazy people who are so time-consuming, I’m, like, Charge them twice! A lot of that stuff is scripted, but the dates are real. They cast the men, they cast the girls. They can’t use my people — we have confidentiality clauses in our contracts. Some clients are superfamous — not run-of-the-mill celebrities, but sports stars, Wall Street economists. Others are low-key and so far under the radar. I have a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. He doesn’t need people to know he’s in the club — that’s really tacky. Are you single?”

Granted, I’m not exactly a social butterfly, but my belief has always been that boys are boys when it comes down to it and there are general traits shared by all. So, I have to ask: Is there any real difference between a millionaire and a nonmillionaire besides the cash? “Millionaires are more demanding because they have a narcissistic perception of themselves. There’s nothing worse than the ‘nasty nerd.’ They think they’re God because of the money. They never got the cheerleader in high school and now they’re screwed. But everybody’s got a history, baggage. It’s not like buying a house; these are people with emotions and feelings. Millionairesses are the worst, though. They’re twice as much work — they like to complain, and they don’t learn as fast. I did two nights of parties for millionairesses and not one of them said thank you. That’s fucked up, and I can see what they do to men. I’ve got a waiting list right now; I don’t need it. I’m, like, ‘Look, you’re 53 years old and not that hot. Get over yourself.’”

Stanger believes that matchmaking is social-service work. Part therapist, part stylist. She even employs an interior designer for special cases. It requires skill and patience to teach these successful businessmen how to apply their strategies to their personal lives. For the money, she conducts only one, albeit thorough, official background check: She talks to his friends and visits his place of employment. As for the men, evidently the East Coast versus West Coast phenomenon isn’t only in rap-music and the art market. “California men are lazy idiots. They’re spoiled rotten! They never want to get out of the dolphin pond where they’ve been fed and serviced, and they expect the hottest little hottie on the market. New Yorkers may not be as pretty as California men, but they’re way more masculine. They’re hunters. They’re also taught that pedigree is the most important thing — where you came from, what school did you go to, what have you accomplished in your life. In California, it’s all about, ‘Oh, you’re a trailer-park trashie with a seventh-grade education? You’re hot — let’s go!’ It’s the only place I’ve been where a zero male expects a 10 and still thinks he can do better.”

Borrowing a question from her playbook, I ask: If you could date anyone in Hollywood, who would it be? Without hesitation, she answers, “Viggo Mortensen.” Her voice softens as she goes on to explain, “Everyone thinks I’m crazy. Although I would take his beard off. I like him with his long hair, without the beard. He has a serious quality. He lives in Venice. He’s cultural. He loves photography, poems — he’s creative. He’s low under the radar. That’s my kinda guy. He takes care of his son. He’s not obsessed with the perfect Bambi.” Despite her “10 commandments of dating” and her strictness with her clients (no sex — it’s in the contract), her personal life is a different matter. She doesn’t date a millionaire, and has been involved with the same “regular guy” that her office mates fixed her up with for a number of years now. When asked by others why she isn’t married, she’s quick to point out that Oprah isn’t married either and it works for her.

So why hire a matchmaker while Internet dating is so popular? “I think Internet dating is very dangerous. There’s no one screening the content, or telling you what you’re doing wrong. Of course, you don’t go back to someone’s home you don’t know, and you only meet in public places. It might be a way to get your numbers moving and give the universe a chance to set it up organically — like, right place, right time. But is it successful by the number of people that try it? No. And a lot of people get hurt. Even I ended up not doing it anymore.”
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To enjoy reality show Sunset Tan to its fullest, it’s important to understand the difference between “reality” and “celebreality,” power couple and show stars Nick D'Anna and Ania Migdal said this week. The two were recently in Las Vegas filming the second season of Sunset Tan and will return next month for further filming on Season Two, which started in October. Sunset Tan, www.myspace.com/sunsettanning, is an American reality television program airing on E! television network. It chronicles the lives of the employees and managers of a tanning salon in LA. Unlike a lot of preposterous “Celebreality” shows that aren’t really authentic, Nick, 24, said, everything on Sunset Tan is authentic – especially the fact that the two of them are MADLY IN LOVE. “A lot of people really think we’re actors playing parts -- that ‘Reality Television’ isn’t actually real -- but this really is,” Nick said. “This is a last-of-its-kind docudrama that’s not about celebrities. So that makes us a different kind of show. But people are still surprised to learn we’re not actors -- that we actually work here." The lovely Ania, 22, said Sunset Tan is quality viewing because of the true-life, non-contrived, drama stemming from the mix of talented people who work at Sunset Tan and the interesting and unusual customers. “This is a view into the craziness of the area, of people coming into the salon and the things they ask us to do,” she said. Nick and Ania started dating after Nick was originally cast on the show. But Ania was added as well after meeting with and impressing producers and salon staff. “Ania turned out to be a huge part of last season,” Nick said. The adoration of the salon’s fans, which range anywhere from Nebraska to Australia, is amazing, both said. Ania said reality television isn’t easy, especially for m_08e46bc894faf66be0155e2537a0e4e4.jpgnewcomers. “I was thrown into the show not knowing what to expect and it was hard because I was the new girl," she said. "Everyone wants camera time and they want to create drama because it's good for the show." Filming in Vegas is interesting because it's like Disneyland for adults, Ania said. “It’s kind of like when you’re a little kid and the most exciting thing you can do is go to Disneyland,” she said, “You can’t sleep the night before you go, you know? That’s Vegas. No rules and all fun and games and parties for adults in an adult world.” Go to Article | Close

Matchmaking may not be the world's oldest profession, but, nowadays, it's one of the most profitable. Appropriate, then, that third-generation matchmaker Patti Stanger's cellphone ring tone is set to the Gwen Stefani song Rich Girl.

The one-time hostess of her parents' now-defunct Fort Lauderdale bagel shop, Sam's Club on Sunrise Boulevard, Stanger is the star of Bravo's The Millionaire Matchmaker, which debuted in January. The show follows her exploits as she aids wealthy daters -- whom she calls ''brilliant in their businesses and stupid in their love lives'' -- under the auspices of the Los Angeles-based Millionaires Club matchmaking service she founded in 2000. Her mother and stepfather, Rhoda and Mel Goldstein, now live in Sunny Isles Beach.

David Wygant, a Los Angeles-based dating coach and founder of DW Productions, who worked as a dating coach for Stanger's business in its first year, says Stanger always told him she would get a show, and he believed her. ''She's different. She really tells it like it is,'' he says. ``You've almost got to set them up for failure, show them what they want, help them. These guys don't know failure. They don't like failure and they don't like to be judged.''

The University of Miami alumna, who majored in screenwriting, has a passion for, well, passion. But despite boasting ''a four-year relationship with a wonderful man,'' this modern-day diva of the dating world is also a savvy entrepreneur who admits that snagging true love is still harder than snagging a million bucks.

Stanger also has a division for advertising high-revenue luxury products on her website, a jewelry line, a fragrance and a book in the works. Her business has 15 employees. ''And then there's a major motion picture coming to a theater near you,'' she adds. ``My whole dream was to write my own screenplay, so I will probably do that, too, and maybe even have the musical on Broadway. I think big. I think globally.''

''Patti is a great self-promoter,'' says Mitchell D. Brandt, the president of Great Expectations, a Boca Raton-based dating service that turned Stanger on to matchmaking as a business opportunity. 'She always had a lot of energy. We had to rein her in every so often. When she would go to an event, she would walk away from her booth, walk up to people, ask, `Are you single?' She was aggressive.''
Brandt, an attorney and investor who is less involved in the business these days, not only spent 17 years in the industry, he met his wife of 12 years through his own service.

When asked if Stanger's show is representative of what it's like for searching singles, he says no.
''I think what she's talking about is a very, very small percentage of the population,'' he adds. 'Most people are afraid. They face a little rejection and they shut down and stop looking. Everyone wants two things in life: to find someone to love and be loved. I'm not sure that comes across in Patti's show. Patti is trying to say, `I'm only dealing with wealthy people, and wealthy people only want attractive girls.' '' He counters that wealthy people, men and women, also struggle with shyness, fear and rejection. ''People's experiences go right across the spectrum,'' he says.

With Tuesday's finale of her first season at hand and word on whether a second had been approved still pending, Stanger, 46, took time to talk to The Miami Herald. If her cable network does spring for a second date, she promises South Florida, and this region's singles, will get some of the action.

Q: It sounds as if the last couple of weeks have been crazy for you, taping The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, The Tyra Banks Show.
A: I don't know if you saw the ratings on Tuesday night . . . We're at No. 12. It's huge. . . . It's been blowing up, to the point where everyone wants a job, everyone wants me to fix them up and everybody wants to join, so it's been wonderful.

Q: Your revenue probably has blown up, too?
A: It's a million-dollar-a-year and more business. It doesn't take a brain surgeon with the prices we charge -- $25,000 membership. We're a boutique, so we might take 150 [clients] a year and now, because we're hiring new people, we can expand it. It costs more money to have me as the matchmaker -- I don't start matching anyone unless they pay $50K and up. Even when I didn't have the show, I made a lot of money. . . .
Florida is a quality market for me. We are getting more women from Florida than any other market in the country, including California. It's the fastest market to fix people up in. They don't hem and haw. They go out on a date and they don't analyze. Florida men usually are in retired mode. It's usually their second home they end up living in, so they're more on vacation 24/7, and they're more relaxed. They're not as uptight and neurotic. It's an older market -- men in their 50s who look pretty good. You've got your Brazilians and your Argentinians and your Germans and your English, and then you've got your Canadians and then you've got your New Yorkers, your Bostonians, your Chicagoans, but they all go down to this one market.

Q: Is your goal to franchise the Millionaire's Club?
A: No, we don't franchise. I'm basically selling you a license -- how to, the CD rom, everything you need to do, like add water and bake and let the cake rise. [The entry fee for an exclusive territory runs from $100,000 to $300,000, depending on the size and nature of the territory, according to the Millionaires Club press materials.] But the bottom line is I control it. You want to make sure you follow my formula. If not, you'll suffer. . . .
We have a 50 percent renewal rate. Does that mean I wasn't a success because I didn't marry them off? No, a lot of men say they want to get married, they get the girlfriend, and then they trade up. Like George Clooney [not a client]. Every two or three years, did you notice he trades up? He does. No, I haven't worked with him.

Q: How did you go from screenwriting to fashion to matchmaking?
A: I came from college back to New York, thinking I had a job with Warner Bros. [but my connection died], and I needed money to pay my rent. I was going to go back to Florida, but I got a job in the garment center working for Union Bay [clothing company]. So I made a lot of money, and I learned the business. It actually was the best selling tool for matchmaking because you would have to get a buyer to come to your office and compete with some of the biggest companies in the industry and really believe in the value of your product and sell it in a very short period of time for a lot of money. Learning to get people together, not having fear of phones, talking to anyone on the street -- good matchmakers are like that.
. . . Then I saw an ad in the paper for [dating service] Great Expectations, and that was my turning point in my life. I loved that job [in the telemarketing division] more than anything else, and I treated it like my own business. It taught me not only how to do the business side of matchmaking but how to be a really good matchmaker in everyday society. Because my mom did it for temple and my grandmother did it for the temple. They didn't really do it for money. I had to work seven days a week. I worked nights. I did anything I had to do to make that job succeed. I worked for a guy who was really difficult [owner-attorney Mitchell Brandt]. They asked me -- for no money, I wasn't getting paid extra -- to go around the country and do it to the other centers.

Q: Why does matchmaking have so much more potential for profit now than it did in your mother and grandmother's era?
A: Men married for sex and women married for security, and there was no gray area.
Now it's a lot harder because they're sleeping with the merchandise, and the girls are allowing it. And on top of it, they're jerking them around and dating three, four people at the same time and they're serial dating and they have expectation lists, but it's not high expectations -- it's unrealistic expectations. It doesn't exist. At first they're shocked [when I tell the men these things]. And I go, well, I don't really care. I've got your money. So, what are you gonna do about it? And then I basically tell them the truth. And you know what? I've danced at every one of those guys' weddings.


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Patti Stanger, the hard-charging force behind 'Millionaire Matchmaker,' talks tough on camera and off.

"Are you single?" she asks, by way of an introduction over the phone, and you can practically feel the wheels beginning to turn. In Patti Stanger's world, you might be just one date away from true love—and if it comes with a hefty bank account, even better. But that's the point, according to Stanger, founder and CEO of the Millionaire's Club, a matchmaking service in Los Angeles that helps wealthy men find the "women of their dreams." She's also the star of a show about her club on the Bravo network called "Millionaire Matchmaker," which documents Stanger at her passion-pursuing best—and sometimes worst. The series finale airs Tuesday, March 4, and Stanger promises there will be a "shocking proposal." Just don't expect it to be hers: like "the cobbler that has no shoes," as she refers to herself in one episode, Stanger isn't married.

Though she's no Miss Lonelyhearts, either. She's been with her boyfriend, Andy, for four years. And it's no surprise how she met him: one of her matchmakers in her service fixed them up. "Oprah doesn't want to get married, so does that mean that Oprah doesn't have a healthy relationship? That's a bunch of crap," Stanger says. "It depends what you want. I get it all the time. I'm in my 40s, and they're going, 'What's wrong with you?' And you know what, I'm kind of happy." That unapologetic approach is exactly
what has made Stanger, 46, so successful, and so perfect for television. She's basically a drill sergeant of love, laying down her orders, expectations, code of conduct and commandments to her hopeful clientele, most of whom get saucer-eyed at the mention of one of her most important tenets: no sex. At least until "you're in an exclusive, monogamous, committed relationship that is sexually and socially monogamous," Stanger says. That is for "protection," she adds, but not just in the safe sex way that you may think. "It's the pleasure principle," she explains and then, putting her University of Florida psychology minor to use, adds, "Because as oxytocin [the "love" hormone] kicks in, you're bonded to him for life. That's why we're at risk and they're not," she says. "Men don't bond through sex." Her recommendation is 90 days of just dating, kissing, cuddling.

Could it be that Stanger has cracked the problem of modern love? Her recipe: employ 21st-century tools—the Internet and dating services like hers—but adhere to what, nowadays, seems like old-fashioned, traditional values. "Men want you to be Madonna in the bedroom, Martha Stewart in the kitchen and Mary Poppins in the nursery," Stanger is fond of saying. That may sound as though she wants to set feminism back a few years, but that isn't the case, she says. "Let's be clear, I'm not saying, 'You don't get equal pay for equal work'."

Millionaire Club memberships start at $15,000, and that gives the allegedly millionaire men access to a database of nearly 25,000 women. The service is free for women. They have to go through a thorough personal evaluation—and agree to pay a penalty if they ask for anything from the men. They can be given money, jewelry, vacations, etc., but they cannot ask for anything. Since the show has aired, business has gone through the roof, Stanger says. And the quality of women "has gone up a hundredfold." That will be welcome news to someone such as Julian, one of her charges, a 28-year-old
millionaire who lived like a 21-year-old frat boy in what Stanger caught flak for calling "chateau ghetto."

"This is not a millionaire," she says as she rolls up to his Pasadena apartment in her silver Mercedes coupe. A third-generation matchmaker with a "sixth sense" for the business, Stanger can sometimes come across as brash and unsubtle, but it's for the clients' own good, in her view. You're a millionaire, live like one, she says, casting a disapproving gaze on the chain-link surroundings during her meeting with Julian. And her tactic works. As she zips off to her next appointment, the camera lingers on Julian
as he admits defeat: "Patti's claiming that she can do a lot for me, and I'm willing to give it a shot because obviously I'm a man with problems." He struck out with one of the woman she found for him. According to Stanger, Julian is still a work in progress.

With 110 million single people in America, Stanger's success with fixing up the rich and dateless has spawned a stretch limo's worth of ideas for her to corner many markets: "Gay Millionaire," "Millionaireness" and "Celebrity Dating." But even Stanger realizes that a true match comes down to
chemistry. Maybe money can't always buy you love, but at least her version comes with enough instructions to help further the cause. She offers this one, free of charge: "We have such a wish list of what we want and don't want that we're not willing to give an inch," she says, adding, "It's not that your expectations are too high, it's that they're unrealistic."


What's on her wish list? Well, Andy did look at rings last week, she says. She'd like a diamond—heart shaped.

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Are you having trouble locating true love? Do you need a little help finding that special guy or gal? If so, then it’s time to start watching Bravo’s latest reality-creation-slash-guilty-pleasure, Millionaire Matchmaker.

This “so bad it’s good” series follows third generation matchmaker and love guru Patti Stanger as she helps rich, socially-challenged Los Angeles men find true love through her matchmaking service, the Millionaire’s Club. While it may sound like a typically-trashy reality love show, Millionaire Matchmaker actually has substance hidden within each overly-dramatic episode.

What makes Millionaire Matchmaker so attractive is that it utilizes Bravo’s successful reality formula, the same one that produced such similarly-named hits as Blow Out, Work Out, and Flipping Out. This format relies on the show’s star empowering herself as she struts her stuff on camera. For Stanger, this means using Millionaire Matchmaker as a platform to show the ups and downs of playing a reality TV Cupid. It’s almost like she was made to star in her own show—she is able to produce melodramatic, made-for-TV breakdowns that result in hilariously unrealistic epiphanies.

The show uses the same premise for every episode. Each week, Millionaire Matchmaker starts with Stanger interviewing a group of women. She then selects a few to attend a special VIP event that is being thrown for two millionaires. At the event, the women vie for a date with one of the rich bachelors. The men then take the women out on a date and report back to Stanger. At the end of the episode, the viewer finds out whether the seed for “true love” has been planted.

The formulaic nature of Millionaire Matchmaker makes for a show that is often predictable and sometimes irritating. This is especially true when a date is not going well and the viewer is forced to watch the awkwardness on screen. In a recent episode, that meant watching a grown man say, “You are beautiful,” over and over to his date. Although moments like this can be frustrating, they are made up for by the laugh-out-loud quality of Stanger’s nonstop preaching about finding true love.

As silly and melodramatic as she can be on screen, Stanger is a good matchmaker. She is knowledgeable about the dos and don’ts of dating, and when it comes to sex, she believes that a man and woman should not have sex until a monogamous relationship has been established. While this is a huge bummer for a lot of the rich, juvenile men who appear on Millionaire Matchmaker, Stanger is so strict about sex that she has included rules about it in her contract. The idea of temporary celibacy seems less shocking after she claims that if she were a millionaire, she would work pro bono and be “like a Mother Teresa of matchmaking.” Then again, although it comes with the best of intentions, can a viewer really take a woman who would say a line like that seriously?

Is she really that moral, or only as moral as one can be on a reality show?

Stanger’s values are put into question by her position as a TV matchmaker. Is it right to date on a reality show, and should the phrase “true love” even be used on television? To maker matters worse, holding open calls to find girls who have, as she puts it, “beauty, brains, and class” clearly does not adhere to Stanger’s professed moral standards—these women seem to be handpicked to create drama. In the case of other reality shows, these elements might seem overtly obvious and weaken the show. However, such artificial elements actually benefit Millionaire Matchmaker. They provide the show with the commercial appeal which will help attract viewers and help them become dating savvy.

Stanger is sure to teach you a thing or two about the dating world. If not, then at least you get to watch a grown woman tell it like it
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As we break out the candy hearts this Valentine's Day, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about relations between the sexes. Sen. Hillary Clinton is running for president. The amount of time fathers spend with their children has more than doubled in the past few decades. We are finally transcending dusty stereotypes.

And then ... along comes the Bravo television network with The Millionaire Matchmaker, one of the newest reality offerings. Set in Southern California, this show features the antics of Patti Stanger, owner of a dating service called Millionaire's Club. This service introduces rich men to "over 25,000 beautiful women on file" whose glamour shots crowd Stanger's L.A. offices.

The show is, of course, silly and offensive — though not only for the obvious reason that "millionaires" are assumed to be men and their dates are screened primarily for looks.

The trouble is more for the larger cultural question of who makes an ideal wife for a successful man. On Stanger's website, she notes that "our women seek an old-fashioned, traditional relationship where the woman has the option of staying home and raising the children while her husband pursues his career." It is these women, who have limited professional ambitions, whom Stanger deems the "Perfect 10."

Fortunately, for those of us who aspire to a bit more, many successful men no longer believe this. When it comes to modern romance, everything is more nuanced — and even the millionaires on Bravo have some surprises of their own.


Love and ambition

Certainly, the dating market for successful men and women is complicated. The conventional wisdom that men don't want to be outdone by their wives has some basis in fact. Columbia Business School economist Ray Fisman has run many experiments over the years in which he recruits Columbia graduate students to try "speed dating," where men and women meet several potential partners for a few minutes apiece. Time after time, he found that men were a lot less likely to follow up with dates whom they perceived as more intelligent or ambitious than they are.

One could spin this as proof that Millionaire Matchmaker is right on the money. Stanger's female recruits — though often bright young women — tend to work in stereotypically "unthreatening" jobs (think makeup artist or personal assistant). She criticized a doctor for giving away her professional identity too soon.

But this dumb-it-down idea — immortalized in a Sex and the City episode in which lawyer Miranda pretended to be a flight attendant for speed-dating purposes — is not what Fisman's experiments actually found.

Men's attitudes have been evolving over the past century. A study of women born in the 1920s found that smart women were less likely to marry, but Fisman's modern male graduate students did exhibit a preference for intelligence and ambition in women — to a point. "What seemed to be the magic number is whatever the man thought of himself," Fisman says.

In other words, an extremely ambitious man who started a $30 million business would probably prefer an attractive doctor or businesswoman — as long as her ambitions didn't exceed his own — to someone with more limited aspirations. In his sample, Fisman says, "men are not looking for someone who is just going to bear their children and make them sandwiches every day. They're looking for a little more than that."

According to a Harris Interactive Poll commissioned for Christine Whelan's 2006 book Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, 85% of single high-achieving men said they were looking for a wife who is as or more ambitious than they are. People lie to pollsters; men might lie about the "more" part. But there's no reason to doubt the "as." One reason the rich are getting richer in the USA is that high-earning men and women are marrying each other.


The dinner table question

This idea of a magic tipping point complicates things, but it makes sense in our changing society. Yes, the male ego still has its needs. But there's a reason Bill Clinton married Hillary — whom he rightly perceived as having ambitions that matched his own — rather than the other women who've come in and out of his life. "You don't want to be sitting in silence over the dinner table," Fisman says. For all their woes, you can bet the Clintons are not. Why wouldn't a member of the Millionaire's Club — now that many women do fascinating things with their lives — want an equally interesting marriage?

It's better than a partnership based primarily on a man's money. Marriage is for better or for worse. Businesses can and do fail. Real estate bubbles burst. The stock market can tank. These things are stressful enough without adding a spouse who married you because she assumed your wealth meant she'd never have to work outside the home.

Some men on Millionaire Matchmaker seem to get this. On the first episode, an e-commerce entrepreneur shied away from a woman whose parents paid her rent, and chose to date a Harvard graduate instead. She seemed more interesting.

Indeed, the most fascinating woman on Millionaire Matchmaker is probably Patti Stanger herself. While not a conventional cover model, she's a brilliant business owner with a passion for life. In other words, a great fit for a man who also knows the trials and joys of running a start-up. Yet she seemed genuinely surprised when one of her millionaires hit on her.

She shouldn't be. These days, many successful men want a perfect match — in every sense of the word.

Laura Vanderkam, author of Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues, is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

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Patti Stanger could be considered a modern-day cupid for those who can afford her heart-shaped arrow.

On Monday, Patti talked to Reality TV World about where and how she finds her well-off clients and the women who want to date them; why her Bravo reality series seems to feature so many guys who don't really appear to be looking for a real love match; how she plans on expanding her business; and why she feels she's been racking up credits in heaven.

Reality TV World: Why is your business called a "club?"

Patti: Because I wanted a place where people could be relaxed and felt like protected -- like a country club. And country club usually cater to the elite, so that's where I got the idea from.

Reality TV World: Bravo's aired three episodes of the show so far. How often do you do use "open casting call"-type events to find the women for one of your guys and how often do you just set him up with some women that you already have on file?

Patti: Ninety-percent is what we fix-up on file, or [we] go outside of the database -- there is a personal search membership -- 10% of the time.

We always do the roundtables once a year in October. But we reserve those right now for Bravo. Usually it's 25 millionaires and about 50 to 70 women. But the women don't pay. The men pay $3,500 a pop. Each person gets gift bags, they get champagne at the brunch. So the men in essence are paying for the women and all these components that go with it, such as the facility, etc.

Reality TV World: Your bio states The Millionaire's Club currently has over 10,000 women "available" for its members...

Patti: We've got 25,000. They need to update that. We're opening in the U.K. and Canada too.

Reality TV World: Okay, so if a woman goes on a date with a client but it doesn't work out, do you still keep her on file for another guy?

Patti: I fix her up until the catch or release is over, which means he releases her back into the pond, he moves onto somebody else and she gets fixed up with somebody else provided I have a match for her. Remember, she's not guaranteed a date. He is. He's the client.

But we do have millionairesses that work in the reverse. They pay the same amount of money as the men and they get as many dates as they want for the year. So it works both ways.

Reality TV World: I see. So you do have clients who are millionaire women?

Patti: Yes, we do... Not a lot -- a few -- but not a lot. Because it's really difficult because most women want to date up, not down. They don't want to take care of anyone.

Reality TV World: What type of professional backgrounds do the women typically come from?

Patti: Some Ivy Leaguers.... [Women] from other countries, like Canada and Europe. They've got major educations. They speak six, seven, eight languages. They travel the world. They're a lot more smarter and much more... How do I want to say it? Grown-up more? They're much more refined and cultured and worldly than the United States. Our education system is not as great.

But I do have a lot of Ivy Leaguers. I do have girls that went to USC, UCLA. I have girls that went to the University of Michigan, which is a very good school. The University of Maryland, places like that. They're home-spun chicks, they get out of the city, and they go west. Or they get out of Miami, and they go north. They land in big cities all over the country depending what their interests are and what their careers are.

Reality TV World: What type of women are you looking for?

Patti: I'm looking for beauty, brains, class, refinement, [and women] who are interested in monogamy. Women who want a serious relationship. I take all different ages, all different ethnic backgrounds, all different religions. There's no prejudice here in this business. I don't care if you're 55-years-old, I'll take you. Because if I have a match for you, I'm going to fix you up. My job is to get the man and the woman off the markets so they never have to date again.

Reality TV World: How well do you and your staff get to know the women?

Patti: We get to know them pretty well. You spend a lot of time on the phone with these people after you meet them. And I have eyes and ears -- I have 25 screeners around the country that screen the women in person to make sure they are who they say they are. They check their IDs for age, their photos, their weights not out of whack, their pictures aren't out of whack.

But you know my job really is to make sure it's the perfect fit. A lot of time we spend on the phone, we counsel them, we get the feedback on email. We're constantly in the throws. The matchmakers -- our staff -- have gone through a very strong, 90-day Millionaires Club matching program. They have to follow the formula, they're tested on it orally and written as well as verbally. So there's these tests they go through because it's about body language. It's about reading and looking at the body and noting if their pupils are dilated, are they interested -- not just by their words and their actions -- but by their body. It's a process that we go through.

Reality TV World: What percentage of the women that come in do you reject?

Patti: We don't reject anyone. We always put the registration on file. And if they want to get better photos, we recommend a photographer. If they want to lose weight, we wait until they get their weight off. We keep those photos on file. We don't throw anybody out.

Because I don't know when somebody's going to come in wanting somebody. Like I was talking about these women in the Dove commercials, some people consider them chubby. Well what if a chubby-chaser came in and wanted them and I didn't have them on file? That's crazy! I have a lot of plus-size models.

Reality TV World: During the show, you talk about how you screen out the "gold diggers," but it looks like women always know the guy is a millionaire before they show up for your "casting call." How do you "screen out" the "gold diggers?" Wouldn't it be easier if you kept the part about the guy being rich a secret for a while?

Patti: Basically there's three ways. They sign $10,000 affidavits saying that they won't ask for anything financial. We tell the men not to give them cash, not to pay their rent, not to buy them a car. You can buy gifts, jewelry, pretty much anything you want as long as it's out of the goodness of your heart and no one has swayed you or tipped you off to do it.

Then the four-to-one rule is the most important rule. Every four times he gives to you, you have to give back at a lesser value. Whether he takes you to dinner, drinks, dancing, whatever -- you have to give back by making him dinner, baking him cookies, something domestic that would be appreciative to him that he can't do for himself or he doesn't want to do for himself. So you just give back at a lesser value.

I'll give you an example. I do my boyfriend's taxes every year. I enter it into his computer on his spreadsheets. Now he has two apartment buildings, and he hates to sit at the computer and do this. Every year -- at tax time -- I spend a full day doing this for him. Now that's a way to give back to him. I buy the groceries and he takes us out for dinner. I cook during the week, and he takes us out for dinner during the weekend. So we find a balance.

Now I make more money than my boyfriend, but he has more invested -- he has real-estate investments. But I have more liquid cash. So we have to balance it out where I feel like the girl because if I feel like I'm paying for everything I'm not going to want to have sex with him anymore, and that's the problem.

Reality TV World: Obviously they're all millionaires, but what type of guys do you normally cater to?

Patti: Mostly we cater to various different types. Ten-percent are entertainment guys, what you saw on Bravo. That's not the norm. Most guys are hedge-fund guys, real-estate developers, lawyers -- I cater to legal eagles left and right. I specialize in lawyers. My entire family is lawyers, so I know what their needs are. Doctors are kind of on the low-end -- unless it's plastic surgeons because the HMOs kill them -- but we're dealing with investment bankers, brokers. It used to be real-estate was it. Now with everything going on, it's not as strong as it used to be. But the hedge-fund industry is swinging high!

So you got through cycles. Silicon Valley is a HUGE market for me. These guys come down to LA and they get the LA connection. We have them coming from Seattle, because of Microsoft... So there's a lot of market that you wouldn't think about.

In New York, it can be anything from Madison Avenue all the way down to Wall Street. And the garment center's a huge market for me. So any high-end luxury products, people that own jet companies, dentists... dentists make a fortune by the way. Dentists make more money than doctors!

Reality TV World: How do you get your clients? The show's shown you talking about your "sales" process.

Patti: Well we've been in business over nine years so we're branded. I've been on every reality show, NBC, Fox, Marie Claire magazine... So people know me.

It was funny, I did this really great story in an Australian magazine called New Women four years ago. This guy was on a boat, deep-sea fishing in the middle of the barrier reefs, and they had the magazine onboard. He was 40, he took a break [from fishing] opens it up and there's me in America. He calls me from the boat phone, hocked a plane ride over, got married through me, had a baby. He's staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel the last few weeks and we had dinner with him -- I went to his wedding -- and he said, "Honey, had I never read that magazine I would have never known about you."

So we're pretty branded. People know us. You say The Millionaires Club, you say Millionaire Matchmaker, people know who we are.

Reality TV World: How many clients do you work with at once?

Patti: I only take on about 15 or 20 a year, but the rest of the staff takes on the rest. A lot of the staff is not on camera [on the Bravo TV show]. So there's other matchmakers not on camera. But I can take up 15 to 20, maybe 25 at the most. I take a lot of heavy-hitters, guys who like who wanted a specialized membership, like one of the $100,000 [packages we offer]. Not because they're spending so much money, but because they need a lot of undivided attention. They call you 16 times a day, they want to break the bread all the time and fly in and eat dinner with you. So it's time consuming. I'm on call, and I'm on call seven days a week.

Reality TV World: How did the clients that we're seeing on The Millionaire Matchmaker find you? Did the producers find them or did they just call up like any of your other customers?

Patti: Several were referred, and a lot were cast [for the show]. But they did work-out a deal with NBC [Bravo is owned by NBC Universal], so I can't talk about that because it's an NBC issue. The reason is, NBC has contracts with them. But I am working with some of them right now. Whether they joined in the beginning or joined later, they're still working with me.

Reality TV World: You already mentioned you work with a few female millionaires, what about branching out to gay men?

Patti: As a matter of fact, that's the No. 1 request. I'm doing [The Ellen DeGeneres Show] on Friday, so maybe she'll be my business partner because I'm looking for a gay business partner. I own gaymillionairesclub123.com -- I own the trademark -- I own the mark on Gay Millionaire's Club. And I'm looking for a gay partner because I don't want to think that I'm prejudice enough to think that I can do the right thing by the gay man or the gay woman. They're two separate entities.

If we get picked up for Season 2, we're doing gay dating on [the Bravo show] -- gay and women. So that will happen, we've already talked about it. But I'm looking for a gay business partner to put us on the map.

Reality TV World: What type of background information do you acquire on your clients before catering to them?

Patti: There's a lot of stuff I can't tell you. They're trade secrets and I don't want my competitors knowing. But I will tell you this, I do a thorough check on them. It's not a background check like you and I would do, it's a background check so I can tell where the money is, how generous you are, what true essence of lifestyle you want to live or lead, and -- most importantly -- do you want a monogamous relationship. I find out more dirt than the IRS, because it's not just about money, it's about do you open the car door? Do you pay the valet? Do you call in advance for a date? I'm more concerned about your manners than anything. You could be a gazillionaire, but you'll be Ebenezer Scrooge. So it doesn't matter to me how much money you have, it's what do you spend the money you have on.

Reality TV World: Do you take on any certified millionaire that's willing to pay for your services or do you have your own acceptance criteria? If so, what is it?

Patti: I have acceptance criteria. I have to have what you want in stock or be able to find it. I have to have somebody who's not a sexual predator or demon, meaning like you can't ask me sexual questions, like screening for breast implants or bisexuality. Don't cross that road. And the other thing is if your expectations are out of whack and it's something I can't give you, I refer you to another club or tell you to hit the streets.

So it's got to be somebody who's a good fit for us. It's got to be a match for me as well. It's got to be a business match, or else it's not going to work. I've never been sued, I don't want to get into lawsuits with anyone. I'd rather not take your money and refer you elsewhere. I'm very credible at what I do, that's why you can't find any dirt on me because I'm the real deal. I'd rather make less money and have good sleep at night.

Reality TV World: Do you ever attempt to determine whether a guy is legitimately looking to find love and reject those who aren't [because some of these guys on the show]...

Patti: I can spot an agenda in five minutes. What you see on the show is not really what's happening in the real business world. [The] guys on TV are extroverts. They want to promote their business. They want to get the girl, they want to play the field, they want the attention. Ninety-nine-percent of my men are like [in the] Hitch [movie] -- confidential, low under the radar. They're the quiet millionaire. You wouldn't know he has money but he has $5 million in the bank and lives a low-key lifestyle. Or maybe he's a billionaire on the go, and God forbid the media ever found out he joined my club! His reputation would be ruined. Then there's the middle of the road guy. He's divorced, newly back on the market. He's sick of the singles scene, doesn't want to have his friends fix him up. So what do you do? You go to someone who screens for you -- like a headhunter for love -- like you do for your business.

So that's what it is. Most people are private and confidential and doesn't want anybody knowing about this. It's still a dirty little secret to hire a matchmaker. But you'll go on match.com and throw your picture up there. It makes no sense to me.

Reality TV World: A lot of viewers are skeptical that some of these guys, especially Lonnie Moore, [whose actually the business partner of Big Brother 7: All-Stars winner Mike "Boogie" Malin] ...

Patti: He did it for business, because he's Ashton Kutcher's partner. He's launching his Dolce Group restaurants all over the country. But at the end of the day, he called me and said he learned a lot that he didn't know about. And his mother thanked me, so obviously I did something right! (laughing)

Reality TV World: What's the longest you've ever worked with a client?

Patti: Five years. He was a serial dater, renewal guy, just like George Clooney. Every year he would trade-up to a bigger and better one and he finally got married in October 2007. But actually, his mother is from Britain and thanked me at the wedding, and said, "I don't know what I would have done without you." he had given up hope. He was 50! At 50, you should get your game plan down.

Reality TV World: You said you became a matchmaker to "understand men." Has it worked?

Patti: Yes. I opened a Pandora's Box, but it really hurt.

I used to cry myself to sleep at night going, "Who would ever want me because I'm not a perfect 10?" Then I realized there's more than meets the eye. My boyfriend loves me to death, and the secret is a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was basically accentuating on the positive, good stuff in me. Like I didn't date for personality, I could lose 20 pounds, I'm 134 and five-foot, eight [-inches]. I could lose 15 pounds for television. I could look like all these little skinny waifs on TV. But I like to eat and I like to socialize and I like to have my glass of wine every once in a while. So there were things about myself I wasn't happy about and I'm older, I'm in my 40s. I'm like ancient! I'm a dinosaur in LA! But my boyfriend loves me to death and he's 50.

It's like I learned it's not exactly about the looks. The looks are just the entree to get you into the club. It does not secure you the husband. It's so much more than that. Chemistry is not definable because it's not just about looks. That's something people forget -- they think it's just good looks. I said, "You know what? There are plenty of girls on the street, that smile pretty, gain five pounds, let their hair not be perfectly highlighted, and they've got the hottest husband in town." They're doing something right! You know what it is? They've got the confidence to know they're the deal, not the guy.

That's what's going on, and when they act that way, men line up. I see it in New York all the time, I don't see it in LA. But I see it every time I'm in Manhattan. I'll see a girl and a guy in a restaurant and say, "How the hell did these two hook-up?!" My mother goes, "Because look at her confidence! Look at her body language!" My mother's the first one to point it out. "She doesn't act like he's something special." She's not loose, but she's not kissing his ass!

Reality TV World: Can you talk a little about your policy of the men not having sex with any of the women?

Patti: The policy is this: I don't care if you need to have your pipes cleaned out. Go have back-up sex, find the ex-girlfriend you know you're not going to marry and shtuk her all you want. Or go buy it in Vegas, just don't do it on my turf, because my women are here to be courted. It takes 90 days to know someone pretty well and to see if you want to be in an exclusive, monogamous relationship.

Now if you're the type of guy who likes to spin the car around the block before buying it, fine. Go ahead. Just don't do it in my club. I need you to court her so that she feels relaxed enough so that when you do get monogamous and you do have sex, the sex is through the roof. I'd rather you wait and have better sex than have bad sex in the beginning. Don't do it early on to get it over with -- it's not something to get over with. It's something to cement the relationship on.

Reality TV World: How do you decide what type of events to hold when you introduce the clients with the potential suitors? What are you trying to learn at the events?

Patti: We don't do smaller events. We do the roundtable, but what we've done in the past is gone on location to various places like Aspen and Miami. Chelsea does that a lot... she'll go out with your sidekicks to woo the girl in the local markets -- and I'll send some of these people to other countries who speak the language.

We can create an event. Like if you're a billionaire, we can create an event in your home, we can create an event at your country club, we can rent out a restaurant. We can create an event, we've done that. We've had like 10 guy friends come in and one guy pays for it.

I'll tell you what we did do recently. We did a dinner party called Ring the Bell. Back in the 1950s they used to play this game where you ring the bell and you change your position at the dinner, and each course you switch. We had a 10-course wine pairing dinner, we all laid-out five girl, five guys -- Chelsea and I ran it -- we were at the end of the table to make sure everybody was moving right. Basically, each girl would hook-up with a guy. We got three pairings from it. So three out of 10 is pretty good odds. And we ring the bell, and we create a menu based on your needs. We basically had different wine pairings and a chef and they talked about the food together, so we have done that dinner at people's homes.

Guys like that with their guy friends. They won't do it in the general population -- it won't work -- they don't want anyone knowing they're doing this. So we brought the girls to them, we set-up the dinner party, we decorated it, we made everybody wear cocktail attire, and it was really a nice atmosphere. We did it for... It wasn't Halloween, but we did it for September. I've done it for Valentine's Day in the past. It's called Ring the Bell.

Reality TV World: What do you do when a client seems to be attracted to you -- ala Jeff -- or one of your staff members, like Jullien with Chelsea?

Patti: (laughing) Well I have a boyfriend, so it's easy now. But back in the day when I didn't it was harder if I was attracted, and I've only been attracted once. You know you're meeting with your negative -- it's like a therapist -- could you really get attracted to this messed-up guy? You can't get really attracted to them. So the truth of the matter is, I don't really look at them like candidates.

Chelsea on the other hand is harder. She's 26, she impressionable, she really likes guys that like her. When they flake like that, it doesn't make you feel wanted. She stopped dating the clients because of it. She really got hurt and said, "I'm not doing this anymore because it's not good for my ego." because you still have to fix them up and honor their contract. That's the hard part, especially figuring what women they'll be dating.

Reality TV World: Do your clients pay a bonus if you make a successful "love match" for them?

Patti: They've offered it to me but I turned it down a lot. I always go to the weddings. I don't push it, but they can if they want. I haven't had like the billionaire who's offered me the big money, so for the guy that offers me like five grand, I'm like, "You know what? Just keep it. Put it towards your kids' college education." It's funny, I don't put it in my contract like any of these other competitors that are copying me. It's not about making $1 million. It's about paying my bills, making my staff happy and keeping the business afloat. I put all my money back into my business.

Reality TV World: Seeing as how you're dealing with millionaires, how open to your personality and style suggestions are they?

Patti: Usually it will take three or four dates for a girl to cut them down to size, for them to get wise to them telling them the truth. Usually it's because I give them the hottie, so they realize, "Okay, if I want to get this girl I better start listening to her." But I'd say 45% listen to me from the get go, and they're my favorites. They're like, "Change my wardrobe! Decorate my house! Can we go buy a new car together?" They're very open to my suggestions...

Reality TV World: How many successful, long term "love matches" have you made?

Patti: We have a raw [number], but I don't give out my numbers. There's a reason for that, because most matchmakers lie. I am very, very successful -- I've been to a lot of weddings. I have a lot of people living together, which I consider that successful. But I don't give out numbers. It's a waste of time.

Reality TV World: How does it feel to make a "love match?"

Patti: That's the best. When you get that call, it's worth everything. It's better than sex... It really is a great, great orgasmic feeling because you got someone their soul mate. I don't think there's anything better. And you know you're getting your credits in heaven because God's watching and he's going to send you a little bonus too.

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"Next season is going to be different," says "Millionaire Matchmaker" star Patti Stanger, "because we're going to do gay millionaires."

Although Bravo's newest reality romp hasn't been officially re-upped, it's a good bet it will be. "[The network] is telling me to look at June," says Stanger, referring to a tentative shooting schedule. "We talked about having a gay millionaire. A millionairess. Maybe a celebrity. And somebody who's recovering from cancer. I want to do real people."

And why is that? "Because this season we showed a particular kind of millionaire," says Stanger, whose services run from $15,000 skyward to hook up the rich and socially clueless. "This season we showed the extrovert, the TV whore, the self-promoter with an agenda. Or, they couldn't get women and this is an easy, quick fix. This is the lazy, passive whale on the beach who doesn't have to do any work."

So Stanger wants to expand her database (including sexual orientation) and her geographical reach. Not content with coupling the rich and lonely on the West Coast, Stanger wants to round up the loaded and the lovelorn in New York and Florida, as well.

Does she think her gold-plated gut instincts will work in the gay community?

"There would have to be a gay person at the helm to consult with me," she says. "But attraction is attraction. When a guy comes in and he's flamingly queeny and he goes for butch, you can't give him another queen. Somebody wants their car door opened. Somebody wants to be called back. Somebody wants someone to pay the bill. It's not about the sexuality. You have to be able to hear what attracts somebody."

What Stanger is also hearing is the rattle of serious coin. She believes the well of millionaire gays runs deep. "The gay community has a lot of money because there's no second decision maker," says Stanger. "They don't have an ex-wife or children. But what they're saying to me is that there's a whole subset of the gay community, where people are hooking up for real love. And that's why they want marriage.
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A big bank account doesn't equal big romance, and Bravo's "Millionaire Matchmaker" makes that perfectly clear. The show centers on Patti Stanger, the founder of the dating service Millionaire's Club based in Los Angeles. Patti is a modern-day matchmaker who helps wealthy men find their future wives.

Sound archaic? Perhaps, but for those who need help in the love department, it's a way to meet potential matches in a safe environment. The club currently has 10,000 women "available" to its members. It is free to females only, and each one is screened before she is introduced to a millionaire. The men are screened as well to ensure they really are worth millions.

If you're a woman who wants to join the club, be warned. Patti is tough and will tell you if you look trashy, need to de-frump or should get hair extensions. She told one group of women that men don't like short or curly hair. They want something they can run their fingers through. The women must also show off their assets. If you have a nice body, flaunt it. Don't dress like you just left work.

There are rules. A recent episode featured a millionaire named Lonnie who is a close friend of Ashton Kutcher's and co-owner of a slew of restaurants and nightclubs in Hollywood. Patti told Lonnie that sex on the first date is strictly forbidden. Until one is in a monogamous relationship, sex is not allowed. Translation: you have sex and your contract is void. No money back.

Patti seems to genuinely want to make matches and is aggravated when her clients don't follow instructions. She coaches the millionaires and the ladies to make them more attractive, both inside and out. It seems like she's tougher with the women, but then again, her salary comes from the men so you do the math. If Patti tells a woman to show a little leg when she meets a man, she has her best interest in mind (after the man's, of course).

This process certainly isn't elevating the women's liberation movement. Then again, posting your profile on eHarmony and advertising your wares online isn't much different, is it? At least with the Millionaire's Club you know the men can support themselves.

One of the most entertaining things about the show is watching the millionaires struggle on their dates. The aforementioned 33-year-old Lonnie is a player, and you wonder why he joined the club in the first place. It's obvious all he wants is to have sex with large breasted women. He doesn't want a relationship. Despite coaching from a relationship professional, Lonnie screws up his date by answering his cell phone, tending to business matters, and inviting friends to join them. We later learn he is dropped from the club. Maybe the no sex rule was too difficult for him.

It must make the everyman feel better knowing that those with padded pockets have just as difficult a time finding romance as they do. This show proves the adage that money can't buy happiness. But it can buy your way into the Millionaire's Club to meet an assortment of long haired women (no curls, of course).
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LONNIE MOORE is a fantastic Los Angeles archetype. A partner in the Dolce Group, which owns the nightclub Les Deux and the restaurant Geisha House, among others, he's charismatic, brash and brusque. Incapable of training his attention on any one thing for more than a few seconds, and with a hairstyle that's more a feat of engineering than styling, he's the embodiment of young money. And young money doesn't care.

Except on Sunday nights, apparently, which is when he gets lonely after a week of nonstop movement. It's that emptiness, he says, that brought him to Patti Stanger, owner of the Millionaire's Club, a dating service for high-net-worth men.

This week, he's one of two millionaires looking for love, or something like it, on Stanger's new Bravo show, "The Millionaire Matchmaker" (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.). He is matched with Sabrina, a young model, but doesn't visibly perk up until the word "Playboy" slips from her mouth. It was not a dream pairing -- he took phone calls during their date, then invited some friends to crash the dinner. Maybe his appearance is just another masterstroke of using reality television as free advertising? (Moore's Dolce Group partner is the execrable Mike "Boogie" Malin of "Big Brother" fame.)

But here's where reality can intrude even into a critic's column about reality television. In December, TMZ reported on a civil suit recently filed in L.A. County Superior Court against Moore and others. (His appearance on "Matchmaker" was filmed before the lawsuit was filed.) In the suit, the plaintiff alleges Moore forced her to have intercourse in an August incident at Les Deux. Reached for comment, Ronald Richards, Moore's attorney, said, "Mr. Moore vehemently denies those allegations."

Presuming Moore's innocence, he has been thrust into the spotlight by his appearance on "Millionaire Matchmaker," a show that already seems to thrill in unraveling its subjects. Membership in Stanger's Millionaire's Club includes access to a pool of genetically blessed women, to be sure, but also, as has been clear from the first episodes of this show, a heavy dose of televised humility. Stanger isn't so much in the dating business as she is in the honesty business.

She is refreshingly direct, a must in this line of work. (Matt Titus of Lifetime's "Matched in Manhattan" and Patti Novak of A&E's "Confessions of a Matchmaker" are almost as unfiltered, but their clients -- just regular Joes and Jills -- are a bit more sympathetic.)

"What I can do for Harold," Stanger said, in last month's premiere, of a nebbishy 46-year-old who wants to date a Cindy Crawford type two decades his junior, "is teach him a lesson." This involves setting him up with a younger woman who will, in essence, leave him in the dust. Inevitably, he tweaks his specifications.

Of Patrick, the other of this week's millionaires, Stanger is withering: "Patrick's personality at first was like paint drying -- he has no edge, no personality, and he's stale, like day-old bread."

Behind every good love match is, it seems, a healthy dose of sadism.

And because they're millionaire bait, and the currency upon which Stanger's enterprise is founded, the women do not escape Stanger's harsh glare either. (Redheads, she sighs, are "just not the freshest produce on the aisle.")

But women at least get to join the club for free. That these financially successful men would pay to subject themselves to such humiliations indicates levels of ego that are either astonishingly high or astonishingly low. It would be easy to think the former, but it may truly be the latter. Stanger's millionaires are without fail socially awkward in some way. Julien, 28 and handsome, still lives with his college roommates (he begins to search for his own place). Dave, an adult products distributor who gleefully refers to himself as "Sex Toy Dave," is advised to hide his penis cactus and de-install his living room stripper pole (yes, no).

Perhaps they don't make millionaires like they used to -- but they certainly make more of them. According to a 2005 study by Merrill Lynch and CapGemini, there are approximately 2.5 million millionaires in the United States. (The study took into account financial assets excluding the primary residence.)

Which means business is good -- Stanger says she needs to sign up between six and 10 new clients a month "in order . . . to sleep at night." And "Millionaire Matchmaker" gives an interesting glimpse of what wealth looks like today -- it is diverse, insulating, and indiscriminate.
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We’ve come a long way since the Beatles told us “I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.” Patti Stanger, host of the new Bravo series, “The Millionaire Matchmaker” and founder of The Millionaire’s Club, lives her life as a complete contradiction of those words.

Combining traditional courtship and Jewish matchmaking, Stanger has taken the world of dating, and what some may call destiny, into her own hands. And though she may not use an arrow and fly around on wings of love, she has to be doing something right (seeing as she is the one behind over 300 marriages to date).

Stanger’s Los Angeles-based company The Millionaire’s Club was founded in 2000 with the concept that single, successful men needed an exclusive club where they could come and find the women of their dreams. In her own words, “they don’t have a lot of time on their hands, they are really busy, and they have a specific wish list,” so, Stanger takes the time to meet them and, “they basically give me all the parameters and then I hit the targets on the list.”
Stanger has made a living out of the company, along with the five members of her staff. And the tall brunette sees nothing wrong with paying for this matchmaking, quipping, “If you have that kind of money, you are going to outsource your love life… because who wants to go to clubs looking for love?”

Stanger has a few more dating rules that she believes that everyone should follow:
1. Get to know someone before you decide to date him or her exclusively (at least 90 days).
2. At the ninth month of exclusively dating, there should be some form of negotiation going on of “where are we headed?”
3. If a man hasn’t discussed marriage after a year, he doesn’t want to get married to you. “Four seasons is enough time for a man to make a decision,” she says. And she continues with the brutal truth, “Men who really want to get married will be asking buyer’s questions, like they are buying a car or a house.”

Stanger’s mother and grandmother were matchmakers for their synagogue. As a third generation matchmaker, her rules may just be dead on. “I think that one of the biggest misconceptions is people end up in relationships with people that don’t want the same things as them, just because the person is cute or they had great sex,” Stanger says. So, finally after building up her business, Stanger has a reality TV show.

Bravo saw potential in Stanger’s Club. The show portrays her day-to-day life with a bit of office drama and the reality of dating in the upper class. The Jewish matchmaker describes it as being about “my company, my staff, and the millionaire men that I fix up on the show and how I coach them all to success.”

Each hour-long episode features two different millionaires and their quest at love. Stanger and her staff work hard to gather the right women for each male and they are constantly screening new potential mates for each member. The women that are part of the club are not necessarily millionaires, but rather want to find a man they can raise a family with or retire with (depending on their age). “The women want the covenant relationship which means that they get to stay home and raise the kids while their husband goes off and slays the dragons at work,” Stanger said.

Stanger, however, doesn’t just fix up any old millionaire; they all must meet the requirements for the elite club. Stanger will not take on any man that has ludicrous expectations. “I have had people that are looking for something unrealistic, like a tall, Asian woman with blue eyes, 6 feet or taller… and I just don’t have that,” she said. So, she simply turns them away. “I have had men ask me to screen for real breasts… and you just have to go ‘I’m sorry’ that is something I wouldn’t do,” she confesses.

The Millionaire Matchmaker shows a pushy owner that runs her office with strict determination. She knows what she wants, and she wants her staff to have the same high standard for their clients. The proud 46-year old is also a strong believer in tough love and is not afraid to be completely honest with her clients.

“I look at their past history: what went wrong in their relationships? A lot of guys get divorced from this beautiful woman and what they end up doing is try to find the sweeter version of that girl because they are so fixated on the looks,” she explains. “And I am like, ‘stop trying to re-create your ex-wife!’ It’s a pattern people have, and they have to change their mojo and be open to all different types of people.”

People get hurt and close themselves off, and Stanger is there to pick them up and help them see past the old, and bring them into a life of change and progression. Stanger also says her show is completely different than any show on TV today. “All the things you want to bust a man on, I am busting.” She also says, “there are a lot of good fix-up stories on the show that we didn’t force… we just let nature take its course.”

As for her love life, Stanger has a boyfriend of four years that is semi-kosher and comes from a very traditional Jewish family. “We celebrate shabbos once a month,” Stanger says. “I am a food-Jew…you break out the food and I will be there,” Stanger says with a laugh. Where did she meet her nice, Jewish man? At her club, of course. A woman came to her wanting to be a matchmaker and Stanger gave her a test. Stanger had just broken up with a “bad boy” and was trying to move on, so she asked the woman to find her a decent, Jewish boy. The woman delivered.

“I gave her my list and she presented… he was my first date,” Stanger says.

Aside from her Jewish roots, Stanger is mostly proud of her ability to read people. She sees matchmaking as much more than a special talent. She feels is it a gift. “I think it is in my DNA and I can just naturally read people’s vibrations and put them together. I was also an astrologer for 10 years, so psychically I feel that I have an extra sixth sense in the love department,” she said. Stanger also said her job holds great rewards. “I am getting credits in heaven… there is a God and I am sure that I will be dining at his table someday.”

The Millionaire Matchmaker also promises a lot for its Jewish audience. Stanger shared that there is a total of five Jewish millionaires in the seven episodes. Stanger also said that there is a “Jewish twist” in the last episode which she could not reveal but was sure would be liked.

Stanger’s zingy attitude and love for matchmaking make the show undoubtedly entertaining, and without her firm grasp on the harsh reality of being single, there wouldn’t be a show. “Generally when someone is single, there is a reason for it,” Stanger said. “There’s the 10% [of men] that don’t care, the narcissist. They want what they want and when they want it. And those people deserve to be single, frankly,” she says from her years of experience. And though there are a lot of rules and regulations to become a part of the Millionaire’s Club, Stanger guarantees she will do her job and find each one of these successful men a match. Stanger is proud of her company and what she does. “Traditionally, matchmakers were Jewish,” she said. “And I would say that we are one of the oldest religions that really picked out who you mated with… and millionaire men come in all different shapes and sizes.”
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It's hard to stop gaping at Bravo's new reality series "The Millionaire Matchmaker." It's got drama, it's got sex, it's got game-playing. What could be better for a series about a woman who runs a matchmaking service in Beverly Hills and connects millionaire men to their dream women? The package is fast-moving -- and if you don't look too closely at yourself you won't even notice the sick feeling developing in the pit of your stomach. If the way men view women is getting shallower and scarier -- and ditto for the way women view men -- here's the best proof: a wildly entertaining series about how superficial we've all become.

The series centers on a woman named Patti Stanger, who is founder of the Los Angeles-based Millionaire's Club, a service the moneymen come to when they want to settle down. Stanger considers herself a kind of psychologist, wheeler-dealer and savvy cultural critic all rolled into one. She's great fun to watch -- mesmerizing, even -- as she sums up her clients into categories so as to fit them with what they need. The camerawork creates a great frenzied work-up, perfect to augment Stanger's quick wit and hurried style. It's more than fun to see.

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Like Flipping Out, Blow Out, and Work Out, before it, Bravo’s newest docudrama follows a business owner who caters to wealthy clients. The Millionaire Matchmaker debts at 11 p.m. ET, but will air at 10 on subsequent Tuesdays, and stars Patti Stanger, who runs a dating service for millionaires.

The series follows Patti “and her dogged staff as they give their big-bucks clients complete transformations with the help of personal shoppers, interior designers, date coaches, and therapists,” according to Bravo. “In each episode, two wealthy men are set up on dates with potentially compatible women, who are hand-picked by Stanger based upon their beauty and intelligence.”

Why do rich people need help dating? Patti likens it to being sick. “I have to diagnose their illness and find out why they’re still single with all their money and looks. Some of them get makeovers and some of them get emotional makeovers. There are experts on the show that help us with the transition,” she told the New York Daily News. She says she also carefully screens everyone based on important criteria. “The men must be certified millionaires. I will check your lifestyle out — your homes, your cars, how you treat women. … [Women] are not allowed to gold dig. We will screen for that. I can spot them from 5 miles away, going, ‘How many cars does he have? How many homes does he have?’”

The few critics who reviewed the series seem to find the show interesting, if a little disturbing. Patti “cannot stop uttering things that make her seem abrasive, thoughtful, funny, shallow and utterly moronic,” The Chicago Sun Times’ Doug Elfman says. The New York Daily News’ David Hinckley calls Patti “obnoxious” but says that eventually, she “starts to look a little less like an obnoxious publicity-seeking wanna-be celebrity and more like the only person who will tell these rich guys the truth.” And The Philadelphia Daily News’ Ellen Gray says that the show “seems too often focused on the drama of a workplace that’s not nearly as interesting as Stanger and Bravo seem to think it is.”

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For all of you singles who daydream of meeting a millionaire, there's hope yet.

Patti Stanger has perfected the art of pairing pretty women with wealthy guys. Cameras catch her in action on "The Millionaire Matchmaker," premiering Tuesday night on Bravo.

Each week, Stanger will take on two or three guys looking for a lady to lavish their loot on. But before they're introduced to the women, they need to be date-ready.

"I have to diagnose their illness and find out why they're still single with all their money and looks," she says. "Some of them get makeovers and some of them get emotional makeovers. There are experts on the show that help us with the transition."

Stanger has therapists, personal shoppers, interior designers and dating coaches at the ready. She has been setting up well-to-do dudes for eight years through her Los Angeles-based business, the Millionaire's Club.

The matchmaker has standards for both sexes. "The men must be certified millionaires," says Stanger. "I will check your lifestyle out - your homes, your cars, how you treat women."

Ladies can be any age, race, weight and shape. If they agree to get professional pictures taken, they're guaranteed registration, but not a date until a guy is interested.

There's one important rule Stanger has for women. "You are not allowed to gold dig," she says. "We will screen for that. I can spot them from 5 miles away, going, 'How many cars does he have? How many homes does he have?'"

But once a guy offers gifts out of the goodness of his heart, anything goes.

"My men are real generous," she says. "They've given houses, cars, diamond rings. They just love to pay for things. They've got the money and they figure why not share the wealth. I've seen men give girls parts in movies to get their careers started. I've got an accountant who does taxes for the girls he dated for free."

Stanger, who lived in New York before moving to L.A., maintains there's a difference when looking for love on the East Coast. "New York has one of the highest rates of millionaires in the country," she says. "The reason it's a little difficult [to catch one] is because the men want to see pedigree. You have to have an education there."

But you don't have to be a perfect 10 to hook one.

"They'll take the 7 or the 8 on the looks scale," Stanger says. "Just keep yourself in shape and make sure that you come with the package. Either you're working at the charity or you're building your business. But you can't sit at home and do nothing, because they're looking for women that they can take on their arm to Wall St."

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They don't make millionaires like they used to, a fact proven again by "The Millionaire Matchmaker," an unkempt if occasionally intriguing "reality" show about a woman whose job is finding the right squeeze for men who so far have been good only at making money.

The classic millionaire, male variety, is Cary Grant or James Bond, a debonair fellow impeccably dressed, smoothly spoken and exuding cool elegance.

He's still around. But a growing percentage of today's visible millionaires look more like Dave, one of the two men Patti Stanger is trying to fix up tonight.

Dave made his money by selling sex toys over the Internet, and he has all the refinement and couth you would expect from that job description.

His home decor includes samples of his products. He has a stripper pole in his living room. He grins like Jack Nicholson when he says he's had "a lot" of close encounters with women who work in his industry.

But now, he tells Stanger, he wants a proper, respectable wife with whom he can raise a proper, respectable family.

Okay, she says. And do you have an ideal image for this mother of your children?

"Paris Hilton," he replies.

In any case, since he can't seem to find this woman on his own - go figure - he agrees to pay Stanger tens of thousands of dollars to find her for him.

Now Stanger is no cuddly love doll. A third-generation matchmaker whose family hails from Brooklyn, she curses out her staff and says she only accepts plus-size women in case one of her clients is a "chubby chaser."

She also says millionaire men don't want redheads. Specifically, she says redheads are "not the freshest produce on the island."

As obnoxious as Stanger can be, however, a few minutes with Dave or tonight's other featured millionaire, Harold, make it clear how she got that way.

She's dealing with delusional clients who have no skills for engaging the women they say they want. So in that context, Stanger starts to look a little less like an obnoxious publicity-seeking wanna-be celebrity and more like the only person who will tell these rich guys the truth.

Harold, the other millionaire Tuesday night, is 46 and wants a stunning woman in her 20s to drop everything and start having his kids.

Stanger tells him that despite his money, it won't work that way. He doesn't believe her, and heads out on a date with a beautiful 25-year-old. As they cruise out in his expensive car, she asks him about his favorite bands.

U2 and Springsteen, he says. How about yours?

Linkin Park, she says. He has never heard of Linkin Park.

Yeah, this'll work.

The show title suggests "reality" TV has moved up to the world of millionaires. In reality, it's more like the other way around.

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January 20, 2008 -- What women will learn from Bravo's newest reality series, "Millionaire Matchmaker," is that rich men are just as befuddled by relationships as poor ones. But rich guys take women on much more elaborate first dates.

Patti Stanger, a third-generation matchmaker, founded the Beverly Hills-based Millionaire's Club in 2000, catering to men all over the world who've made their million and then some and now are looking for the perfect mate.
Finding the love of your life doesn't come cheap: a membership for a California millionaire who doesn't want to travel for love is $15,000, while a man who wants a nationwide search pays $25,000. International memberships cost $100,000 while billionaires who demand constant personal attention pay $150,000. (The men featured in the show received free matchmaking.)

While it seems like they would have little problem luring one, the truth is that figuring out how to make a big buck doesn't necessarily translate into having any relationship skills.

"Here's the problem: these men come from a world where they are a little more critical than the rest of us," says Stanger, a blunt, fast-talking woman who hails from New Jersey. "They think they deserve perfection. Los Angeles is the only place where a 0 male expects a 10 and still thinks he can do better. They come with a wish list and they want me to hit every bell on the list. Then I give them the perfect girl and they screw it up."

Stanger's point is proved pretty quickly in the show's first two episodes, which feature four wealthy bachelors, all of whom could use some social grooming.

"Sex-toy" Dave, who made his millions selling adult products on the Internet, doesn't understand why women don't dig the stripper pole in his living room.
Middle-aged Harold, who trades options and lives in a sprawling mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean, wants to marry a 25-year-old and start breeding. Only problem is that those sweet young things tend to be turned off by the fact that he's never heard of the movie "Napolean Dynamite" or the band Linkin Park.

French-bred Julien seems like the perfect gentleman but he lives in a dump and has no ability to carry on a relaxed conversation -- except in French.
Wanna-be rocker Jeff, who made his fortune in software, is a sweet, if strangely dressed guy who doesn't understand why women don't react well to his inability to commit to even the next date.

None of this is news to Stanger, who often becomes a sort of non-sexual dominatrix for these men, beating them up verbally over their bad choices.

"Men have to get over this immaturity, this emasculation. It's pathetic," says Stanger, who sees it as her life's mission to whip men into shape. "Eventually they get to a breaking point and it's like breaking in a stallion. I have to ask them 'do you want to end up in a nursing home alone with no partner and no children?' I'm the ghost of the past, present and future for them."

As for women, Stanger and her small staff of three are constantly searching for beautiful, accomplished women to set up with these millionaires. Stanger is willing to find male partners for rich women as well, but says dating doesn't work very well when the situation is reversed.
"It's like Lucy Liu's character in 'Cashmere Mafia,'" she says. "When you get that successful, you emasculate the man."

Stanger herself is unmarried although she's been dating the same man for four years. While she's tough as nails, the whole process can even get her down.

"When I first started this, I was in my 30s and I was depressed. When I got under the hood of the car, so to speak, I found that men were just thinking superficial thoughts. I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to change the world, and I wanted women to raise their sons differently."

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Lifetime’s original series, "Top This Party" hopes to give us a glimpse into the lives of socialites attempting to throw the most lavish, impressive parties possible. Like a "Sweet Sixteen" for adults, the first seven episodes of the show focus on level-headed party planner, Brian Dobbin, and his temperamental chef Robin, both of whom brave the wiles of the party-planning world of Orange County. Between trying to get Robin to fill his requests, and dealing with the over-the-top desires of his clients, Brian proves to be a man who knows how to make people happy.

There are few things that bring me more joy than witnessing sixteen-year-olds and brides losing their shit during what they love referring to as "the most important day of my life," and I have a feeling that watching a trophy wife ask a completely reasonable man to paint an elephant pink and have it perform stand-up comedy in their living room for three hundred of their closest friends as part of the entertainment for her husband's 50th birthday might be one of those things. The next seven episodes will be based in Las Vegas, following around a different party planner and I can only imagine how many strange stripper requests will be involved in those episodes.
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When a prime-time drama called "The O.C." premiered in 2003, high school senior Suzanne Dean grabbed a remote control and huddled with pals to gape at the glitzy fictionalization of local life.

"The Unofficial O.C. Fan Club," they dubbed themselves, dishing out gasps and wisecracks in response to the show's depictions of debutante balls, unfaithful lovers and drug overdoses.

Five years and five Orange County reality shows later, Dean's enthusiasm has nose-dived. "I'm ready for it to just be done," the 22-year-old college student said of the Orange County phenomenon sweeping pop culture.

She just might get her wish. While two new reality programs – "Top This Party: Orange County," and "Ocean Force: Huntington Beach, OC" – debuted last week, the same forces catapulting the region to fame could be setting it up for a hard crash back to obscurity, analysts and locals say.

"You obviously run the risk of overexposure at some point, of saturation," said Andrew Hennings, president of the Orange County chapter of American Marketing Association. Hollywood, he said, is thinking: "Milk it for what we can, and once it's run its course, we'll figure out something else."

Showbiz honchos aren't alone in hitching their wagon to Orange County's star – businesses and even government agencies have embraced the "O.C." shorthand to cash in on the area's flashy reputation.

The Orange County Fair and Exposition Center this month renamed itself the OC Fair and Event Center. Fairgrounds CEO Becky Bailey-Findley said the move spurred debate among board members who asked: "Was that the right decision? Is that just a trend?"

Tourism leaders are finalizing a slogan and logo for Orange County. "What other part of the world has three reality shows that take place in it?" Gary Sherwin, head of Newport Beach's visitors bureau, said in November. "I think we are really fortunate and need to try to capitalize on it."

Then there is the O.C. Cruiser, which operates charter buses resembling classic Woodies; OC Designs, a Westminster Mall clothing store; the "OC Housewife," a vodka-citrus-cranberry cocktail at Tsunami Sushi in Huntington Beach; and The O.C. Experience Tour, a seven-hour land-and-sea jaunt that promises guests will "play along the same beaches as the well-known cast of Fox television's hit series, 'The O.C.'"

Even Hennings, who noted Hollywood's love affair with the county, acknowledged being part of the spectacle – his division of the marketing association rechristened itself "The O.C." chapter. "We've kind of jumped on the bandwagon, too, knowing full well that it could be short-lived," he said.

There's no shame in using what works, said Bill Sumner, O.C. Marathon race director. In 2006, Autumn Reeser, a cast member of "The O.C.," fired the starting pistol. "We took advantage of it," Sumner said. "Why not?"

Though the mythologized Orange County often conveys an erroneous image of ubiquitous wealth, whiteness and beauty, there's little downside in monetary terms.

Tourism officials have reported an influx of travelers from Europe and Asia seeking directions to, among other places, the Balboa Fun Zone and the Crab Cooker, both locales featured on "The O.C."

Such popularity is a far cry, Sherwin noted, from the days when Orange County was derided as the "Orange Curtain," with little more identity besides "a nice little conservative set of bedroom communities south of Los Angeles."

Some say the appetite for all-things-O.C. could grow even stronger.

"The more shows that get out there, the more intrigue there is in Orange County. It's like you're giving them a little taste and they're getting hungrier and hungrier," said Mechelle Collins, executive producer of "Top This Party: Orange County."

But some locals – even those with a stake in the Orange County brand – say the appeal will surely fade.

"Everything that goes up must come down," said Gary Roach, manager of the 8-month-old OC Tavern in San Clemente. "It'll just level off is what'll happen. People will lose interest and someplace else will be the new spot."

Still, pop culture has a certain permanence that will buoy Orange County's fortunes, said Norma Dickerson of the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research in Montana. Tourists, she noted, still flock to the Dyersville, Iowa, baseball diamond shown in the 1989 film "Field of Dreams."

"I don't think it'll be sustained at the (current) level," Dickerson said of the Orange County hoopla, but "you will always have a draw to some extent, and people are always enthralled by the rich and famous – it's just our society."

Among those enthralled are classmates of Dean, the former "Unofficial O.C. Fan Club" member who now attends college in Texas. "They like to ask me questions about the validity of what's going on, and if I know this person or that person, or if I've been to this place or that place," Dean said. "After a while, I don't want to talk about it."

In fact, she talks about it less than ever – perhaps a sign the O.C. juggernaut is showing its age. "It's died down a lot since I was a freshman," Dean said of interest.

So will the frenzy last? "I hope not," Dean said. "People have to get sick of hearing about Orange County sooner or later – right?"
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Newport Beach resident and party planner Brian Dobbin never imagined he would have to face Bengal tigers and put on a smile for the television cameras while planning ritzy soirees for the upper echelons of Newport Beach society when he and a friend began catering parties out of the back of two Volkswagens some 20 years ago.

“Being in the presence of a 600-pound Bengal tiger is completely terrifying and humbling at the same time,” Dobbin said earlier this week while taking a break from filming one of the final episodes of his new cable reality television show that showcases some of the most over-the-top parties in Orange County.

One of Dobbin’s clients for the television series recently requested that exotic animals be flown in for a jungle-themed bash, including two Bengal tigers — one was still a cub, while the other was slightly larger, Dobbin said.

Dobbin’s battles to find the most fabulous food, drink, linen and silverware for his elite clients are featured in the new cable reality television show “Top This Party: Orange County,” which debuts at 10 tonight on the Lifetime cable channel.

The show features several glitzy parties in Newport Beach. Party hosts pay for their own parties on the show, but get Dobbin’s help and a television crew out of the deal.

The parties profiled in the show cost more to throw than what some Americans make in a year, Dobbin said — typically $100,000 or more.

“We’re starting off with a bang,” Dobbin said of the series debut, which profiles the James Bond-themed singles bash for newly divorced Newport Beach oil and real estate heiress Caren Lancona.

“She has a huge personality — that personality comes across every bit on the camera,” Dobbin said. “She is very intelligent, and she wants what she wants.”

The initial concept for Lancona’s party was a jungle theme with palm trees and exotic animals on a boat off Newport Harbor, but heiress and businesswoman Lancona changed her mind in the middle of the project and decided to go with the more glamorous James Bond theme instead.

“We went from loin cloths to sequins,” Dobbin said. “Honestly, it’s a really fun train wreck.”

Lancona said her friends all loved being filmed for television during the soiree, which she ended up hosting at a friend’s local 20,000-square-foot mansion. The party featured casino tables and an ice sculpture carved in Lancona’s and her assistant, Liz Phan’s, likeness. She also hired a live jazz band and models dressed in gold in keeping with the James Bond theme.

Lancona said she’s already thinking of ways to top the $150,000 bash.

“I’m thinking bigger, including private jets and yachts and limos,” she said.

Discussions are already underway with producers for a follow-up episode of “Top This Party,” featuring Lancona, she said.

“I think it’s a world most people never get to see,” said “Top This Party” Executive Producer Mechelle Collins. “In half an hour, they get to see people with extravagant cars and amazing jewelry. It gives them a taste of a world they don’t get to live in.”

The 14-episode first season of the series alternates locations between Orange County and Las Vegas. Collins said some of the most colorful party hosts for the first season of the show came from Newport Beach.

“You definitely have a lot of eccentric people in Newport Beach a lot of excess,” Collins said. “We found that Orange County people had such fantastic lifestyles and weren’t afraid to show it.”

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If you enjoy conspicuous consumption, here's the show you've been waiting for. Actually, it's two shows, both from Kevin Dill and Mechelle Collins of Intuitive Entertainment.

The first, "Top This Party," is set in Orange County, Calif.; the second, which follows at 10:30 p.m. on Lifetime, is in Las Vegas. Both follow high-end party planners as they try to please loony rich people.

Dill and Collins leave the dull details of creating a menu to the Food Network. This is about how the party planners -- Brian Dubbin in Orange County and Brian "Breakfast" Rice in Las Vegas -- placate people who don't blink at a $100,000 tab for a night's festivities.

First up is a Newport Beach woman, Caren Lancona, and her fanged assistant, Liz Phan, eager to celebrate Lancona's recent divorce. Their idea of a good time is to roast a pig on the bow of a private yacht. Poor Dubbin nearly gets his head handed to him when he explains that the Coast Guard takes a dim view of open fires on boats at sea.
Unless you're a Tyco executive, you're not likely to come away with good party ideas. However, laughing at the excesses of nutty rich folks is a time-honored tradition in American humor.

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Series' main focus is on event planner Brian Dobbin and his chef partner Robin who handle the seemingly outrageous demands of the Orange County party circuit.

Dobbin's clients could easily be characters straight out of a Christopher Guest movie: confoundingly unaware and completely self-serving. Premiere episode features a recently divorced OC advertising exec who is planning a singles safari. Included in her many requests is having servers hand-feed guests amongst caged elephants and tigers on a yacht. Her opportunistic personal assistant, a devout practitioner of feng shui, displays an inexplicable influence over her boss and the party. Horrified at the color blue, the assistant wants as many fire elements at the party as possible and has a fit when Dobbin won't break the law and have an open pit flame for a pig roast on the rented yacht.

Second episode is equally outrageous, featuring a stressed- out client who's throwing a Halloween party for 500 people. It's worth watching the show just to see the look on Dobbin's face as he's forced to sit on the couch with his client and her life coach for reassurance after an upsetting meeting with a fortune teller. The woman sits there chanting words like "spirit," "ocean," "dolphin," "Utah."

Beyond the totally guilt-inducing extravaganza of bad taste, however, the show lacks any real substance as to what goes into parties on this scale. Robin talks about how great the food is, but viewers never get to see the final spread. It would be nice to get a bigger scope of these events, perhaps a glimpse at the menus, some tricks of the trade, or even a booze tally.

Lifetime offers a companion program, "Top This Party: Las Vegas," immediately following.
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Bravo announced The Millionaire Matchmaker, a new reality series that will follow matchmaker Patti Stanger as she helps connect wealthy men with the women of their dreams, will premiere on Tuesday, January 22 at 11PM ET/PT before moving to its regular Tuesdays at 10PM ET/PT time period on January 29.

Each episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker will follow Stanger as she sets-up two wealthy men on dates with "potentially compatible" women, who are selected based on both their brains and beauty.

In addition, the series will also follow Stanger as she runs the Los Angeles-based Millionaire's Club, a business she founded in January 2000 after working as director of marketing for Great Expectations, America's largest and oldest dating service.

Not only does Stanger have to deal with her wealthy clients on a regular basis, but she also has to handle her staff of personal shoppers, interior designers, date coaches and therapists.

Bravo first announced the development of The Millionaire Matchmaker in April when the cable network revealed a slate of four new reality series with the hopes of continuing the 2006 success it enjoyed thanks to such reality stalwarts as Project Runway, Top Chef and The Real Housewives of Orange County.

The Millionaire Matchmaker is produced by Intuitive Entertainment and Bayonne Entertainment, with Kevin Dill, Mechelle Collins and Rob Lee serving as executive producers.

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Patti Stanger is no stranger to finding Mr. Right. Founder of an elite matchmaking service in Los Angeles, and former Director of Marketing of Great Expectations matchmaking service, Stanger has made a living out of finding the perfect guy. And now she’s going to take reality TV viewers along for the ride.

Bravo has announed the premiere of The Millionaire Matchmaker, its newest docu-drama, which will follow Patti as she grooms Mr. Rich-But-Not-Quite-Perfect into Mr. McPurrrr.

In each episode, Patti and her staff will take two wealthy single men and set them up for dates with compatible (and beautiful, and intelligent, of course) women.

The show will also follow Patti through her sometimes-crazy, sometimes-dramatic juggling act of managing a small business filled with demanding clients and her own personal life.

The Millionaire Matchmaker premiers on Tuesday, January 22 at 11PM ET, and then will move to its regular time on Tuesday, January 29 at 10PM ET on Bravo.

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