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Millions watch women vie to marry a rich guy on TV
Wednesday, February 23, 2000
Many a daughter has heard the advice, "It's as easy to love a rich man as a poor one."
How quaintly anachronistic that particular brand of gold-digging seems in light of last week's television blockbuster "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" After all, what's love got to do with it? As served up for 23 million home viewers, choosing a mate is not much different from a trip to the supermarket. The enterprising multimillionaire plays the part of a choosy shopper, with the potential brides in the role of packaged meat.
The concept was created for Fox television by Mike Darnell whose previous brainstorms included "When Good Pets Go Bad" and "When Animals Attack." Last year the network disavowed another of Mr. Darnell's ideas for a live show involving crashing a 747 into the desert.
But apparently a public implosion of the notion of marriage as based on love, mutual respect and shared values was considered fair game.
Here's how it worked. A certified multimillionaire, in this case O'Hara native Rick Rockwell, stood in the shadows as 50 women vied to catch his eye and his hand in marriage. (His wallet was at least partially protected by a prenuptial agreement.)
While the women dressed in evening gowns and swimwear and answered questions, Mr. Rockwell and a panel of his friends and family helped narrow the choices until a 34-year-old blonde and beautiful nurse named Darva Conger of Santa Monica was the lucky winner.
As just another over-the-top, push-the-envelope, address-the-greed-of-the-age broadcasting extravaganza, perhaps "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?" doesn't signal the end of civilization as we know it. Indeed, a big chunk of the ratings were sparked by the ironic magnetic attraction of revulsion.
Maybe the show is nothing more than a stripped-to-the-bones version of a still popular cultural mating dance: Women competing with each other to marry a checkbook and men deciding on a wife based on how well she wears a swimsuit. To the extent that such rituals take place, however, they should be played out in private.
Fox has come to the same conclusion, though for reasons that, not surprisingly, have nothing to do with standards and good taste. It turns out that while the network did a background check of Mr. Rockwell and certified his multimillionaire status, it failed to uncover that he had a restraining order issued against him in 1991 after a former girlfriend reported that he physically threatened her. Apparently that's one of the risks of buying a millionaire in a poke.
But Fox is not willing to take that risk again, and so the smarmy phenomenon is blessedly not to be repeated. Meanwhile, Darva and Rick, we hardly knew you - let's keep it that way.