A 'Survivor' keeps on truckin' with new gigs

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A 'Survivor' keeps on truckin' with new gigs

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Her wavy hair was down, her black floral skirt long, her sweater lavender and her heels the size of an island rat on its haunches. But if there were any doubts about the identity of Susan Hawk, it took only that unmistakable Wisconsin accent to be sure.

Survivor Susan Hawk (Joyce Mendelsohn, Post-Gazette)

And you'll be hearing even more of it in the weeks to come. The "Survivor" castaway who lasted on Pulau Tiga until Day 37 -- making it into the Final Four with Rudy Boesch, Kelly Wiglesworth and winner Richard Hatch -- will fly to New York tonight to co-host "Live With Regis!" Thursday.

Fellow castaway Jenna Lewis, trading her pink bikini for a wine-colored sweater, jacket and slacks, did the honors yesterday. Today, it's Gervase Peterson's turn. Colleen Haskell is scheduled for tomorrow, with the Wisconsin resident on Thursday and Hatch on Friday.

After filling the chair once occupied by Kathie Lee Gifford, Hawk will head home Thursday night, "grab my husband," who is a real-estate agent, and fly to Richmond, Va., and Paramount's King's Dominion. There, she and the former Navy SEAL will make an appearance and film a commercial.

She's already taped episodes of "Hollywood Squares," along with two promos for the Super Bowl, which will be a lead-in for "Survivor II: The Australian Outback." She attended the Emmys -- she loved the "Survivor" skit although she couldn't hear all the dialogue -- and dished about fashion with the queen of mean, Joan Rivers.

This weekend, Hawk goes Hollywood. The trucker will tape a guest appearance on "DAG," an NBC fall comedy starring Delta Burke. She won the role of an Army drill sergeant the old-fashioned way: She auditioned.

"I didn't expect nothin' to be handed to me ever, especially when it comes to something I've never done before," she told a handful of reporters and photographers at the William Pitt Union in Oakland yesterday. She answered every question tossed her way in a press conference a few hours before a speech to Pitt students.

Hawk, under contract to CBS until Dec. 31, expects to return to her truck-driving job Oct. 9. She likely will take the winter off, and then see if her 15 minutes of fame are still ticking.

Among her revelations:

Daily island meals of rice often were followed by vitamin chasers, at least among the Tagi tribe.

The castaways had a stash of multi-vitamins and Vitamin C, tucked into a water-proof trunk in the woods. "There was no way they could do what they did to us without doing that, because that island was totally -- no food outside of the rats." Very late in the game, a doctor distributed an unknown pill that stopped the castaways' incessant itching from sand flea bites.

Hawk won roughly $75,000, although her agent asks her not to talk about that. She plans to invest it and use some when she goes pheasant hunting. "Most of the hunting we do is out on game farms, where we got to buy the birds. Chances are my dogs are going to get a few more birds this year. That's like the big splurge."

Despite that memorable speech about rats, snakes, vultures and duplicity (all the good parts were ad-libbed and partially fueled by emotion and her first coffee and cigarettes in weeks), Hawk doesn't consider herself mean or rude. "In real life, I have manners and I am polite, to an extent. You live and work with me, that's a different story. But out in public, I'm very nice and I actually go out of my way to help people."

When she and her husband operated a hunting and fishing camp in Canada, they made special accommodations for a man in a wheelchair and his wife. Although not set up for disabled campers, "We readjusted the stairs, and me and my husband would help him every day get in the boat and off to go fishing, and I even took him in my boat and guided him fishing."

Back to that speech, which people can't quit talking about: She doesn't regret anything. "That was self-indulgence, 100 percent self-indulgence up there, it was nothing for the TV."

The speech has empowered other women, who now see Hawk as a role model. "There's a lot of women and young girls coming up to me and saying 'Thank you.' ... Believe it or not, the speech might have been strong, but it did show women you can say what you want, when you want to say it and not be embarrassed by it."

Hawk guesses she lost 12 to 14 pounds on the island. Even when she got booted from the game and could eat regular food, she couldn't keep much down. "Over in Malaysia, I'd eat just because I was so hungry. You'd eat and about two hours later, you'd be sick. When I came back Stateside, I was so like that for about 10 days."

Then came two weeks of heartburn and Rolaids, followed by five weeks of overeating before her stomach and appetite returned to normal.

Hawk has some souvenirs of her adventure: a green Rattana bandanna that she wasn't supposed to keep, a net she fashioned for beachcombing, a thorn that is working its way out of her finger and scars that may last a lifetime -- although they're nothing compared to Colleen's.

Hawk's agent has to run potential appearances by CBS. "We cannot play ourselves on any other network. ... We can play other roles on other networks, but of course that means the network's willing to take a chance on us because then we're actually acting."

As for her newfound fame: "I'm enjoying it right now. I said, if it comes to the point where I don't like it no more, I'll definitely quit. We'll see how long I enjoy it for."