Lauren Morton-Farmer
Staff Writer
Television viewers who have ever wondered about life on a 22-acre compound in Malibu, will soon have to look no further. And those who have wondered what life as a 14-time Grammy-Award winning musician, composer and producer is like are also in luck.
Later this year, FOX will air a new reality show about David Foster, who entered the music scene in 1973 as a keyboardist. He performed alongside major musical acts such as John Lennon, Diana Ross, Rod Stewart and Barbra Streisand. Foster’s producing credits include songs on such albums as Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You,” Natalie Cole’s “Unforgettable” and Streisand’s “Broadway” and “Back to Broadway.”
Distributed by GRB Entertainment, the company responsible for the A&E-channel show “Growing Up Gotti,” and executive produced by Gary Benz, Brant Pinvidic and Spencer Pratt, the untitled David Foster project will take a look at how this accomplished musician and his wife, Linda Thompson, live with Brandon and Brody Jenner, Thompson’s sons from her previous marriage to Olympian Bruce Jenner.
The untitled Foster project is currently in production. According to GRB Entertainment, FOX has ordered an initial run of six half-hour episodes, which could air as early as this summer.
According to the GRB Entertainment Web site, the show is “not just about rich people fooling around. It’s about a blended family that has the same problems as anyone else — just in a $70 million mansion.”
Junior Bobbie Olson, who has participated in some of the filming, said she already has a good feeling about the show. As a friend of one of the show’s executive producers, Pratt, she said she has high hopes that it will push past the realm of success enjoyed by another reality family — the Osbournes.
“I definitely think that this show will be as big a hit as ‘The Osbournes,’” Olson said. “The producers and cast are putting so much work into this show, and I really hope it’s a success for them. The fact that the show will be on FOX also makes a big difference. Even if you don’t have cable you will be able to enjoy this show.”
Another Pepperdine student who has ties to the show is freshman Dallas Cook. After she and her roommate, freshman Amanda Gregory, met Pratt and Brody Jenner at Ralph’s this fall, the girls were able to stay in touch with them and eventually were asked to be a part of the show.
“I’m not sure whether I will be in (the show) or not,” Cook said. “It depends on what they cut in the editing room, but I have a pretty good chance of being in two episodes, I believe.”
Like Olson, Cook said she thinks people will take kindly to the show, especially with the current popularity of other reality programs about the lives of the rich and famous. And with FOX having such big hits with their dramas about people who lead lives of luxury, such as “The O.C.” and “North Shore,” the jump to a reality show with the same background will likely draw viewers who are fans of those shows.
“My guess is that (the show) will probably interest a specific audience and be considered a hit to that group,” she said. “I think you have to take everything you see with a grain of salt. I’m sure it will depict the life of rich kids like ‘Growing Up Gotti’ or ‘The Gastineau Girls,’ but a lot of reality TV is staged or prompted by the network.”
Junior Veronica Scala, who is connected to the Jenner brothers through a friend, said she feels similarly in that “if nothing else, this show will definitely be amusing.”
Scala cautioned that the show may not be an accurate depiction of real life.
“This show may not give a very accurate description of a Malibu family, but it seems to come close,” Scala said. “It shows that the young adults of Malibu have an exponential amount of money to use for extravagant things like a drive-in movie set up in their yard for their friends. This show only portrays the life of Malibu locals and their luxuries.”
Along with the lives of the Foster family, the Web site also says celebrity cameos are a definite possibility, especially since the Foster’s call Barbra Streisand and Britney Spears their neighbors. The Jenner brothers are also known to hang out with the children of Mel Gibson and CBS Entertainment President Leslie Moonves.
Malibu and the student body at Pepperdine are certainly no strangers to the lifestyles of the rich and famous or the cameras that follow them.
But many outsiders may wonder what life for these people is like on a day-to-day basis, and, now, with the help of a willing family of Hollywood royalty, the world will get a primetime view of what it must be like “Growing Up Foster.”
03-24-2005
