THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 21, 1995 TAG: 9502210023
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
PAULA IS A Virginia Beach woman in her 20s who is dying to tell her story on a talk show. Any talk show.
Paula was jilted by a sailor on a Norfolk-based ship. She quit college two months before she was to graduate and moved here from the Midwest to be with him.
Sailor boy John was leading Paula on - he walked out on her to marry his old sweetheart, Dawn.
If Oprah, Phil, Sally or any other talk show host is planning a you-done-me-wrong episode, Paula in Virginia Beach will leave for the taping at a moment's notice. To make sure that the talk show hosts and their producers know about her, Paula signed up with Christopher Darryn's National Talk Show Guest Registry.
So did a woman in Newport News who married her childhood sweetheart 40 years after they were kids together. She had to wait until his jail term was up.
``Good stories from people in Virginia who have a lot to offer the talk shows,'' said Darryn from his office in Reseda, Calif.
His registry works like this: If you think you have what it takes to be a guest on a nationally syndicated talk show, spill it to Darryn in a letter no longer than two pages. Send him $3 for every month you want to be enrolled in the National Talk Show Guest Registry.
Darryn, who catalogs what he calls the ``hooks, angles and twists'' that interest talk show producers, puts the names in a national computer database. When producers contact him - and Darryn claims that his phone is ringing off the hook - he is ready in an instant to feed producers material such as the names of older women who marry young studs.
Or the dude who has covered his body with more than 300 tattoos of Disney characters. Or the woman with the 115-inch bust. Or the Elvis lookalike who's thinking of making a run for the White House in 1996.
``There are so many talk shows on the air today with so many people watching that the demand for offbeat and unusual subjects is great,'' said Darryn. (While talk show producers say they occasionally harvest guests from services such as the one supplied by Darryn, they suggest that guest wannabes call the 1-800 number posted on the screen at the show's conclusion and try to get booked that way).
The producers pay Darryn $3.50 for every lead he gives them. Darryn does not guarantee any bookings. His address is NTSGR, 6660 Reseda Blvd., No.111-A, Reseda, Calif. 91335.
What is there about Americans that drives them to bare their souls, to share the most intimate details of their lives with millions of strangers watching the talk shows? ``Some people feel that it's therapeutic to get on television and talk about their terrible spouses or rotten friends,'' Darryn said. Others just want to be whisked off to Chicago or New York at the show's expense and get the star treatment for a few hours.''
It's an all-expenses-paid experience. But talk shows rarely pay their guests anything to come on and spill it about mothers who steal their daughter's boyfriends or men who are obsessed with the centerfolds in Playboy or other things best left in the closet. Being on a talk show is not for everyone, but . . .
``If you feel comfortable with telling your story to millions on television, go for it,'' Darryn said.
His business is bound to pick up in the months ahead. In addition to the 18 daytime talk shows already in national syndication, more are on the way. Singer Carnie Wilson is about to launch a talk show. So is actor George Hamilton and his ex-wife, Alana.
So is Tempestt Bledsoe of ``Cosby,'' model Lauren Hutton, actress-singer-famous-daughter Lucie Arnaz, Gabrielle Carteris of ``Beverly Hills 90210'' and others.
Any of the above may be interested in the stories of the Virginians tucked away in Christopher Darryn's talk-show registry. Poor Paula. Her romance with a sailor has been torpedoed. by CNB