01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 15, 2004

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

NEW YORK

Former Survivor Elisabeth Filarski Hasselbeck might turn out to be the savviest player of them all.

The 26-year-old Rhode Island native won national fame when she competed in Survivor: The Australian Outback in 2001. But she declined an offer to compete in Survivor: All-Stars, currently airing on CBS.

Turned out she won a bigger contest when she aced her tryouts for a permanent spot on popular ABC talk show The View.

Started by Barbara Walters seven years ago, the morning show also features Meredith Vieira, Joy Behar and Star Jones. In November, Hasselbeck replaced Lisa Ling, who left to become host of National Geographic Ultimate Explorer on MSNBC.

Of all the Survivor competitors who have tried to parlay their experience into an entertainment career -- and there have been many -- Hasselbeck has been the most successful.

You could almost say she's living the American dream -- young, beautiful, a job on national TV. Not only that, she's married to Tim Hasselbeck of the Washington Redskins.

"I don't think of him as an NFL quarterback. He's my dinner buddy," Hasselbeck said as she sat in her dressing room after the Feb. 4 episode of The View.

When she got the job, cable sports channel ESPN put up a graphic asking who'd had a better week -- Tim Hasselbeck, his brother, Matt, of the Seattle Seahawks, or Elisabeth. Elisabeth won.

She laughed when someone told her about it.

But life seemed a little less idyllic on a chilly February morning in Manhattan.

Hasselbeck had been working since 5 a.m., making promos for a contest she is hosting with Suave, a company that makes personal grooming products.

The contest is in connection with another TV show Hasselbeck hosts, on The Style Network, The Look for Less.

At about 8:15, she showed up for makeup at the West 66th Street studio The View shares with the ABC soap opera All My Children. Hasselbeck, the first co-host to arrive, was bundled against the cold in a big black parka and a sheepskin hat with long earflaps.

Although she is in her third season hosting The Look For Less, Hasselbeck is a rookie on The View.

"I'm lost in this building a lot of the time," she said as the makeup artists dusted her face. "I keep running into the wardrobe people from All My Children and asking them which way to go."

As it happens, The View is full of Rhode Islanders. Vieira grew up in East Providence and once worked for Channel 10. Mark Gentile, the show's director, is a Cranston native. And now Hasselbeck.

After makeup, Hasselbeck disappeared into The View's daily "hot topics" meeting, where the hosts discuss what they'll talk about during the chat segment that opens the show.

Next, she went to the studio, where she rehearsed for the show's "celebrity chef" contest, in which The View elevates one civilian cook to be its celebrity chef.

Hasselbeck was host for the segment, a complicated bit of business with five contestants and three judges -- Behar, chef and cookbook author Bobby Flay, and Robin Leach, who made his name as host of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Director Gentile was watching from his control booth above the studio. Executive producer Bob Geddie was on the studio floor with Hasselbeck. Every time someone -- usually Leach -- got off a funny line, Behar would call out, "Save it for the air!"

With all the Rhode Islanders on The View, it was inevitable that still another would pop up. He was chef contestant John Scott, 33, of Johnston, a juvenile corrections officer at the Training School when he's not cooking.

He was hoping his rice noodle-encrusted Thai crabcakes would pass muster with the judges.

"I'm confident in my cooking -- but I don't have any practice being a celebrity," Scott said.

Live, and lively

The View is aired live, beginning at 11 a.m. Monday through Friday. Walters, who appears only about twice a week, wasn't around for the Feb. 4 episode, which left Hasselbeck, Behar, Vieira and Jones.

The show is shot in a large studio with bleachers in the back and rows of seats, placed on risers, up front. During commercial breaks, stagehands wheel the sets in and out -- a coffee table and chairs for the chat format, a couch when The View interviews guests.

All week, The View had been talking about Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl halftime show. One day, the irrepressible Behar flashed a set of fake breasts to the audience.

("I almost fell off my chair," Hasselbeck said later.)

By now, the View's co-hosts had sworn they weren't going to talk about it anymore -- but they did anyway, at least for a little while. They just couldn't help tsk-tsking about how Justin Timberlake appeared to be turning on partner-in-crime Janet Jackson.

Soon the co-hosts moved on to presidential candidates -- Behar was leaning toward Massachsuetts Sen. John Kerry for all the important reasons: "I like a tall president with big hair."

Next The View showed a taped segment devoted to the Hasselbecks' search for an apartment in New York City. The young couple had been living in the Los Angeles area, but once Hasselbeck got the job on The View, it was time to move East.

"You don't get much for your money in New York City, and it's disgusting," Hasselbeck said. Back in California, Hasselbeck had a well-stocked shoe closet the size of some Manhattan apartments.

The View's cameras followed the couple in New York as they looked at the pathetic $255,000 apartment, the slightly better $525,000 spot, and finally a rather pleasant $1.2-million apartment. Only one catch -- the $1.2-million place was a sixth-floor walkup. No elevator.

So the Hasselbecks took a pass, and they're now renting a place while they keep looking for something permanent.

Next The View interviewed actress Marcia Gay Harden, up for a supporting-actress Oscar thanks to her work in Mystic River. Harden, who's pregnant with twins, told Hasselbeck that the hip place to live in the city is now Harlem.

After another set change, it was time for the celebrity chef competition. Hasselbeck kept things moving as the judges sampled one serving of crabcakes after another.

During a break, Hasselbeck put some eyedrops in her eyes, then nodded when the floor director told everyone to wrap things up quickly because they were running short on time.

When the judges made their decision, Rhode Islander Scott advanced to the next round -- much to the delight of wife Sherry, who was sitting in the front row. (On Wednesday, Scott lost the meatloaf competition; he won't be heading to the finals in Las Vegas this week.)

Getting in the groove

After the hour-long show was finished, Hasselbeck unwound in her dressing room, a small but cozy retreat with deep green walls, a couch, and a white entertainment center that holds a TV. A plaque on the door read, "Everyone is entitled to my opinion."

Hasselbeck modestly deflected a question about whether she was a "hot" entertainment commodity, as one article had suggested.

"No, I'm just fresh and new to this," she said. "I have a lot to learn. But I'm in the arena with the best of the best."

Hasselbeck said she feels extra pressure on the days when Walters does the show.

"I put more pressure on myself," Hasselbeck said. "It's like you're trying to please a good coach. When she's here I almost stalk her, trying to learn so much."

The people who run The View said they're delighted with Hasselbeck.

"She's a ray of sunshine on the set," said executive producer Geddie.

Geddie said he's working on getting Hasselbeck to be a little more aggressive when it comes to participating in the conversations. That's not easy -- the other co-hosts have been together for seven years, and none is exactly camera-shy.

"The trick for Elisabeth is getting her to jump on the train, and she's getting better at that all time," Geddie said.

Overwhelming favorite

Geddie said Hasselbeck first came to his attention when he got a call from her agent, Babette Perry of International Creative Management in Los Angeles.

"She said, 'You've got to look at this girl,' and I said, 'Oh, yeah, she's some girl from a reality show,' " Geddie recalled. "I had already seen so many people who had been on reality shows, and they all blurred together."

But Geddie checked out Hasselbeck, and she made the initial cut.

"Once she got on the phone with him, she sold him," Perry said.

Last fall, Hasselbeck alternated on The View with other finalists for the job: Rachel Campos, of The Real World: San Francisco, and Erin Hershey Presley, an actress from the soap opera Port Charles.

Hasselbeck says she didn't think she was going to win. "I felt sure I was not going to get it. I had my flight booked back to Los Angeles."

Barbara Walters gave her the good news on a Friday, at first making it sound as though Hasselbeck hadn't made it. Then she had to keep the secret -- from everyone but her husband and her mother -- until the official announcement on Monday.

The View played up the Survivor angle, with the other co-hosts holding up ragged scraps of paper on which they had a written the name ELISABETH. Her parents, architect Kenneth J. Filarski and lawyer Elizabeth A. DelPadre, were in the studio audience as a a beaming Hasselbeck came out to take her chair.

Geddie said the ultimate decision wasn't that hard.

"We read every e-mail from every viewer, and they were overwhelmingly positive for Elisabeth," Geddie said.

Perry said Hasselbeck radiates qualities that can't be faked: authenticity, likability, credibility.

"Elisabeth has very strong values and a lot of integrity," she said. "And you can't play the role of that, you just have it."

At 26, Hasselbeck fills the young position on The View's panel, a spot previously occupied by Debbie Matenopolous and then Ling. (Walters is 72, Behar is 60, Vieira is 49 and Jones is 41.)

But Hasselbeck pooh-poohs any idea that she's representing her generation on the show.

"I don't feel I have to represent anyone but myself," said Hasselbeck, who noted that she's more conservative politically than some of her older colleagues. "I try to look at things issue by issue, but I'm probably more right-wing than left."

Hasselbeck also appears more guarded in her personal style than her outspoken -- and occasionally bawdy -- colleagues on The View's panel.

It's difficult, for example, to imagine her flashing fake breasts at the audience, the way Behar did.

Right after Survivor, when a lot of media attention was directed her way, Hasselbeck said she would never take an acting job that required her to kiss a man who wasn't her husband. That put the kibosh on any romantic roles.

Sweet, but tough

Hasselbeck grew up in the Silver Lake section of Providence and then in Cranston, a graduate of St. Mary Academy-Bay View, where her interests included athletics and art.

That combination continued when she went to Boston College, where she majored in studio art and played on the softball team.

It was at BC that she met Tim Hasselbeck, quarterback for the football team. In 2001 he proposed to her at one of their favorite spots, a footbridge over the Charles River in Boston.

They were married in July of 2002 in Cranston, at St. Mary Church, with a reception at the Federal Reserve in Providence. They took their wedding photos at the State House.

Between moving to New York and starting her job on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck said, she hasn't been to Rhode Island for a visit in several months. But she hopes to make the trip soon.

"The years growing up were so important to me," Hasselbeck said. "The support I've always had from my parents is amazing. They've always let me go beyond the norm."

After college, she got a job designing athletic shoes for Puma. She also decided to try out for Survivor, which had just become a national phenomenon.

"I was just at a time in my life that I felt I needed to check myself," she said later. "I wanted to check my insides and see where my heart was and see what drives me and how much I can take."

When CBS announced that she would be on Survivor, people who knew her described a mixture of genuine sweetness and equally geniune toughness.

"When it comes to competition, she thrives on cutthroat things," said Jennifer Finley, her softball coach at BC.

That's exactly what Survivor fans saw in the Australian outback, where Hasselbeck finished fourth and became a fan favorite.

When Hasselbeck was finally voted out of the game, Tina Wesson, who would go on to win, said the remaining contestants didn't want to face the Survivor "jury" paired off against Hasselbeck.

"You are America's sweetheart, loved and adored by all," Wesson said.

Hasselbeck, in her final words to the camera, showed a bit of steel.

"I knew they just didn't want me in the final two, because I would have kicked some major butt in that situation," she declared.

Cable school graduate

When Survivor ended, Hasselbeck was in hot demand. Perry, her agent, remembers meeting with a lot of studio executives.

"We thought it was very important to give her legs to stand on. So instead of going national [on television], we decided to go to cable," she said. "Elisabeth already had a background as a designer, so The Look for Less and The Style Network made a lot of sense. It gave her a graduate school."

On The Look for Less, Hasselbeck gives advice to savvy shoppers who want to look good at bargain prices. Her contract runs through September, and she said she plans to talk to Vieira -- who hosts the syndicated version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire as well as co-hosting The View -- about how to juggle two jobs at the same time.

Not the worst problem to have.

"When I got the job on The View, I was elated -- and then I thought, 'What did I get myself into?' " Hasselbeck said. "That happened to me with Puma, it happened to me with Survivor. I guess that's just the way I do things. I throw myself in, and then I see what happens."