Two castaways reveal a peek at life on the hit TV show

05/25/2003

BY LAURA MEADE KIRK
Journal Staff Writer

Heidi Strobel wore hair extenders.

Jeanne Hebert did NOT try to poison her tribemates.

Jeff Probst wears "big boy shoes" to make him appear taller and he has an Exorcist-like temper on the set.

And Rhode Islander Richard Hatch was irked to hear Rob Cesternino described as the best contestant ever to play the game of Survivor.

Journal photo / Sandor Bodo Jeanne Herbert's Survivor souvenir.

Over wine and cappucino at the Napa Valley Grille in Providence, local Survivor contestants Jeanne Hebert, 41, of North Attleboro, back from the May 11 finale of Survivor 6: The Amazon, and Helen Glover, 48, of Middletown, who last year fought her way to the Final Four of Survivor 5: Thailand, gave LIFEstyles a behind-the-scenes peek at life as a competitor on the hit reality television show.

They couldn't tell all -- they were bound by contract with CBS not to reveal certain details, such as where cameras are placed, or where contestants gathered after they were voted off the island.

But they still were able to provide lots of insight as to what it takes to be chosen for Survivor -- and how it feels to be among 96 people who've risked life and limb for a $1 million prize and the title Ultimate Survivor.

There's no glory once the game is over, noted Glover, who had joined many of those contestants in New York City for the live taping of the Survivor: The Amazon finale. As she said, "Nothing screams 'washed-up has-been' more than to have this on your seat": She holds up a plain white piece of paper that said in big black letters: "Former Survivor."

Journal photo / Sandor Bodo Survivor contests Jeanne Herbert, left, and Helen Glover share experiences of life behind the scenes at Napa Valley Grille in Providence.

Lots of people talk about applying to be on Survivor. What's the difference between their daydreams and your action?

Glover said her family was sick of listening to her running commentaries about the weekly Survivor shows, so one day, "My husband called my bluff."

"He said, 'Here's an application for Survivor,' " Glover recalled. Her daughter, Kiki, 17, was mortified, mostly because she realized her mother -- a water survival training instructor for the Navy -- would be a shoo-in for the show. "They'd so, like, take you," she told her mom.

And Kiki didn't want that to happen. "She's like, 'Mom, I cannot have my mom on Survivor!' " But by the time she was on the show, her daughter thought it was "really cool," Glover said.

Glover was on the second day of an 18-day trip to Hawaii when she got the call to report to Los Angeles for a final tryout for the show. She wasn't sure whether to give up her vacation, but she didn't want to miss the opportunity of a lifetime, either. She spent a day on the beach, weighing her choices, and flew out the next day.

Hebert said she tried out for Survivor on a lark. She'd long watched the show with her family, and frequently remarked, "I could do that. I could so totally do that." So when there was an open casting call for Survivor applicants in Boston last year, she decided to go for it. She had three minutes to make her case in front of the cameras. In a boring monotone she told the crew: "My name is Jeanne Hebert. I live in the same town I was born in. I've been with the same guy 25 years. And I know you're thinking, 'She probably drives a minivan.' " Then she whipped off her shirt, down to her sports bra, and announced: "But I'm wild! I'm Mean Jean the Survivor Machine."

Journal photo / Sandor Bodo Survivor contests Jeanne Herbert, left, and Helen Glover share experiences of life behind the scenes at Napa Valley Grille in Providence.

Hebert got invited back for a second interview, and wound up a finalist for Survivor 5: Thailand. But Glover got the nod instead.

(Glover, by the way, is from the same hometown as Richard Hatch. She knew his family, but said she never called him for advice on how to play the game.)

Hebert, meanwhile, was thrown back into the mix as a potential candidate for the next show, Survivor 6: The Amazon. She sent the producers a video showing her running, fishing and eating a worm. The video ended with a shot of her carrying a lighted torch, saying: "My flame will never go out."

We know that CBS is a stickler for secrecy. Where did your friends and family think you were when you were out of town playing Survivor for 7 weeks?

Contestants are sworn to secrecy about their participation in the game until CBS officially announces who's in the upcoming version of the show -- which doesn't happen until the game has been played and all the participants are back home. So before they can play, their spouses and employers are required to sign vows of silence, which threaten legal penalties if they let it leak out.

Glover told everyone she was heading to Maine to nurture an aunt who'd just undergone chemotherapy. "I didn't want to use that story. I was afraid of jinxing her," Glover said. But the details were the aunt's idea. "She was all excited about being part of it."

Hebert, marketing director for the New England Dairy Council, told her three children she was going to Europe to write a book about cheese. She told other family members and friends she was heading to California to donate a kidney to a distant uncle (she felt bad when a close friend brought her a bathrobe and a journal to record her medical experience).

Both said it was tough to stay silent until CBS released their names, especially given that both returned with glowing tans. Hebert had left in late October and missed Thanksgiving with her family. Her father suspected she'd run off and deserted her husband and kids, but she returned home on Dec. 16.

She had to remain mum until CBS revealed the names on Jan. 15. She invited her father over that night, and gathered with her children to reveal her secret by showing them the CBS Web site showing the cast of Survivor: The Amazon. She recalls her father looking at the computer and saying, " 'That's the most dangerous place on earth. You can't go.' And I'm like, 'Dad, I'm already back.' "

What happens after you're selected?

Each person on the show goes through an intensive screening process, including a psychological evaluation.

Hebert laughed when recalling how Probst told TV viewers during the Amazon finale that Heidi Strobel, the blond gym teacher who stripped during a Reward Challenge for chocolate and peanut butter, had one of the highest IQs of anyone on the show. "The psychologist told me I had one of the highest IQs. They told that to JoAnna [Ward, another contestant]."

Strobel couldn't even spell people's names right, Hebert said, noting that Strobel spelled her name "Gene" when voting her off.

Glover said she'd also been told she had an impressively high IQ. "I thought, 'How wonderful am I?' But now I hear they've told everyone that."

The contestants are then assembled on location for a week-long training camp before the competition begins. They learn the lay of the land and are given a crash course in survival techniques. They were forbidden from speaking with any of their fellow contestants; they couldn't even say "Excuse me" or "Bless you" if someone sneezed, Hebert said. They were told about the risks, like being swallowed by an anaconda or stalked by a jaguar. And -- who'd have thought this? -- they were taught how to build a shelter.

"They have to [teach that]," Glover said. "They have all these Heidi types who've never been out in nature."

Glover recalls being warned that, in Thailand, they were in a nature preserve, and they had to survive with the additional burden of some conservation rules. "We weren't allowed to kill anything, cut anything down, or dig anything up." And, none of the food growing on trees was in season.

"We ate boiled leaves," Glover said. "And, I ate chicken feed" that was left over after her competing tribe won live chickens in a Reward Challenge. It actually tasted like a bit like granola, she said.

Not Hebert. Not only were her tribes given manioc (a starch), but she also was able to catch stingray -- tasted just like swordfish, she said -- and other fish. And she found pineapples, mangos and guava, though the women's camp was so dirty nobody wanted to eat the fruit after it sat around ripening.

None of that was shown on TV.

What about all the friction on the all-female team?

Hebert was surprised -- and dismayed -- to find herself on the first all-women tribe at the start of the show. "I knew the Amazon was a very harsh and dangerous environment," where physical strength could be a life-saver. ". . . I thought we'd get perhaps a man or two to help chop down trees."

But a battle of the sexes was in the script, so Hebert figured, "Let's be strong. Work together. Let's show them how women can be."

What a let-down, she said. Not only were the younger women catty, most of them "just sat around and let the 'fat old ladies' do the work for them."

They talked constantly about using their sex appeal to get to the final four. None was willing to work for it, Hebert said, not even when Deena Bennett, the prosecutor who Hebert recommended to be the leader after the first couple of episodes in which the women failed to even build a shelter. "Deena, 'I am woman hear me roar,' " Hebert said, in a mocking tone. "I'm going to slap her."

The women's team has been criticized for their treatment of Christy Smith, the deaf adventure guide, but Hebert said it was dangerous to be deaf in the Amazon. Hebert said Christy got upset because Hebert insisted on leading the way when they went into the jungle, or out at night. But it was only because she couldn't hear if there was an animal or snake heading their way, Hebert said.

There was one time when her hearing loss was an advantage, Hebert said: At night Christy couldn't hear the jungle noises that kept everyone else nervously awake. "She'd take that hearing aid and throw it in a little bag and she'd be like, (snore) . . . She slept all the time."

Are you aware that you're being filmed all the time?

Once the competition begins, the cameras are on 24/7, and they're everywhere, both contestants said, sometimes hidden, sometimes with entire camera crews. "You get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and they're standing there with their little infrared camera," Glover said. "You get used to it."

The producers also follow the contestants every step of the way, offering advice on what's poisonous and threatening to disqualify contestants for going outside the established boundaries or doing things not native to the show.

Hebert said she and JoAnne Ward got lost one day, and she was looking for the water's edge to follow it back to camp. But as they approached a stretch of beach, they were told they couldn't go that way because they'd reached the edge of their boundary. So they had to bushwhack back through the jungle, instead.

Glover recalls how the beach in Thailand was covered with litter. "It was filthy, just filthy.' She found two plastic jugs she wanted to use to help bail her tribe's sinking boat, but the producers said no because there aren't supposed to be plastic jugs on the beach.

So it is dangerous out there or not?

Nights could be harrowing, especially if you ventured from camp to go the bathroom. Hebert recalls staying awake all night, afraid that her female tribemates wouldn't protect her from the perils of the jungle. When the male and female tribes merged, "I was so excited because I was like, 'I'll finally be able to sleep.' "

She said she was disgusted by the younger women talking endlessly about their sexual exploits, on and off camera. "They were conniving every night at the campfire, how they were going to get the most camera time, how they were going to work it with their bodies, how they were going to get in Playboy."

Hebert also scoffed at some of her tribemates' preoccupation with their bodies -- especially Strobel, who wore a retainer and hair extenders. At one point, Hebert was braiding Strobel's hair and Strobel warned her to be careful because her extensions could come off. Hebert also noted that Strobel's breast implants couldn't have been more obvious -- especially after everyone lost so much weight that they were down to skin and bones.

She recalls her first night in the guys' camp, when Strobel insisted on snuggling next to Dave Johnson, the cute young rocket scientist.

It was pathetic, Hebert said. "Heidi was like, 'Dave, it's so great to snuggle with you. Do you like to snuggle, too?' And at one point, Johnson said, "Heidi, you have such nice blond hair. Is it natural?' "

"And I'm like, 'C'mon, Dave, you're a rocket scientist,' " Hebert said to herself. She was disappointed no one else was awake to hear it.

The camera crews couldn't get enough of the younger tribe members, though, Hebert said, noting the one time she could get away from the cameras was when the younger tribe members were in the river bathing in the nude. None of the cameramen wanted to miss that.

That gave Hebert time to bare her chest in privacy, trying to rid herself of a nasty rash that developed by Day 5 in the jungle.

And while there was lots of talk about sex, Glover and Hebert both said they don't think anyone actually did the act on the set -- there were simply too many cameras around. But the producers would like nothing better than to have a romantic encounter on the show, Glover said. "They would be all over that. They'd be jumping up and down on the side, thinking they struck gold."

In one episode, Hebert was shown smirking as she cooked up manioc with mold and bugs in it to give to her female tribemates, while admitting she'd never eat it herself. What was that about?

Hebert said she was totally frustrated by the younger women's lack of work ethic when they had their own tribe, which was apparent on the show. She said she and Ward spent endless hours fishing and tracking down fresh pineapple, though their successes were seldom shown on TV.

When in spite of all that work Ward got voted off, Hebert refused to make the two-mile trek to the river to catch dinner, saying she wasn't going to feed them if they were too lazy to help get the food. "They didn't want to walk [through the jungle] because their legs were too nice and they didn't want to get scratched up," she said.

So, she made dinner with the remains of the moldy, bug-infested manioc that had gone bad the week before.

But that scene was taken out of context, Hebert said.

She explained that, previously, she'd asked some of the younger tribe members to climb some trees to get banana leaves to cover the wooden container of food, because it had a hole in the cover and it was raining every day. Then she went off to fish. Instead of climbing to get big leaves, they apparently grabbed some small leaves that were nearby and put them inside the container with the food -- not on top, away from the food.

Since the leaves were wet and the temperature in the jungle was about 120 degrees, mold formed immediately, Hebert said. So they'd ruined their one sure food source after only seven days.

"It's green and pink and there were so many diffrent colored fuzzes in there that I didn't eat the manioc after [that]," Hebert said. "I wouldn't eat it if you paid me a million bucks."

But everyone else continued to eat it, she said. And on Day 13, when the other women refused to fish or hunt for pineapple after Ward had been voted off, Hebert made dinner from the moldy manioc. The other women devoured it, and praised her for her cooking. Hebert stood by, smiling.

On the show, it looked like she was deliberately trying to make the other women sick, in revenge for voting off Ward.

"I was kind of happy, making it for them," she admits. But, she said she wanted to make one thing clear: "I did not try to poison the girls . . . I didn't add anything to it. I would never do that."

What are the tribal councils really like?

They aren't as quiet and isolated as they appear on television, Glover said. And they don't last the five minutes viewers see on TV. "It's a long night."

There are dozens of people running around, setting up cameras and microphones and lights. At one point, just as the taping of the first tribal council in Thailand was to begin, one of the workers on the set made some kind of noise and Probst exploded.

"He's like something out The Exorcist," Glover said. "His head swirls around and he's like screaming obscenities -- all these words I haven't heard, and I'm in the Navy."

Glover said she was mortified when Probst then resumed his game face, looked her way, and said, "So, Helen . . ."

What happens to contestants when they get voted off?

Getting voted off early -- she made it through 15 of the 39 days -- turned out not to be so bad, Hebert said. She was escorted to a houseboat floating on the Amazon. "The first thing I drank was a vodka and soda. They're like, 'Usually people want a Coke or a soda.' And I said, 'No, I want a vodka.' " She had that and pumpkin soup and crackers to ease her stomach back into real food.

And when the tribe had been reduced to nine members -- including those who'd be part of the jury to vote on the million-dollar winner -- the rest of the contestants were flown off for a three-week vacation elsewhere in South America, all expenses paid. (They had their own clothes, which CBS had held for them.)

Hebert said she couldn't disclose her exact location, but she enjoyed a top-shelf vacation, eating in fine restaurants, getting massages and manicures, and going rock climbing, glacier walking and rappelling.

"You went on vacation?!" retorted Glover, clearly amazed to find that out. "I got squat."

Hebert pointed out that Glover had no time for vacation -- she was in Thailand until the very last day of filming, because she was one of the four finalists for the prize. Glover ultimately got voted off after Brian Heidik, a used car salesman, betrayed his alliance with her and went on to be selected the winner of that show. "To be blindsided," she said, "is a horrible feeling."

She was taken back to a nearby camp, still wearing the lone pair of underwear she was allowed to bring with her. (Hebert said in her Survivor, they got to bring two.) Glover was also told she'd missed the last laundry run, so they gave her a blue bucket and liquid soap to wash the grungy clothes she'd worn the past 37 days.

Hunger was a big part of the show early in the series -- remember Elizabeth Filarski's hair falling out because she was so malnourished in Survivor 2: Australia? But hunger doesn't seem to be emphasized now. How hungry do you get?

Hebert, who fished, said she "never really got hungry" while in the Amazon. "But I was only out there for 15 days." Still, she lost 20 pounds -- and put on 25 while on vacation after being voted out.

Glover, on the other hand, who survived on boiled leaves for 37 days in Thailand, was so hungry, "I was ready to gnaw off my own hands."

"Hunger just saps every bit of strength, every bit of ability to function and you just give up. It really takes the spirit from you," Glover said. ". . . It's the worst thing I've ever been through."

Glover said hunger also affected people's memories. One contestant, Jan Gentry, a school teacher, couldn't even remember her own phone number. And the effects continued even after the show ended, she said. "My hair fell out like crazy when I got home." Hebert said her hair fell out as well.

Glover said she has a new appreciation for people who truly live in hunger, and she speaks to the hunger issue whenever she's asked to talk about her experience on Survivor. The hunger she saw in Asia is nothing like here, she noted. "I don't see starvation like I saw over there."

But she's kept off 25 of the 30 pounds she said she lost while playing Survivor. And that's one of the side benefits of being on the show.

When the show ends, do you have much contact with other Survivors?

Hebert didn't see her fellow contestants again until they were reunited in New York for the season finale two weeks ago. .

They all watched the final show on monitors set up backstage, but it proved to be strained, she said. So the group eventually split, with those who'd gone on vacation together watching in one room while the members of the jury watched the show from another room.

Glover was in the audience in her "Former Survivor" seat, "the big has-been section," she said. "In true Survivor fashion, the people on my show who were dying to get seen went pushing and shoving to get down to Richard [Hatch]," she said. "And we're like, you know, of course, being from Rhode Island, we were looking for fire exits."

Normally, she said, the audience explodes into applause when the ultimate Survivor is announced. Not this time, when Jenna Morasca, the 22-year-old swimsuit model, was declared the winner over Matt, the restaurant designer, she said. "The silence was deafening."

"Every Survivor finale, there's usually panedemonium . . . There was nothing. It was very quiet. I thought, 'Maybe it's just me.' " And I went home and watched it." It was as quiet as it had seemed, she said.

So -- how did Morasca win?

Hebert and Glover said they were disappointed with the choice of Morasca. Her victory "had nothing to do with survival," Hebert said. The only reason she won, Hebert said, was "because of her age -- and she has a nice [rear end]."

What was more stunning was that Morasca won with a 6-1 vote -- the largest margin of victory for any Survivor so far.

Meanwhile, Glover said, host Probst declared on camera that Rob Cesternino, the Amazon's nerdy manipulator, was probably the best Survivor ever to play the game and not win. Later, off camera, "Richard gets up and says, 'Wait a minute, Jeff, I thought I was the best player ever. And he said, 'I said, to ever play the game and not win.' "

After the show, people were trying to figure out why so many people voted for Morasca. Some said it came down to the battle of the sexes: In spite of their differences, the women still wanted a woman to win.

But Hebert and Glover said the rumor around the stage was that Christy Smith -- who had vehemently insisted on camera that she would never vote for Morasca or Strobel, who she called "the evil stepsisters" -- didn't understand the voting directions, because of her hearing impairment. She thought she was voting Morasca out of the prize, when in fact she cast a vote to give her the $1 million.

Glover declared that there's no way Morasca would have won on Thailand. "If she'd been in our tribe, [she] would have been [seen as] the spoiled little girl."

Hebert said she feels badly that she happened to land on the first "X-rated Survivor," the one that will forever be known as the show in which two women ripped off their clothes for a bite of peanut butter and chocolate.

"I wanted to be a role model," Hebert said. "I have three children at home. I wanted to represent women over 40, just women in general, [to show we] can work as a team, we can work hard."

But ultimately, it was little more than a beauty contest, she said. It had noting to do with survival. "I thought we were in the Amazon, not competing in the Barbizon School of Modeling."

****

The two women chatted for more than two hours, recalling their experiences, with only one interruption, when Glover's husband, Jim, -- the man who on the show had won a night in Thailand by eating an incredible array of bugs -- walked up to the table and announced somberly: "Helen, the tribe has spoken. You need to leave this table immediately."

But before they split, Hebert unveiled one more secret: The Survivor logo she'd had tatooed on the small of her back after she completed the show.

"On my [tryout] video, I said if they picked me, I'd get a tattoo of Survivor," Hebert explained. So when she came back, she did.

"It's just something funny I did," Hebert said. And it's a lifelong reminder of her adventure in the Amazon as a Survivor.