Mark Bouris of Yellow Brick Road is at the centre of the Australian version of Celebrity Apprentice
Story by Paul Kalina, Sydney Morning Herald
A celebrity revamp may have rescued The Apprentice. THE small-talk stops the moment Mark Bouris enters the boardroom.
''Good evening, Mr Bouris,'' the contestants say in unison, their voices as hushed and nervous as those of errant school kids about to receive the bollocking that is coming their way.
''Mr Bouris'' takes his seat between his two lieutenants, publishing doyenne Deborah Thomas and long-time business partner Brad Seymour.
Anyone familiar with Celebrity Apprentice, the US format conceived by reality-show godfather Mark Burnett and co-produced by host Donald Trump, knows what's about to unfold.
Over the next few hours, Bouris will grill the contestants about the challenge they have just undertaken. He will rigorously cross-examine them, try to catch them out and ever-so-subtly invite them to knife each other in the back before one of them hears the now-famous refrain ''you're fired'' and leaves the show for good.
But what happens on this day about halfway through filming of Celebrity Apprentice Australia is beyond the wildest dreams of the show's producers. It's so off-script, even according to the button-pushing contrivances that give shows like this a pulse, it probably won't be put to air for legal reasons.
Talent manager Max Markson, dance instructor Jason Coleman and American model Didier Cohen are making last-ditch efforts to avoid elimination when Markson lobs a personal insult at Cohen.
Cohen swallows it but the rawness of the wound quickly becomes too much. He storms off and gives Markson a very Yankee-style piece of his mind. ''I will f--- you up,'' he screams, making no effort to suppress his fury and hurt.
On the phone several days later Bouris admits he was horrified at what transpired on the day Green Guide visited the Fox Studios set. Horrified but not entirely surprised.
Having moved in the upper echelons of the business world and sat on boards with titans such as the late Kerry Packer, Bouris has seen it all: bullying, intimidation, petulance, treachery, bluster, ''schoolyard stuff that you wouldn't expect a grown-up to do''.
In this particular case, when Markson's attempts to undermine Cohen didn't achieve what Markson was looking for, he went for the low blow.
Variations of that particular dance happen in many boardrooms across corporate Australia, Bouris contends matter-of-factly, though usually with a bit more sophistication.
''The show has all the normal interactions you get out there in the workplace,'' he says.
''I think that's the power of the show. That's where [Donald] Trump is smart. He's obviously experienced these things himself. Viewers don't understand what a board does. They think they're people above everyone else and they're not. They're normal human beings.''
One of Bouris's reasons for doing the show is ''it's an amazing social experiment to see how people operate''. ''It gives me insight to not just these people but to categories of people that I deal with day to day,'' he says.
The Apprentice has had mixed fortunes on TV. It launched to immense popularity in the US in 2004 but was axed in 2007 after six seasons because of poor ratings. It was revived as a celebrity version the following year.
With its casts of fruity celebs, including Meat Loaf, Gary Busey, Joan Rivers, her daughter Melissa and La Toya Jackson to name but a few, and the panto master of the universe Trump, it continues to draw big audiences, even bigger headlines and hilarious online recaps.
Nine launched its own version of The Apprentice in 2009 with the charismatic Bouris, founder of the Wizard Home Loan business, in the Trump role. It wasn't the hoped-for runaway success and further seasons of the ''vanilla'' version are now unlikely.
Earlier this year, production company Fremantle struck a licensing deal with Mark Burnett's company and the hunt for participants for a local celebrity version began.
Whereas the endgame of The Apprentice is a well-paid job in Trump or Bouris's empire, the celebrity version pitches itself as a more general, family-friendly entertainment offering, with the added feel-good factor of celebrities putting their skills, contacts and modesty to work to raise money for charity.
In addition to Markson, Coleman and Cohen, controversial politician Pauline Hanson, The Block co-winner Polly Porter, comedian Julia Morris, Miss Universe Australia 2010 Jesinta Campbell, sportsmen Wendell Sailor and Shane Crawford, Olympian Lisa Curry, singer Deni Hines and footballer-turned-punchline Warwick Capper were recruited for the inaugural Celebrity Apprentice Australia.
''The celebrity version presents itself as a different realm of entertainment,'' executive producer Karen Warner says. As contestants are not fighting for a job, they take the challenges less seriously.
In turn, challenges are designed to create an environment where the celebrities can perform and have fun, yielding Kodak moments such as Hanson washing cars while wearing a man's jocks and singlet, and Capper strutting the catwalk modelling women's clothes.
But dealing with celebrities is more difficult than ambitious job-seekers, Bouris says. ''They're more polished, more structured, more developed as individuals in the way they operate.''
And having achieved considerable success in their chosen fields, they have their reputations and egos to protect.
For the celebrities, it's an opportunity to promote themselves and their causes.
''I've always believed that TV is a free billboard for your business or whatever you do,'' says Markson, the flamboyant talent manager whose diverse client list extends from former heads of state Bill Clinton and Tony Blair all the way to peroxide party-boy Corey Worthington.
Markson predicts that by the time the episodes are edited and put to air, he'll be portrayed as a villain or lunatic.
''I don't mind,'' he says. ''I'm well aware of what can happen when I have clients doing TV but at the end of the day, people get a taste of me. What's the worst that's going to happen? They can't damage my reputation. I've had enough mud thrown at me over the past 30 years.''
As an exercise in image-making the show will only bring benefits to its participants, Markson believes.
''People will get to know her better than they ever have before,'' he says of the show's star recruit, Hanson, the deeply divisive One Nation founder and another of Markson's former clients. ''They'll see her in a
totally different light. It will win her more fans. Whether it will win her more fans at the next election I can't tell you that but there's no doubt that Pauline going on a show like this will win her more fans.
''The record of it in America [is that] everyone that does Celebrity Apprentice goes on to bigger and better things. It reignites careers, gives them a kick along.'' Markson notes British TV presenter Piers Morgan went on to inherit Larry King's slot on CNN after winning the first season of the show.
Hanson is more circumspect, saying only that a return to politics is ''always on the cards''.
But she has no doubt that her public image will benefit. ''People will see the real person, not a journalist who will go away and make up their own version of the story rather than print the truth about who I am and what I really stand for,'' she says. ''No one's putting words in my mouth. I'm calling it as I see it.''
Arguably, Bouris himself is the largest benefactor of the show, which he says is a brand-building exercise for his financial services business Yellow Brick Road, 19.9 per cent owned by Nine Entertainment.
The set on which the show is made is a replica of Yellow Brick Road's boardroom and reception foyer, complete with background views of Sydney Harbour.
Bouris says the company opened 75 branches on the back of the initial Apprentice. He expects this will drive similar demand.
''You can't buy this sort of marketing opportunity,'' he says. ''People sponsoring the show have been putting up between $1.5 million and $1.8 million for one episode.
''This is a way for me to leverage the Yellow Brick Road brand into TV at one-20th the price of anyone else … I don't mind being as naked about it as that.''
Celebrity Apprentice Australia debuts on Nine at 7pm on Monday.
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