Elsmere woman on 'Big Brother'
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By Rick Bird and Amanda Van Benschoten
Post staff reporters
A local woman will bring a little bit of Northern Kentucky flavor to a popular national reality show that debuts on Tuesday and, she hopes, further her acting career at the same time.
Diane Henry, 22, of Elsmere will compete with 13 other contestants this summer on CBS' "Big Brother 5" for a $500,000 first prize.
The model, cocktail waitress and full-time Northern Kentucky University student will live in a Los Angeles house and participate in games and other competitions in the hope of outlasting the other houseguests.
Producer Arnold Shapiro, who has won 16 Emmys and produced more than 90 reality shows and documentaries in a 35-year career, said the players will enter the house -- built at a Hollywood film studio -- sometime this weekend in time to film for Tuesday's debut.
He thinks Henry will be a hit for viewers.
"She has a sassy, enjoyable personality. She's very outgoing, very outspoken. If someone is doing something she doesn't like she is not restrained. She speaks her mind. She is not a wallflower."
Henry's family thinks the show might prove just the vehicle she needs to launch her dream of an acting career.
"I know if she can stay out there (in L.A.), she will," said her twin sister and roommate, Lindsey Henry, also of Elsmere.
But the twins' mother, Debbie Henry, 45, of Elsmere, said Diane plans to return home and finish college "unless she has a major offer from someone."
Henry could win a hefty prize if she does well on the show. If she wins the $500,000 first prize, she plans to pay off student loans for her and her sister and help her family out with bills, according to her mother.
Family members say Henry's strategy on the television show is simply to be herself.
"She doesn't have a strategy. She's just going to be herself and hope for the best," said Debbie Henry. "She's afraid too much strategy will hurt her chances."
Lindsey Henry said the show's producers loved her sister from the get-go because she is aggressive and confident.
"She has a very strong attitude. She doesn't take crap from anybody."
Producers and a camera crew surprised Henry at her Elsmere apartment a week ago and presented her with a key to the "Big Brother" house -- confirmation that she was soon to be whisked away to Los Angeles for the three-month-long competition.
On the show, six women and seven men will be confined to a house for up to 90 days with cameras and microphones following their every move around the clock. Each week players are evicted, voting each other out of the house.
The show will air each week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, with a live eviction vote on Thursdays.
A CBS spokeswoman said Thursday that Henry is already sequestered in Los Angeles and unavailable for comment.
Henry, originally from Texas, attended Hillsboro, Ohio, High School, where she was a cheerleader and a member of the National Honor Society. She is now a senior at NKU studying communications.
Henry is a budding model who specializes in fashion and runway modeling. She and her twin sister began modeling locally two years ago on a whim.
"We never really took it seriously," Lindsey Henry said. But it was a fashion photographer who alerted Henry to the "Big Brother" opening that could be the aspiring actress's big break.
Andrew Nicholson, who owns one of the companies for whom Henry models and is her manager, suggested she might emerge as a sleeper contestant on the show.
The cast also includes recent Miami University grad Drew Daniel, 22, from Urbana.
http://www.cincypost.com/2004/07/02/bro070204.html
