In the Land of OZ: Behind the Scenes

Getting booked on the show….or Lions and Tigers and MeMe Roth, oh my!-Part I

It starts with a phone call. On the line is a chipper, upbeat young woman who says, “This is Sam from the Dr. Oz show and we’d like to see if you’d be available to be on the show this Monday…” There you are working at your desk, and the power of the media swoops in like a giant breeze that disrupts what you are doing, lifting you up as it simultaneously lends a fractured bit of chaos to your life. Sam tells me that the topic is “Is it Child Abuse if your Child is FAT?” Oz is not Springer, but this topic is incendiary to say the least. My mind races to the case I worked on with Dakota Main, the young boy who at age 8 was 5’4” and nearly 200 pounds and was ripped away from his mother and placed into Foster Care for six whole months. It seems as though the upcoming Dr. Oz show is tackling the subject of childhood obesity and needed a few different angles to present a balanced show. Since I am the New York representative for the International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA), I know that I can lend an anecdotal element to the lineup they are assembling. Seems it’s happening again, this Nazi Germany tactic of children being separated from their parents to intervene and stop the cycle of “allowing them to become fat.”

Sam warns me that I will be passed around as I go up the chain of command and tell my story to the different assistant producers who must approve me and my story telling ability. I guess the Dr. Oz show hasn’t won a string of Emmys making Mehmet the sexiest doctor on daytime TV without this kind of scrutiny. George Clooney he’s not, but he does have a huge following. Just go on Facebook and next to the “LIKE” tab is 1M….that’s a MILLION (!!) followers….that’s the giant breeze I refer to.

The weekend is looming and the producers want it all asap — they need a high res photos of Dakota, they want to talk to Dakota’s mother, they ask about how he is doing now after the ordeal. I quickly call the director of ISAA, Allen Steadham, who lives in Austin, Texas and tell him that I am slated to be on the show on Monday, a mere four days away. We are used to receiving these media inquiry calls. In the past, I have been walking down the street and Fox TV’s Neal Cavuto’s show calls him and says, “We’ll pick Catherine up in an hour, can you have her come over and give a comment on a recent Yale University study released on taxing sugar sweetened beverages and obesity in America?” I usually come up with a good sound bite and Neal likes my irreverence. He once had me comment on the hypocrisy behind the fact that Barack Obama is a smoker. That seat of the pants the Oz show is not. I don’t know which is worse, last minute or this extended interview process.

Come Back for Part II on Wednesday.

Catherine Schuller -- Daily Venus Diva.

CATHERINE SCHULLER’s status is legendary as she is considered one of the pioneers of the full figured fashion industry. She became a Ford Model in the 80’s when the industry was still forming and is a trained film and theatre actress who also became a standup comedienne when she was told at 5’10” and 175 pounds that she was “too heavy” for the acting world. She sought revenge in humor and created and performed her own sketch comedy cabaret act, “The Nerve!” That phrase became her mantra and she became an advocate for “being yourself” and having the confidence and style to put yourself out there no matter what After years of acting and modeling she combined standup with fashion and commentated in-store fashion shows at major retail chains for years, then segued into becoming a certified professional image consultant with AICI (Association of Image Consultants International) specializing in the plus size woman. She was invited to become an editor of the “Vogue-executed”, wildly successful MODE magazine in 1997, a position she held for the full four years of the magazine’s existence, which then led to her becoming spokesperson for retail brands such as Talbot’s Woman, Just My Size, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, Saks, Filene’s, Macy’s, The Bon Ton stores’ Boston Store and Carson Pirie Scott, Charming Shoppes’ Lane Bryant, Catherine’s and Figure Magazine. Her highly acclaimed how to modeling book “The Ultimate Plus-Size Modeling Guide” was self published and turned her into the go-to person for advice on model development. After Mode’s closing due to 9/11, she started another enterprise in March 2002 in New York featuring a high end runway show in New York featuring top plus designers called CurveStyle: Reshaping Fashion devoted to promotional and marketing efforts celebrating and elevating the “full figured woman to the status of fashion icon in her own right.” She has appeared on QVC with her own line of clothing “Shape Shopping with Catherine Schuller,” debuting her line of figure-flattering apparel in sizes 2-22. A frequently quoted expert, she has appeared in articles for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Orlando Sentinel, St.Louis Post Dispatch, The Daily News, Times Picayune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Chicago’s Windy City, San Francisco Chronicle, US Weekly, Good Housekeeping and on television she has appeared many times on The View, The Early Show, The Today Show in her hometown of New York as well as news programs where she is a frequent guest on Neal Cavuto’s Your World, Oxygen Channel and local morning shows across America. She was assistant style advisor to Wynonna Judd for USA Network’s Nashville Star where she introduced Richard Metzger to Wynonna and he designed her looks for the TV show and tour. She executive produced two full length films with Constantine Valhouli. The first, “Curve,” a documentary about the full figured modeling industry featured interviews with plus size models and luminaries in the field from the retail, media, modeling agency, design world all bearing their souls to the scrutiny of the lens where the film captured the honesty and ambivalence about the world of fashion and the fuller figures. Her next feature entitled “Sex, Lies and Superheroes” was inspired by the death of her first husband, Mark Gruenwald, Senior Executive Editor of Marvel Comics and writer of Captain America and other titles. She is the Image and Style Advisor for Divabetic, a charity started in honor of Luther Vandross to empower women living with, at risk of or affected by the epidemic of diabetes and teaches them to have a ‘diva’ attitude about their diabetes. She works closely with Luther’s personal assistant of fourteen years, Max Szadek, and is part of its creative core team, traveling around to major United States cities with a program entitled Makeover Your Diabetes sponsored by Novo Nordisk which targets women living with, affected by, or at risk of diabetes - an epidemic now affecting 23 million Americans, 80% of whom are plus size women. She teaches the course on special sizes at Fashion Institute of Technology in their Image Program currently. Her latest project is a coffee table book entitled Such a Pretty Face about the plus size models and their interesting career paths. She has been awarded the Icon of the Industry from Full Figured Fashion Week which she will be given in June of 2011.

Comments

Melissa Phillips says:

June 13, 2011 at 2:18 pm

Hi Catherine,

That is just amazing to me that a child would be removed from his home because of his weight. Is the trauma of being taken from your family going to make him lose weight or anyone for that matter. Advocating for health is always positive, however, we need to find productive ways to facilitate change and foster care is not the answer. I will definitely look into your association, my website is for women and about women who strive to build awareness about bridging the gaps that still exist within society that deal specifically with size, age and shape.