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‘Baywatch’ exec
plans new Hawaii
television show

The plot
Teamsters may give rate cut

Tim Ryan
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii goes undercover in a new TV show co-created by the producer of "Baywatch," "Higher Ground," and coming this fall, "Sheena," an action drama.

Doug Schwartz will co-executive produce the Lionsgate TV production "Hawaiian Tropic Undercover" along with Reuben Leder, a writer and executive producer for "Magnum, P.I."; and Michael Soloman, former head of Lorimar and Warner Bros. International.

"The concept is beautiful girls in the beautiful location of Hawaii" Schwartz said. "Think Donnie Brasco goes to Club Med."

Negotiations with the two male and a female lead are under way, with contract signings expected in early August. A few weeks later, the production arrives on Oahu to film a 5- to 10-minute video presentation aimed at distributors in foreign and domestic markets.

Women representing Hawaiian Tropic tanning lotions will have major roles as the people who operate a fantasy hotel in paradise, Schwartz said.

The show will be launched at a distributors' meeting in Cannes, France, in October, with the domestic presentation at a similar gathering in Las Vegas next January. Foreign distribution will provide the show with as much as two-thirds of its weekly $950,000 budget; domestic sales will pick up the rest, Schwartz said. That's why the show will be launched in Europe first.

"I am very confident," Schwartz said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "Of the 10 TV series I've created, eight have gotten on the air. "I expect 'Hawaiian Tropic Undercover' to have a five- to seven-year run."

Filming of 22 episodes would begin as early as April 2001 with the show premiering in September as a syndicated one-hour series. Schwartz said the show will advertise and promote Hawaii, hire most of its crew locally, and cast at least two of the lead roles locally.

Producer of "Hawaiian Tropic Undercover" is April Masini, who spearheaded last year's successful effort to get "Baywatch" to relocate from California to Hawaii rather than Australia.

Masini was in Honolulu earlier this month meeting with state, county, labor, business and education leaders, including Gov. Cayetano and Mayor Jeremy Harris, seeking financial assistance and various services. On Tuesday she met in Los Angeles with Leo Reed, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 399, which handles transportation on TV and film productions, asking for lower labor rates than would normally be charged.

Masini and the show's executive producers are seeking hotel and airline sponsors in exchange for exposure.

Schwartz wants to base "Hawaiian Tropic Undercover" at the Turtle Bay Hilton on the North Shore, using the hotel as the show's primary location, its cottages as production offices and the ballroom for sets. Actors and the production's executive staff would require as many as 25 rooms at the facility, he said.

Hilton officials are expected to make a decision within a few days, a spokesperson in Hawaii said.

"We have to shoot it all at the Turtle Bay Hilton because the show revolves around a hotel exactly like that," Schwartz said. "The only way we can shoot in Hawaii is to put together a series of deals to make this financially feasible."

Schwartz said the show provides "a great opportunity to show Hawaii's beauty.

"Every episode opens with a plane load of new tourists who are picked up at the airport by beautiful Hawaiian Tropic girls then driven to the North Shore and Turtle Bay Hilton," he said.

Adventure portions of the show will also be filmed on neighbor islands, Schwartz said.

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The plot: mob
meets ‘Moonlighting’

Caz Orsini is a young FBI agent who has been working undercover in a New Jersey Mafia family for about 18 months.

One night he's at a casino where his mob family is meeting. While having a drink in the bar the Hawaiian Tropic International Pageant is going on.

Pageant owner Ron Rice is emceeing the event and announces the opening of his new Hawaiian Tropic Paradise Beach Resort on Oahu's North Shore. Orsini watches the video about the resort and falls in love with the hotel and location.

Then he sees a man with a gun walking across the casino floor about to shoot Rice. Orsini saves him by wrestling the gunman to the ground.

He is observed on closed circuit television and someone in the casino recognizes Orsini as a FBI agent.

His cover blown, Orsini leaves the casino. His Mafia buddies put a contract out on his life.

Orsini declines to enroll in the Witness Protection Program. The grateful Rice offers him anything he wants for saving his life. Orsini asks for a job at the Hawaii resort; Rice makes him chief of security.

The general manager of the hotel is an "older, beautiful woman" named Skylar Vance. Orsini and Vance develop a love-hate relationship similar to that of Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis on the TV series "Moonlighting."

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