So when Hyleri, a former television actress now making a living selling real estate, got an e-mail about a casting call for a reality show in which different families go head-to-head with each other while on a road trip in a deluxe recreational vehicle, she thought she just might get the new family to try out. She filled out the forms, and improbably enough, they were called in for an audition. It went well. Out of hundreds of thousands of families, they were picked to be one of seven families on the new prime-time series which officially started this week and will run on NBC on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
Hyleri and Marc Katzenberg, whom many might know as the former owner of Katzenberg's Café, each could only bring one child, so they both brought their 15-year-olds (Andrew Katzenberg, who attends Rumsey Hall School in Washington, Conn., and Sami Jurofsky, who attends Staples High School) to the audition.
They said the audition was a blast, and being on the show itself was one of the most entertaining things they could possibly have done.
"The best part was the friends we made with the other families, who were very different than we were," said Katzenberg and Hyleri added, "We really bonded. We could not use cell phones, or navigation systems. It was the old kind of travel and the best thing for us as a new family."
Hyleri, upbeat and eloquent, said participating in the reality television series was truly remarkable, but it was only a part of the emotional roller coaster of a year she has gone through. Hyleri was diagnosed a year ago with kidney cancer, a rare and aggressive cancer, and one statistically highly unlikely for her age and sex. As a result, she had to have a part of one kidney removed. Said Marc, "When we met, I was upset about my divorce and she had not long before been stricken with cancer. After a few dates, our despair was over."
Marc claims Hyleri was one of the most optimistic cancer patients he could ever imagine, and for her part, she says, "You can't choose what happens to you, but you can certainly choose how you deal with it."
In fact, she is writing a book about it, considering the title, "Stop kvetching. I have cancer." "People complain about things and become unhappy, but I say it can always be worse."
Marc and Hyleri married just two weeks ago at a friend's home in Westport, a wedding that Katzenberg put together and catered in one week. As if all that were not enough, they are also about to start a new business venture together, launching a food product called Viol (about which they talk on their reality show), a concentrated, flavorful and healthy olive oil.
Said Hyleri, "If you had told me a year ago that I would have cancer, survive it, find the love of my life, be in a reality television show, get married and start a new business, I'd have never believed it." Can reality television be the new fairy tale?
The Great American Road trip can be seen on NBC at 8 p.m. on Tuesday nights.