'Benefactor' has wealth of confusion
By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service
Great wealth, we're often told, is a great burden.
ABC 9 tonight and 8 p.m. Thursday
In old English novels and new TV shows, rich people crumble.
'The Benefactor'
If so, Mark Cuban — the centerpiece of "The Benefactor," which debuted at 12:36 last night and rebroadcasts tonight at 9 p.m. and again at 8 p.m. Thursday on ABC — has it all wrong. He likes being rich.
"He just lives," says Todd Wagner, Cuban's best friend since college. "He says what he thinks and he has fun."
He remains understated.
"It's a struggle, just to get Mark to confess that he's a billionaire," says "Benefactor" producer Clay Newbill.
To that, Cuban, 45, shrugs. "At least I dress the part," he says.
He dresses mainly in jeans. His informal style fits a show that seems short on rules.
In the premiere, 16 contestants arrive at a mansion in Cuban's hometown of Dallas. By the end of the night, he has evicted three of them — without really saying what the show is about.
Mostly, it's about improvising through challenges. "They're very open-ended," Cuban says.
In the opener, he simply spies on people, then does one-on-one interviews. Another week, he hands them a bundle of money at 10 p.m. on a Monday and tells them to have fun while spending it all.
"Believe it or not, that wasn't easy for some of the contestants," Cuban says.
Another day was even more open-ended, he says.
"I put them in groups of four. I gave them each three hours. The only instructions were, 'Do not waste my time.' "
This may seem frustrating, but the contestants will keep trying. At the end of the series, Cuban will give one of them $1 million.
The money isn't from his pocket (it's from the show's budget), he says, but he gives his salary from the show to charity.
"You can't have a show called 'The Benefactor' and worry what you're going to get paid."
Then again, Cuban has plenty right now. He's married, lives in Dallas, owns the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and (with Wagner) owns movie theaters, a movie production company and HDNet, a high-definition cable network.
"I'm thrilled to death with my life," Cuban says.
