Local do-gooders hit pay dirt on ‘Secret Millionaire’

You don't expect a Fox reality show to help the needy.

Hurl expletives and food at them ("Hell's Kitchen") or hook them to a lie detector and ruin every relationship they've ever had ("The Moment of Truth"), sure.

Or, going back a few years, have them undergo drastic plastic surgery ("The Swan") or pit them in a tug-of-war against an orangutan ("Man vs. Beast"), you betcha.

But help? That'd be like NBC dragging out tired, old Jay Leno to kill nearly a quarter of its prime-time schedule. (Wait. They really did that? Nevermind.)

Such is the strange phenomenon of "The Secret Millionaire" (8 p.m. Thursday, KVVU-TV, Channel 5), which will find Salt Lake City entrepreneur Gregory Haerr roaming the streets of Las Vegas, looking to give away at least $100,000 of his own money to help those who are helping others.

And, unlike the stars of Fox's "Joe Millionaire" and "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire," Haerr really is loaded. "Let's just say that I've done well," is as specific as he wants to get. "I'm not quite to the triple-digit millions, but I'm working at it."

Haerr heard about the series -- in which wealthy philanthropists go undercover as the working poor for a week and get to know others who are down on their luck -- while visiting his friend and fellow "Secret Millionaire" Greg Ruzicka in Hawaii.

For some reason, Haerr assumed he'd be going to a small town where the types of people he was looking to help would stand out.

"On the day that I had to give up all of my jewelry, watches, cash and all that," Haerr recalls, "a guy arrived at the door at 6 a.m. and said 'Here's a bus ticket to Las Vegas, and here's $47.' "

With no real direction and a camera crew in tow -- his cover story was that he was part of a documentary about what it's like to move to Las Vegas with no money -- he began walking east down Fremont Street.

"I was actually pretty shocked," he says. "My first thought was 'Wow, I don't know what I'm going to be able to do, if I'm going to be able to give anybody money here.' It's just a very different area."

He eventually made his way to the Blue Angel Motel, where he was able to work a few hours each day clearing out abandoned rooms in exchange for a place to stay. It was a far cry from Haerr's typical Las Vegas trip, which, while nowhere near the most decadent experience available on the Strip, still consisted of a room at the top of Mandalay Bay and sea bass in the Foundation Room.

Haerr walked or took the bus looking for people to help and volunteered at several organizations. A naturally upbeat guy, he says his surroundings didn't really affect him when he arrived in town on a Sunday in late April. But by that Wednesday, he had seen so much, depression had set in. He eventually reached out to his brother Paul and asked him to join him.

In keeping with the show's name, much of the episode is under wraps. Fox wouldn't make it available for screening, and Haerr can't talk about who he helped or how much he helped them, although he offers that it was more than he initially thought he'd give.

"I can't really say who the recipients are, because it kind of spoils the climax," he says. "But the people that I ended up meeting over the week were, ultimately, really good-hearted people that ... I felt like really giving a lot of money to. I really felt I was helping and actually changing lives."

While practically everyone featured on "The Secret Millionaire" has a story that will break your heart, the show's emotional payoff -- the money shot, if you will -- is the moment the millionaires hand over the checks and have to tell the people who took them into their lives and, in some cases, their homes, that they aren't who they said they were. That they're actually rich and that everything they've said is a lie.

"For me, one of the very peak emotional experiences of the show was -- in fact, I was getting more and more nervous about this -- to actually know that I've got to stand up, look at somebody in the eyes and say 'I've been lying to you,' " Haerr says. "It's pretty deep."

The recipients obviously forgave the deception -- a nice five- to six-figure check will smooth over all sorts of hurt feelings -- because he says he's been keeping in touch with them.

He also says the experience has changed him, and he's looking for more ways to help.

"Las Vegas for me will never be quite the same," Haerr admits, "because while I'm partying it up on one of the upper floors of Mandalay, I will realize that there are others, others that I know right now, who are living a completely different life. Although I've helped them, they're not living it up at the top of the casino."

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.