Female impersonator looks for love on reality TV show

Frank Marino is irritated.

He's sitting at his dining room table, looking fresh and fabulous and talking about his favorite subject: himself.

Marino, 47, is scheduled to appear on Tuesday's episode of "Millionaire Matchmaker," the Bravo reality show in which host Patti Stanger tries to find a love interest for two millionaires. A millionaire eight times over, Marino is one of two Las Vegas performers who have tried to find true love through this reality television show. Hypnotist Anthony Cools was on an episode in 2009.

Even though this interview is approaching hour number three, Marino has been a perfectly gracious host, cracking jokes and indulging his guests. He is funny and charming and engaged until he hears The Question: "How did you get into drag?"

His smile fades; he shifts in his chair. That is hard to answer, he says, not because it's a painful memory or a complex reason. No, he's just tired of answering it. It's been asked a million times and more. It's obvious. It's unoriginal. It is as boring and old as, "Why did you choose to impersonate Joan Rivers? And how does she feel about your act?"

Yawn.

Marino, one of the pioneers of drag performance on the Strip, star of "Divas Las Vegas" at Imperial Palace and an icon in the gay community, wants the hard questions. He wants to be challenged. He wants to share something new and interesting and revealing. Something, he says, like "boxers or briefs?"

But that, too, is obvious as Marino ripped his jeans earlier in the evening, revealing a bare backside through the tear. He's wearing a thong.

Alex Schechter, his boyfriend of 18 years, gives Marino an incredulous look from across the table.

"You have answered hard questions," he insists.

It can't get much harder than picking apart your relationship and your role in it, Schechter says. And then there's the question that kicked this interview off: "Did you fake your breakup so you could be on 'Millionaire Matchmaker'?"

Marino moved to Las Vegas from New York in 1984 to perform his Joan Rivers character in the drag show "La Cage" at the Riviera. In case you don't know the answers to those "tired questions," Marino started doing drag when he was 17. He wanted to be a pharmacist. It was while working in New York as a junior pharmacist that he realized he was "more interested in makeup bottles than prescription bottles."

He chose to impersonate Joan Rivers because she was a major celebrity when Marino was just starting out. He can't sing but he knew he could be funny so the comic was a perfect character for him.

Marino came to Vegas when drag shows were popular on the Strip and he starred in "La Cage" for 25 years. After it closed, Marino struck up a partnership with Adam Steck of SPI Entertainment and together they opened "Divas" in 2009.

If Marino has learned anything in all his years as a Las Vegas performer, it is that publicity sells tickets. He is, he says, "a PR whore."

So naturally, people might wonder if his appearance on a dating show is a PR stunt, especially since he and Schechter are back together. There's no mystery, Marino says. They broke up for several months. Love is complicated.

The "Matchmaker" episode was filmed earlier this year. In it, Marino reveals that his celebrity crush is Taylor Lautner, he meets some guys who look nothing like Taylor Lautner and he goes on a date. The details -- whether the date was a good match -- will have to wait. But you can watch it with Marino himself. He is hosting a viewing in the Imperial Palace sports book at 7 p.m. Tuesday .

Marino says appearing on the show appealed to him for one main reason: It's hard to meet date-worthy people in town when you're a high-profile entertainer.

"You can't just go to a club and meet people," he says. "I'm the product and being the product is a 24-hour-a-day thing. When you want to meet someone you have to make sure they're not after you for the wrong reasons."

The "Millionaire Matchmaker" hostess finds potential love interests for the millionaire contestants, weeds out the gold-diggers -- unless that's what the millionaire wants -- then throws a party for all the participants. The goal is for the millionaire to find one suitable companion and go on a date to see if there's a spark. Marino has a friend who has a friend who asked if he would be interested in doing the show. After filling out tons of legal paperwork and providing evidence that he was, indeed, a millionaire, Marino was on his way to Los Angeles to film the show.

Schechter, 38, was supportive of his then-ex-boyfriend's decision to appear on the dating show. Their split was not acrimonious. In fact, they still saw each other almost daily, because Schechter works for SPI Entertainment and helps produce "Divas."

"It wasn't like a divorce," Schechter says. "We had a mutual agreement. I was focusing on myself."

The breakup was somewhat of a midlife crisis for Schechter, he says. Once SPI started producing "Divas," he and Marino worked virtually full time together. Even when they were at home, Schechter felt like he couldn't get away from work. Everything centered on the show and Schechter no longer knew what he wanted in life.

"The break was just a time I needed to figure out whether, in terms of the relationship, it was the right thing for me," he explains.

Schechter moved out of the modest house he and Marino shared in The Lakes. For a few months, he kind of dated but not really, he says. It wasn't until several months after Marino filmed the dating episode that they reconciled.

"Sometimes, you think that the grass is always greener," says Marino, who is philosophical but realistic about relationships. "It's not. Eighteen years is a long time, I've got to say. At this point, why break up? There's a lot of give and take in a relationship and the older you get, you get set in your ways. He knows my quirks and I know his."

They live together, again. Right now, they're even dieting together. After gallbladder surgery last year, Marino gained 30 pounds. The freezer has been packed with Jenny Craig meals for a few weeks. So far, Marino has lost 10 pounds, Schechter 15.

And they're planning for the future. The couple is traveling the country, trying to build the "Divas" brand. Marino plans to start his career as a beauty pageant judge, a la "Toddlers and Tiaras."

The couple also is thinking about children. One day. Maybe.

And harder questions.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@ reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.