Ken Fuchs (‘The Golden Bachelor’ director) on why ‘the timing was right’ to finally cast senior citizens [Exclusive Video Interview]
Reality romance franchise “The Bachelor” began a whopping 22 years ago on ABC, but in the fall of 2023 there was a major twist to the formula when a senior citizen was cast in the lead role. Thus, “The Golden Bachelor” was born. “We had been talking about it for a long time,” explains director Ken Fuchs, who has helmed hundreds of episodes of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” for the alphabet network. “It always comes up, and of course my friends and colleagues that are my age would always approach me and think, ‘It’s time now, let’s do this … Why aren’t you doing Bachelors our age? Why aren’t we represented?'” Watch the exclusive video interview above.
The first-ever “Golden Bachelor” star was Gerry Turner, a widower from Indiana, who still had hopes of finding love despite being 71 years old. The retired restaurateur had 22 women to choose from, ranging in age from 60 to 75. Gerry ultimately proposed to Theresa Nist, a 70-year-old financial services professional from New Jersey, and they were married live on ABC in a “Golden Wedding” ceremony that was broadcast on January 4, 2024.
Fuchs notes that “for whatever reason, I think the timing was right” for “The Golden Bachelor” to debut this TV season. “I don’t know if it was just where we are, the zeitgeist culturally, or the network’s decision,” he tells us. “Maybe it wasn’t right before, or there were other priorities and other demographics that were in play, but it certainly worked out just wonderfully and it was perfect timing to do it in 2023.”
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The first time viewers saw Gerry on their screens, he was putting in his hearing aids while getting ready in front of the mirror, which illustrated perfectly how he wasn’t your normal “Bachelor.” Fuchs describes that moment as “authentic,” saying, “[It’s] what you go through every day in your life — not trying to be sexy or not trying to make a statement, but just here it is, here he is. And I think right away it set the tone for people to understand that this is going to be different, this is going to feel different.”
Fuchs claims his directing style for “The Golden Bachelor” was approached from the “same style, same attitude, same set dressing and lighting and format.” He adds, “We really didn’t change a lot because I think that would’ve been a mistake to have to sort of offer up this different type of show. The point is that these are lovely humans that are looking for a connection and the stories are all the same. The casting’s going to feel so different, so we don’t need to create some other type of world for them.”
Also in our exclusive video interview, Fuchs talks about which of the women delivered his favorite limousine introductions, the “terrific job” of the casting department finding contestants with youthful spirits, and why it’s “okay” that sometimes the “real world does infringe on the shooting of a television show,” especially when it came to fan-fave Joan Vassos having to leave the mansion for personal reasons.
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