December 3, 1999
by Elizabeth Hunter
Beloved Los Angeles radio personality
Big Boy plays a big girl in Touchstone Pictures' raucous and original
comedy, "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo" (opening nationwide
December 3).
Touchstone Pictures presents a Happy Madison/Out of the Blue Entertainment Production, "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo." Directed by Mike Mitchell, written by Harris Goldberg and Rob Schneider, the film is produced by Sid Ganis and Barry Bernardi.
Meet Deuce Bigalow, played by Rob Schneider, a naive, good-hearted fish tank cleaner, who really loves his job. His only dream is to take his fish and move out of Van Nuys to Malibu —to be close to the center of his passion— the ocean. Bigalow's life changes dramatically, however, when, upon losing his job at the Los Angeles Aquarium, he takes a job cleaning the Koi fishpond at a luxury Malibu apartment complex. Deuce soon encounters the debonair Antoine Laconte, played by Oded Fehr, world class gigolo. Antoine has the life Deuce wants - fancy cars, beautiful women and, most importantly, a state of the art aquarium. Antoine, noticing Deuce's skill with fish, suggests that Deuce stay at his apartment to watch over his sick Chinese Tailbar Lionfish while Laconte is away on "business." All Laconte asks of Deuce is two things: Don't answer his phone and don't drive his Porsche.
That doesn't seem like too much to ask... or does it?
When Deuce becomes a little too comfortable at Antoine's place, he sets off a chain of events that leaves the apartment, along with Antoine's $6,000 custom-made Living Color aquarium, destroyed. Needing money to pay for the damages, and after "accidentally" answering Antoine's business phone, Deuce launches his new career as a gigolo. Of course, Deuce's path is not that simple.
Los Angeles radio personality Big Boy trades in his infamous silk boxers for a dress in "Male Gigolo." "I play a very large woman who is sexy in her own mind," explains Big Boy who had little trepidation about putting on a dress. "I'm very secure with myself so it wasn't a problem playing a woman. It was acting."
Big Boy credits an exceptional make-up team for facilitating his metamorphosis into a woman. "I would arrive at make-up looking like myself, but when they finished I was transformed into a beautiful black woman," laughs Big Boy who welcomed the challenge that the role presented him. "I read the script and realized that this role wasn't something that I could play every day. I said to myself, `man, if there's one time when you can kind of stretch what you're doing, this is it. I feel like I stretched it." Big Boy laughs, "Hopefully my next role will be as a man."
Playing a woman made Big Boy appreciate women more. "Being a man, there are just so many things that I never really thought about that for those couple weeks while we were shooting were constantly on my mind. It was hard managing the long fingernails and trying to keep the lipstick off my teeth," Big Boy explains. "I thought I appreciated women before this role, but if there was anymore room, I got a chance to squeeze even more appreciation in after playing a woman for two weeks."
Big Boy thoroughly enjoyed working with writer and star, Rob Schneider. "Rob was dynamite," explains Big Boy. "He made me feel so comfortable. He set the right tone on the set and the rest of the crew followed his lead. We had a great time and managed to do good work. I would love to work with Rob and his crew again."
While Big Boy had a wonderful time making "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo," he currently has no plans to give up his radio career. "I'm good here (at KPWR/Power 106). Any acting I do will have to wrap around my radio show," he says.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Big Boy is one of seven children raised by his mother, Ida. When Big Boy was three years old, his family moved to Los Angeles, California. It was around this time that Big Boy caught the show business bug. "I would sit in my room and sign autographs, then give them away to anybody who would take one. Every year I would watch the Hollywood Christmas parade and say to myself, `I'm going to be in that parade one day'."
Big Boy became a neighborhood icon known not only for his large size, but for his hilarious, larger-than-life personally as well. While attending Culver City high school, he hosted many parties and became a well-known disc jockey. After high school, Big Boy worked as a bodyguard for the rap group Pharcyde. This experience fueled his interested in music and hip hop culture, and eventually led him to a career in radio.
Big Boy's big break came during his stint as a bodyguard when he met the popular radio team, the Baka Boyz. The Bakas immediately recognized Big Boy's talent and convinced KPWR/Power 106's management team to give him a try. Big Boy seized the opportunity, took the airwaves by storm and became an overnight success. Big Boy has dominated the ratings in all of the timeslots he has occupied ever since.
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