If you watched Anchorage's Heidi Kurtz bounce through her appearance last week on TV's "Deal or No Deal,'' you already know she's the human Tigger.
She's got more hops than Budweiser and Kobe Bryant combined, and an exuberance almost too big for the small screen.
From the minute she bounded on stage with her hands full of "pure Alaska snow'' for host Howie Mandel, she was perpetual motion personified, a screaming, laughing, jumping ball of prime-time energy.
What you probably don't know, and what you certainly never would guess, is this shrieking game-show contestant used to be a shrinking violet.
"Growing up in a village, I was very shy,'' Kurtz said. "I thought, you know, if I want to get anywhere in life I have to get over this shyness, because it's just going to hold me back.''
Kurtz, 33, conquered her shyness after moving from New Stuyahok to Dillingham. By joining the drama club at school and entering (and winning) the 1992 Miss Beaver Roundup pageant, she found her inner extrovert.
Kurtz wowed producers at a casting call held last summer in Anchorage, where she wore a traditional kuspuk dress and defied gravity as she bounced through a 30-second audition. She was so buoyant that a Daily News photographer covering the event instantly knew he'd found his shot once he saw Kurtz in action. The show's producers clearly reached a similar conclusion after seeing more than 1,500 auditions.
Kurtz is back on TV tonight at 8, when she'll either accept an offer of $90,000 or keep playing. Promos running throughout the week on Channel 2 suggest she chooses to keep playing; if so, she's got almost a 50-50 chance of walking away with $200,000 or more. At most, she could win $750,000. At worst, she could leave with $100.
However much money Kurtz wins, it will be welcomed.
She works as a dental assistant to support herself and her kids; she drives a broken-down car that's got a trunk that won't close and a seat belt that doesn't work; she's had her electricity turned off; and she helps support her grandmother. "I want a house,'' she told Mandel through tears of excitement last week. "I want a car.''
The shows taped in early February, and since then the chatty Kurtz has had to watch what she says. She risks losing her winnings if she tells anyone the outcome of her game, NBC spokesman Tim Monson said.
"As far as I know, (contestants) sign away their lives,'' he said. "There's a lot of confidentiality documents.''
Friends and relatives who made the trip to Los Angeles with Kurtz also must keep quiet -- including sons Jesse, age 9, Jaden, 7, and Jarrett, 4. Miraculously, even they have managed to keep the family secret.
"I scared the life out of them, that's what I did,'' Kurtz said. "I said, 'I'll ground you for the rest of your life.' ''
Kurtz, who will wear a wolf-and-beaver headdress and her grandmother's kuspuk on tonight's show, said she was encouraged to play up her Alaska Native heritage.
Producers also asked her to bring some snow, which she presented to Mandel on last week's show.
"Oh my gosh, what an ordeal,'' Kurtz said. She couldn't find any dry ice in town, so she lined a small cooler with frozen gel packs. The day of her flight, she went to scoop snow from her yard, and a moose was blocking her way. "Holy smokes!'' she said.
Kurtz's vocabulary is filled with "oh my goshes" and "holy smokes.'' Most of her sentences, on TV and in real life, end with exclamation points. She swears none of it is an act.
Those unfamiliar with "Deal or No Deal" might watch Kurtz and think, holy smokes, what an embarrassment. The world is going to think all Alaskans are crazy.
I might have thought that had I not watched two previous shows. I found myself rooting against contestants who were too loud, too obnoxious and too annoying to cheer for. Compared to them, Kurtz is an oasis of calm.
She's pretty, too -- though some viewers might not notice, given the 26 models who share the stage with contestants. "They were all so beautiful and sweet,'' Kurtz said. And fashionably thin: "I felt like a walrus.''
The models hold briefcases that, when opened, show dollar amounts ranging from $1 million to one penny. A contestant picks one, which contains her potential prize and remains closed until the end, and then a certain number of the remaining briefcases are opened in each round of play. After each round, the contestant decides whether to keep opening briefcases -- gambling that the one she picked at the start of the game holds big money -- or accept a cash offer, the size of which depends on which dollar amounts remain in play.
When tonight's game resumes, 11 briefcases remain, four of which hold six-figure numbers -- $750,000, $500,000, $400,000 and $200,000. The seven others range from $100 to $25,000.
Promos are calling tonight's finale "the best game in history,'' which is enough to make you think Kurtz came home with more than an empty cooler.
Just in case, keep the remote nearby. You might need to mute the shy girl from New Stuyahok.
Beth Bragg's opinion column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.
Watch It
HEIDI KURTZ APPEARS on "Deal or No Deal" tonight at 8 on KTUU-Channel 2. To watch her first appearance on "Deal or No Deal," click on our new Alaska Newsreader page:
adn.com/newsreader
