I t sounds like a helicopter is landing in the distance. Slow, big-bellied bursts of air swallow us and slam against our bodies like walls of sound. The noise is coming from the photography studio. Inside, a dark beauty stands in the gulping gusts of fanning foam core, its wide wafts sweeping her lion locks off of her shoulders and squinting her searing eyes.

She is Jenna Morasca, a South Fayette native who earned national stardom by winning Survivor: The Amazon, the sixth cycle of the series, in 2003.

The suggestion is made that perhaps the form-fitting sweater hugging her body isn’t the right look for this shot. Morasca doesn’t hesitate. She peels the cashmere over her head, revealing a leopard print bra and a sculpted cinnamon physique (Amazon, indeed). With more intuition, she borrows a linen scarf off of one of our necks for dramatic draping, and the “helicopter” kicks up again. She squints and smirks a savvy smile at photographer Megan Wylie as stylist Roman Capristo keeps fanning her lion’s mane, flying fiercely. In a moment, Morasca, who had just stopped in for a visit, and who ignited our studio with her own brand of heat and electricty, went from an inside update feature to the cover of the magazine.

The same razor-sharp instincts that scored Morasca her million-dollar victory on Survivor, a show whose motto appropriately wills its contestants to “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” have helped to parlay her into lasting celebrity, usually so fleeting for reality stars. She is media savvy, as manifested by her studio strip tease and the dozens of other projects she’s signed on to since her win.

I’m especially impressed with her promotional smarts. As the staff’s celebrity wrangler, I schmooze publicists and have been privy to star-studded strategizing for the bulk of my career. I’ve never met one so good at the game as Morasca. She connects on a level that is seductive. She’s smart. And, in this business, somewhat of a miracle worker: Morasca’s 15 minutes have been locked in a time machine.

Morasca with father Michael

“I always say I’m a hustler,” Morasca says. “I’m always working on my back-up plan.”

Her plans have earned her the hostess position for Survivor Live on CBS.com, replacing the infamous Richard Hatch, and most recently, the New York Post named her one of “Reality TV’s Hottest Starlets.” She’s also the only reality star on VH1 and Self magazine’s “100 Most Wanted Bodies” list — but that accomplishment is more about her cut abs than her cunning expertise. The same abs (and everything else) landed her on the August 2003 cover of Playboy magazine with fellow Survivor Heidi Strobel, for one of the highest selling issues ever, and a gig that banked her yet another $1 million.

She’s helped other girls slink out of their sweaters and into bikinis with her Model Challenge U.S.A. Pretty Morasca got her own start in pageants and is out to give the same exposure to the next generation with the national contest that awards its winner a lucrative modeling contract and a posh portfolio.

And the star was recently hired to do on-the-street interviews about love and marriage for Fox News Channel’s online community, iMag. Though, “I’m not a marriage person,” Morasca says. “I don’t like love stories. The only thing I like about weddings is the cake. I actually might have an allergic reaction to weddings.”

Ironically, we’ve been following Morasca’s love story with Survivor: Africa winner Ethan Zohn for five years.They competed together on a special reality stars’ Fear Factor — where our girl lost to that malicious Omarosa — and last year the couple appeared together on The Food Network’s Dinner: Impossible, Stranded: Deserted Island, an opportunity Zohn scored for them when he had the ear of a network exec. “He was talking to the right person and said, ‘My girlfriend is obsessed with the Food Network,’” Morasca says. “It was actually very labor-intensive,” she laughs. “You know, cracking open coconuts.”

“I thought it was going to be a nice relaxing day in the Bahamas,” Zohn says, “and the next thing I knew I was climbing trees for fruit and trying to catch lobsters and conch while Jenna stirred rice in her Michael Kors bikini. I thought, ‘Here we go again!’”

The two also filmed a horror movie last summer called The Watcher; the 20-minute film is part of a series called Drive-In Horror Show, slated for distribution later this year. Morasca accompanied her boyfriend on the read-through, about a couple of campers and their encounter with a cannibal, and she worked herself into a role as well. “After she started talking about what a huge horror fan she was, she told me she’d put everything into it,” says director Michael Neel, “and she really did. There’s a lot of physical strain when you’re escaping a killer, and Jenna was the right woman in the right shape to do it.”

The director adds that the short film requires a cast that the audience can care about quickly. “Jenna connects,” he says. “The audience knows her and likes her.”

Morasca admits to going to hundreds of auditions every year and brags a little bit about her tough skin. “When I came to New York, it was just me and my big mouth and Ethan with a couple of suitcases,” she says. “I had to be ready.”

Morasca models for Photographer Harry Giglio for Whirl covers in August 2003 and June 2004.

She says that vying for hosting jobs is especially competitive. “A lot of the time, they don’t give a sh-- if you were on Survivor,” she says. “You have to be right for the job.” And she prefers it that way. “Getting a job because you were on some show annoys people who have worked for that position their whole lives. I hate to use the word ‘lucky’ because I actually work really hard.”

“She’s a tough little cookie. Her work ethic is very good,” her father, Michael, says. “And she’s the exact same person today that she was 10 years ago. She just got the window open and won’t let it shut.”

Her hard work comes off naturally, making her a stand out among casting directors. She also recommended a lot for work from producers, agents, and photographers who have been impressed with her.

“You have to contribute more than just showing up,” she says. “You have to come with ideas. There’s always so much pressure on the photographer to relax the model. I think it should be the other way around. Why isn’t the model making the photographer feel comfortable?”

Photographer Harry Giglio shot Morasca for WHIRL’s August 2003 and June 2004 covers. “Jenna was great to work with both before and after her Survivor success,” he says. “She has a strong confidence in herself which is reflected visually in her images, and she is always at the peak of physical fitness.”

Morasca brushes off the compliment, cooly, “I come as me,” she says. “I crack a dirty joke and throw some ideas out. Whether I’m pitching something at a shoot or on set, I throw a thousand ideas out, and one will stick.”

Zohn admires his girlfriend’s work ethic and is honest about the fleeting fame for reality stars. “Jenna and I were in it when it was new and exciting, but for the general public, the novelty is wearing off,” he says.

“The reality circuit is full of characters now,” Morasca adds, “people trying to be the villain or the girl next door. When I was on the show, there was a freshness about it. I just wanted to play Survivor.”

“But the platform is there if you want it, and Jenna can work it,” Zohn says. “She didn’t let the celebrity get to her head. She was 21, took a year out of college, and won a million bucks. She’s parlayed that into other stuff.” 

Some of that parlaying has been work on behalf of animal rights. Morasca and Zohn’s sexiest appearance to date is their nearly nude posing for a PETA anti-fur campaign in 2004, branded with the slogan, “We’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur!” And Morasca is passionate about animals, having volunteered much of her time to the Humane Society of the United States. In addition to several anti-fur rallies, last year she lobbied in Washington, D.C., to support a federal bill that would ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. She met with members of congress to apply for their support and spoke at a reception for hundreds of supporters. 

Morasca stars on the new TNA iMPACT on Spike TV, a wrestling showairing Thursdays at 9 p.m.

“We have appreciated so much working with Jenna,” says Federal Legislative Specialist Lauren Silverman. “She’s so focused and truly passionate with regard to animal protection. She really does care about these issues and wants to do whatever she can to help animals.”

Morasca will earn her degree in psychology this June online, enrolling in a program with Washington, D.C.’s Argosy University with an emphasis in substance abuse counseling, following up on a promise she made to her dad that she’d get her degree after Survivor. “I always keep my promises,” she says. Still, her father was surprised. “He said he’d have to put the stone back on my mother’s grave.”

Morasca’s mother passed away five years ago, after a 12-year battle with cancer. The reality star actually withdrew from Survivor: All Stars to go home and be with her (making Morasca the only contestant to compete twice and never be eliminated). She says her mother was on the wild side, and “people say I sound like her.”

Morasca calls herself tenacious and admits to loving a heated debate. “What some people call an argument, I call a spirited discussion,” she laughs. But she does have one ground rule: “I don’t talk politics in my bathing suit,” she says. 

Her father has worked at the Westin Convention Center Hotel Downtown as the director of engineering for the last 12 years. The star stays at the Westin when she comes to town and says it is one of the best she’s visited. “I love the lobby and the big, open space. Plus, I live in New York, and I’m telling you that the Original Fish Market is really good.” She follows this up with: “I’m kind of a hotel snob,” and rolls her eyes about a hostel in which Zohn tried to get her to stay while the two were visiting Belize.

Still, Morasca credits her hometown for keeping her so grounded. “There’s something about people in Pittsburgh. We feel like family. You treat your family as equals. I bring that Pittsburgh attitude with me wherever I go, and people find it refreshing.”

She also says her roots have given her the foundation she needs for success in the industry. “The support I have from Pittsburgh is better than any support anyone ever got, and they aren’t fair-weathered here. And, when I get in tough situations, I think, ‘You’re going to have to take more than one swing to get me down. I’m from Pittsburgh.’”

With her clothes back on, Morasca gushes about every new project, wide-eyed and excited. Talk of animal rallies is mixed in with her wish list of callbacks and her plans for grad school. The real-life plans are as important as the celebrity.

“The plans I make are not because I’m afraid of the shine wearing off of my star. The things I do, I do because I want to do them, because I’m passionate about these projects. I don’t need to drag a camera out to validate my life.”

Before she leaves, she promises we haven’t seen the last of her. The girl who beat the Amazon will continue to take risks.

“I don’t like ‘comfortable,’” she says. “It’s life or death.”

For more information, visit jenna-morasca.com.


Memories of My Mom
To anyone who has ever lost anyone they love, continue their memory with love, stories, and laughter.

By Jenna Morasca

People always say that they are more like their mother or more like their father. For me, I say I am a balance of both, and I like it that way. My mother was one of the strongest and most determined people I have ever known. My childhood was an amazing one, filled with love and joy. My family and I would go on annual trips to Walt Disney World and just have the best time; those are some of my fondest memories. I am an only child and sometimes people would say, “Doesn’t it get lonely being an only child?” And I would quickly answer, “No way!” With parents as loving and as affectionate as mine, I never felt neglected, alone, or sad. I truly am thankful every day for being blessed with such a wonderful childhood and being able to spend so much time with my mother.

I have always said everything happens for a reason — my high school girlfriends are probably sick of hearing me still say this! I still believe it to be true. If I was not an only child, I would have not gotten so much time with my mother. It ended up being so precious. My mother was a stay-at-home mom; she was there every minute to help guide me and teach me the things she knew. What I know now that I did not know then is that every minute I had with her was priceless; every minute was limited. How delicate time is!

When my mother got sick, I was young, so I did not know how serious it was. What does a child really know about the rage of cancer? For 12 years, I watched my mother go toe-to-toe with cancer, and every year she would win — every year but the last year. Her strength during her fight was beyond amazing: I have never seen anyone who was so ill come home from chemotherapy and still want to cook dinner for us all. When I think about her, I smile about her jokes, her tenacity, and her love for her family. I miss her, and sometimes there are days I cannot believe she is gone. But every day I remind myself that I am lucky to have had her as long as I did, and I will continue to celebrate her life. I love to tell funny stories about her. I still talk about her a lot. I will continue to take things from what she taught me and continue to make her and my dad proud. After all, I am proud to be a balance of them both.


Behind the Scenes

Morasca’s fierce wind-blown waves were the result of fanning foamcore; Stylist Roman Capristo pulled a past Whirl cover from our wall to get this look. He poses, below, with Morasca and make-up artist Beth Gordon.


 

 

 

 

 

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