TVCH FORUMS HOME . JOIN . FAN CLUBS . ABOUT US . CONTACT . CHAT  
Bomis   Quick Links   TOPICS . TREE-VIEW . SEARCH . HELP! . NEWS . PROFILE
Archive through May 15, 2005

The TVClubHouse: Survivor ARCHIVES: Survivor X - Palau: The Contestants: Coby Archa: Archive through May 15, 2005 users admin

Author Message
Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 11:57 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
cainfo

Born in Abilene, Texas, Coby Archa has also lived in Durham, North Carolina, New York City and Lansing, Michigan. Archa admits to some misguided teenage years, in which he got in trouble with the law and ended up quitting high school. When he was 17 years old, he was arrested and charged with larceny. He was sentenced to seven months in jail and five years probation, an experience that forced Archa to make a conscious decision to turn his life around. He thanks his mother, Bonnie, for sticking by his side and helping him become the man he is today.

Archa studied at the Aladdin Beauty College and received his license from the Texas Cosmetology Commission. He currently co-owns a hair salon with his best friend, Amanda. He enjoys traveling, taking photos, visiting museums or painting. He has acted in local and professional theatre and loves being involved in anything artistic.

Archa, currently single, lives in Athens, Texas. His birth date is September 8, 1972.

Favorites

Colors Yellowish orange
Scents Vanilla
Flowers Exotic
Board Games Life, Monopoly
Video Games The Sims
Sports to Play Football, water sports, horseballs
Sports Teams No favorite
Outdoor Activities Swimming, running
TV Shows SURVIVOR, The Apprentice, THE AMAZING RACE
Movies The Shining, The Color Purple
Actors Jude Law
Actresses Kate Winslet
Music Madonna
Magazines Entertainment Weekly
Books/Authors The Little Prince
Cereals Frosted Mini-Wheats Maple and Brown Sugar
Fruits Green apple
Snack Foods Granola bars, chocolate
Cookies Girl Scout Shortbread
Candy Bars Hershey
Alcoholic Drinks Coors Light
Non-Alcoholic Sweet tea

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor10/survivors/fav/coby.shtml

Lilfair
Member

07-09-2003

Sunday, February 06, 2005 - 5:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
A misguided teenager...some of my favorite people. LOL

Lycanthrope
Member

09-19-2002

Monday, February 14, 2005 - 3:05 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Another from my part of the world. I'll probably root for him, too. Eventually a Texan will win this contest...

Tabbyking
Member

03-11-2002

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 3:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
i have a feeling this is one of the people who can't find their way to the first challenge...

Lycanthrope
Member

09-19-2002

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 8:41 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
He should have picked Angie if he was being honest in his early confessionals. I kind of don't like him now.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 10:04 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I just read the above. He spent time in jail at 17, guess he wasn't charged as a juvenile. Being in jail should help him in this game.

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 11:40 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
He all ready irritates me. I hope he goes next.

Maris
Member

03-28-2002

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 1:56 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Wow I am with you Pamy. Something about him annoys me. I dont know who he reminds me of but I think he is sneaky, and will play up to someone then stab them in the back. I think he will go far though but not win the whole thing. Definitely like Jun if you watched Big Brother. But he wont win because I dont think that trait will work on Survivor.

Starshine40
Member

07-30-2002

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 3:51 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
He irritates me too. I wish he had already gone instead of Jonathan.

Penpoint
Member

03-27-2001

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 4:50 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'd rather have someone interesting like Coby instead of another "pretty" face like Jonathan. I don't think it would have been a good idea for him to have picked the tattooed girl (who it turns out I liked on first viewing); it would have drawn too much attention to them as "outsiders."

Roppiepie
Member

05-06-2004

Friday, February 18, 2005 - 11:52 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I agree with you, Penpoint. Coby is someone I'll be keeping an eye on. He's a subtle manipulator. I see him letting everyone else do the dirty work for him while he remains pure as the driven snow!
Sort of a Jeff Varner (S2) instigater!

Padivius
Member

08-21-2003

Saturday, February 19, 2005 - 11:54 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I like him.
I think he was being strategic in not showing an allegiance to Angie just yet. That will help him if they both make it to a point where they're on the same tribe.

Tntitanfan
Member

08-03-2001

Saturday, March 05, 2005 - 8:12 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Coby got rid of the first guy he wanted to, but he had better be careful about setting up a TC "loss" now. I am thinking that what I wrote down would certainly start with "C" although choosing what would follow that would be difficult!!

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 8:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Harry Smith and Coby just teased on Early Show.

Harry.. so long to Ulong.. castaways start turning on each other.

Clip of Coby whining and not going to learn to fish.."Huffy", snipes Ian.

I'm in charge of the bait, Coby..

Coby's torch is snuffed.

Coby.. looks good.. says he is fine but that he looked CRAZY, eyes bugged out of his head.

Says he was just sick of them.

Very tough out there.. being so good at challenges was his downfall.. thinks if they had gone to tribal earlier he wouldn't have been so frustrated. Said no one would play with him, bitter little kid and he stomped off.. tried so hard to fit in, work hard, entertain.

Coby says he wanted to give Steph power with the info even if it is his downfall. He felt she deserved to stay and wanted her to know all the alliances and ins and outs.

Harry says very sad in his house, Coby was entertaining.

Coby says but I wasn't entertaining any more, nothing funny about a bitter old queen.

He knew he'd jump off in the challenge, played into their hand. Million dollar donut.. it was worth it.. not about the donut, play with me or don't.. statement.

Not bitter at all.

Changed life, the experience, stripped of everything, amazing experience.

Better, not bitter person.

Renee wants to know how Coby got his hair so fabulous out there, he doesn't know but says Renee's always looks fabulous, says he likes Harry's "hair"..

LOL.. Harry asks for advice, Coby laughs and says maybe polish?

There will be another segment with Coby, says Harry.

Kep421
Member

08-11-2001

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 8:23 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh that's so terrific!! Glad to see that Coby doesn't like the witchyness either...

Love his sense of humor!!

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 8:29 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yeah, he's looking good, and obviously at peace with the whole process, seems to have had a good experience and has his sense of humor back!



Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 8:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Renee say she plans to ask Coby about his relationship with Tom; what's up with that?

Renee: Two tribes no more, but Coby came out on the wrong side.

Coby was shocked, didn't see it coming, but does in hindsight.. thought others might go first.

Q. How do you feel about lightweights like Janu and Jenn are still in there..

Says those people have the numbers, still there.. can't be bitter.

Q. Janu? What was up with her in the hammock all the time? Coby says Janu was really sick almost the whole time out there, and still did ok in challenges. He can't fault her for that. He lost 28 lb and says good thing considering his trunks, lol

Q. Rivalry with Tom.. Coby says started day one, Tom was a dictator, my way or no way, acted like he cared about tribe.. Coby says goes back to day one.. home depot challenge, always his way.

Q. Friends now with Tom? .. Coby just smiles.. not going to open his mouth. Pretty clear he's not a fan of Tom..

Q. Why didn't you pick Angie? Says he thought it would put bigger targets on both of them.. Hindsight wishes he had picked Angie, she was much better than so many on his tribe.

Q. What about when you gave info to Stephenie.. he says he wasn't trying to get her on his side, just give her power.

Renee says there must be a donut commercial in there somewhere.. they shake hands.

Q's were call-in or Renee.

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 11:29 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Coby says but I wasn't entertaining any more, nothing funny about a bitter old queen

ROTF!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the recap Sea!!!

Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 11:35 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
You could tell they both enjoyed interviewing him. And the callers were pretty positive, too.

Hootyhoot
Member

12-18-2001

Friday, April 15, 2005 - 4:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Great eyebrows!

Babyruth
Member

07-19-2001

Friday, April 22, 2005 - 4:40 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
"Survival of the bitchiest"

"Survivor: Palau’s out gay contestant—and self-described “flamboyant queen”—talks about girls vs. guys, which other contestant he’d like to marry, and whether those donuts cost him $1 million."

Fun Interview with Coby



Seamonkey
Member

09-07-2000

Friday, April 22, 2005 - 6:41 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks, BR!!

LOL.. my favorite paragraph, and it is so true!


quote:

One last question. As a hairstylist, who among the Survivors was most in need of your services?
Ian! Hello? What the hell is wrong with his hair? His hair looked so good at the [final tryouts] in L.A. But then when I saw him on the show, he said he had cut his own bangs a week ago. You’re going on national TV and you give yourself your own haircut? Definitely not a good idea!





Justalittlebean
Member

08-15-2003

Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 10:20 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
'Survivor' stint shaped Texan's priorities

Link



Wide link fixed for those that care to register and read.

<314>

Jan
Member

08-01-2000

Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 11:27 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Unfortunately, we have to register to read it Justa. Any chance you can give us the gist:-):-)

Justalittlebean
Member

08-15-2003

Sunday, May 15, 2005 - 2:25 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
'Survivor' stint shaped Texan's priorities


09:16 PM CDT on Saturday, May 14, 2005


By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News


TYLER, Texas – Forget the million dollars. Coby Archa says being on the CBS reality show Survivor wasn't about the money.

The payoff is having kids hugging him in parking lots and their moms calling him a role model. Middle-aged women have stalked him for autographs at Six Flags, and a retired military vet bounded into Mr. Archa's hair salon to say he'd want him for a teammate.


JOHN F. RHODES/DMN
Coby Archa didn't win the top prize on Survivor: Palau , but he says he found himself on the island. It's about coming full circle and finding a measure of acceptance in his quirky corner of East Texas. On that Hollywood-perfect desert isle, the 32-year-old says, he let go of some of the pain of his past and learned what he's capable of. Now he's ready to embrace his life exactly where he is and become a family man.

After all, he's a survivor. He's even played one on TV."It took going to the other side of the world and having everything stripped away to make me realize what really matters," he said.



When Survivor debuted in the summer of 2000, Mr. Archa was instantly obsessed. It dominated conversation on the sweltering day that I picked him from among the hip, bored 20-something stylists waiting for walk-ins at the Tyler mall's Toni and Guy hair salon. I left promising my new hairdresser that I'd see the show.

"You watch. I'm going to be on Survivor," he declared.

My response was something inane, like, "Oh, right."


Mr. Archa says he was always picked on as a boy growing up in West Texas. His mother indulged his wish for his own Barbie doll. Then again, he was determined, funny, and easily the most out-there gay man in largely closeted East Texas. He shrugged off what came with being so different in a conservative town. Teenagers made it sport to yell "Toni and Gay!" at the mall, and rednecks sometimes muttered slurs, so Mr. Archa made wicked comebacks a performance art.

Born near Abilene, he said it was obvious early on that he wouldn't be a roughneck, a cowhand, a football player or any other "Bubba" persona favored by his neighbors and his "redneck, hillbilly" kin.

"I've had no choice. People have always known," he said. "I've always known that this is who I am."

His older brother, Chad Archa, recalled their father vetoing Coby's pleas for a Barbie until their mother stopped a sibling spat by whacking Chad with the first thing in reach: Coby's Ken doll.

"She ended up breaking it on me," Chad said. "Mom felt so bad, she went out and bought him a Barbie. I'm not sure Mom wants everybody to know that she was beating me with a Ken doll. But boy hidey, Coby was glad to get that Barbie."

Their parents divorced when Mr. Archa was 8, and he moved with his mom, Bonnie Archa, to Durham, N.C.

By the end of his junior high years, the family discussed his sexual orientation. Ms. Archa said "we all already knew," but she made a point of talking about it and telling her youngest son that their love was unconditional after her brother was diagnosed as having AIDS.

"My mother would never admit that my brother was gay, so he had to be a different person when my mother was around," Ms. Archa said. "It was always hidden, and that always hurt him. I just decided that I wasn't going to make my baby feel that way."

Outsiders were far less accepting. Mr. Archa said fellow students taunted him as "a sissy," and jocks chased him, once spitting so much gum into his hair that he had to cut it off. After his uncle died, he said, kids regularly called, "Here comes AIDS boy!" as he walked school halls.

About the Show

Survivor: Palau is the 10th edition of the show since its debut in 2000. It is the fifth-most popular show in the U.S.

U.S. ratings for Feb. 17 debut: 23.66 million viewers

Average weekly U.S. audience: 21.12 million viewers

Series location: Palau, a tiny Pacific island nation in Micronesia, southeast of the Philippines

Previous series locations: Borneo, Australian outback, Africa, Marquesas, Thailand, Brazilian Amazon, Panama's Pearl Islands, Vanuatu
He said he dropped out of 10th grade after someone heaved a log through his windshield. "It wasn't like they were just calling me prissy boy," he said. "It was more than I could take."

He stayed with friends when his mother moved back to Texas, acting in local theater and gravitating toward trouble. He got busted for breaking into cars, burglarized a mansion and then stole a car that he and a friend drove to see his mother in Midland.

"I was awful," he said. "Unhappy teenagers do messed-up things."

Dodging cops, he hopped a bus to Dallas "with $10 in my pocket" and spent weeks on the street "in a cardboard box" before a new boyfriend took him in.

"One day, I got up, looked at myself in the mirror and said, 'This is not my life,' " he said. "I went back to North Carolina."

By then, his family expected his rap sheet to be longer than his resume. But he said turning himself in, pleading guilty to a theft charge and serving seven months in jail "changed my life, thank God."

Once out, he joined his mother, a medical stenographer, in Midland and learned hairstyling. He flirted with acting but settled with his mom near Athens in 1999 and started doing hair at the Tyler mall.

In 2003, he and his best friend, Amanda Page, opened a Tyler salon and got matching tattoos to celebrate. He muscled up his 6-foot-4-inch frame and got a bleach-blond mohawk. It waved like a yellow warning flag when he cruised through Tyler in his Miata convertible.

He sent audition tapes for every new season of Survivor. Some acquaintances scoffed that it sounded like asking to go back to junior high hell, with cameras recording every zit for a worldwide audience in 108 foreign countries and territories.

He admitted a fascination with being marooned with bimbos and buff boys, mean girls and brains, clowns and outcasts on a post-modern Gilligan's Island – all to find out to how much lying, cheating and manipulating they'd do for $1 million.

But there also was something about going in the wild, deprived of everything. The game might be more TV construct than rite of passage, he told people, but it might change his life.

In early 2004, he heard from show producers and was among 800 people interviewed in Dallas and 15 other cities. He was candid with CBS about his criminal history. He was then one of 50 flown to Los Angeles for 10 days of tests and interviews.

He said he knew he was one of several vying for the "gay role," so he pulled out all his drama-queen stops. In one meeting, he dropped his pants and showed the room – including Survivor host Jeff Probst – that he'd written the casting producer's name on his butt with an indelible marker.


CBS
Mr. Archa said being voted off the island, and having his torch snuffed by host Jeff Probst, was a 'total and utter relief.' Mr. Probst said the Texan was a natural – engaging, unscripted and obviously unedited.

"It was a freshness that we don't see very often. He just had an energy around him that was so fun and likeable," he said. "We got lucky."



Without the mohawk, which producers made him lose, Mr. Archa left in October with 19 other castaways, all sworn to secrecy about their destination: the Pacific island of Palau. He returned in late December 10 pounds lighter, tanned and ebullient.

"He said he realized how lucky he was and that he wasn't taking things for granted anymore," Ms. Archa said.

She and others said they soon realized how serious he was. At his urging, relatives began joining him, Ms. Page and other friends for monthly family nights – something they'd never made time for. When the show's 10th season started in February, they gathered each Thursday to watch and share a meal, most decked out in pink "Coby Survivor Palau" T-shirts.

His TV tribe, Koror, included a New York City firefighter, a Las Vegas showgirl, two lawyers, a nanny, a consultant, an ad executive and a dolphin trainer. They annihilated the younger Ulong tribe in contests for food, water, shelter and avoiding Tribal Council, each episode's end when someone is voted off the island.

Mr. Archa often paraded in black bikini briefs he dubbed "manties" and dished regularly about alpha males, lazy girls and tribal intrigue.

"Part of his strategy was to play the game the way he was," Mr. Probst said. "You could go to Coby for an interview, and he would give you something every single time. If I asked him something at Tribal Council, I would get something good and probably stir something up."

Mr. Archa was also competitive. In what Mr. Probst called "one of my favorite moments of the season – of any season," the Texas hairdresser thumped a self-described redneck steelworker from Alabama in sumo-style combat. The steelworker later bemoaned getting "whipped by a homosexual."

"That's a tailor-made square-off, and when the gay man kicks the redneck's ass, that's a home run!" Mr. Probst said. "He's fighting, in his own way, for everybody who's picked on."

Mr. Archa's earthy Texas clan alternated between laughter and tears, particularly during the eighth episode, when his role in winning a challenge ensured that he'd be among the castaway jurors who will tonight choose the show's $1 million winner from the two Survivors left after 39 days.

"Coby, you run like a girl!" Chad yelled at the TV as his brother rushed through the crucial challenge.

"But you sure swim pretty," his aunt, Deanna Calvio, added.



On the show, Mr. Archa told his tribe that he'd just realized a life goal. Since childhood, competition had been little more than an invitation for abuse, but on Palau, he'd been cheered and allowed the chance to show that he could hold his own.

"When I was a kid, the jocks would make fun of me. I'd quit. I'd run off crying. That was one of the reasons I came here," he said as the cameras rolled. "I never got to be part of a team, especially a winning team."

He was even more emotional in the show segment offering contestants' private thoughts.

"As a kid, I never played sports. I was always called the girly guy, you know. I was a sissy. People would pick on me, and I would just give up. I ended up quitting school because people made fun of me. I've given up a lot in my life," he said, tears rolling down his cheeks. "But I wasn't going to let anybody make me quit this time, no matter how hard it is."

He wept again while watching, and family and friends hugged him and wiped their own tears.

Then his aunt lightened things. "You made me cry my false eyelash off, Coby!" she declared.

Later, his brother cried again trying to explain what it had meant.

"It's just hard to see his pain," said Chad Archa, 36, an X-ray technician who lives with his wife and stepson near Chandler. "He's tougher than I'll ever be because he's been through more ... than I ever did. He's been in more fights, had more hell, been called more names, had people treat him worse than most of us ever will have to put up with. But still, he's pulled through."

Mr. Probst said those scenes were among the season's most moving.

"This is no longer the kid who got picked on. That guy is gone," Mr. Probst said. "Coby showed a lot of people: You can change your life any time you want. Just stand up and be strong in your convictions."

Mr. Archa said being voted off in the ninth episode, which aired April 14, was a "total and utter relief." He added with a laugh that he wasn't expecting to be booted on the 24th day, but he wasn't exactly playing it safe – complaining, squabbling and revealing Koror's tribal strategy to the last Ulong.

His family kept gathering weekly for the show, reveling in his island stories and the messages and calls he exchanged with his fellow castaways. Mr. Archa said the show prompted his first real conversations in years with his father in West Texas and his sister in Arizona. He got other castaways from the show to leave her supportive phone messages when her husband died in March of brain cancer.

He said Survivor: Palau also rekindled his relationship with his half-brother, Obie Archa. The 22-year-old had never left his West Texas hometown before Mr. Archa recently offered him a place to live and help paying for an education with some of his Survivor winnings.

Mr. Archa said he can't discuss how much he will get after the show ends. Some Internet sites speculate that players at his level get about $30,000.

He bought a house last month in Tyler with Ms. Page, and they recently moved in with her 2-year-old daughter, Chloe, his mother and his half-brother.



And on April 28, he brought home what he said is the best result of Survivor: a newborn baby girl he's in the process of adopting.

The baby was born to a 25-year-old cousin, Victoria "Torie" Ramoz of Colorado City, a single mom with two young daughters. Mr. Archa said he learned just before leaving to film Survivor that she was pregnant and considering offering the baby for adoption. Ms. Ramoz said she'd just had a "hard separation" and lacked the financial or emotional resources to raise three kids alone.

Mr. Archa said he'd always wanted a child, particularly after Ms. Page had Chloe and he became her godfather. But he expected that his cousin's baby would go to another relative.

On Palau, he grasped for the first time that he carried "tremendous guilt" about his sexuality, and he also understood that that had kept him from seriously considering fatherhood. "It's just something society says gay men aren't supposed to do," he said.

He also realized that his Survivor experience and money could allow him to make a difference, but to do that, he'd have to stop allowing himself to be confined by other people's attitudes about gay people.

"I answered so many questions," he said of his personal journey. "How many 32-year-olds get a second chance at all that? Yes, Survivor is candy-coated. It's a TV show. But if you strip it down, it was a deep, profound experience. I came home knowing I couldn't waste it."

Once back, he told his cousin that he wanted to be a father. As the show started in February, Ms. Ramoz asked him to adopt her child.

Mr. Archa said he knew that the adoption might be controversial, and he got bad reactions from the first two lawyers he tried to hire in Athens. One wouldn't shake his hand and showed him the door when he said he wanted to adopt. The second was more cordial, he said, but kept asking why a couple couldn't take the baby.

He ultimately hired a lawyer in Tyler, and Ms. Ramoz and the baby's birth father have signed papers surrendering custody to him. The adoption is expected to be final this summer.

Mr. Archa went to Colorado City for the birth on April 27, and Ms. Ramoz said word spread quickly among her friends what he was there for. She said one friend came to the hospital to say she was cutting Ms. Ramoz off, and others quit calling her.

"In a small town, people aren't so understanding," she said. "People are afraid of what they don't know. I know Coby. I know his heart. I know that he will love her like I would and take care of her better than I'm able to."

This weekend, Mr. Archa traveled to New York for Survivor's live finale tonight, along with Ms. Page and most of his East Texas kin.

Mr. Archa said he plans to surprise his fellow Survivors with the news of his new daughter on national TV. He'll also reveal to his closest friend on the island, showgirl Janu Tornell, that he named his child after her.

Mr. Probst said it will be a "huge" moment.

"Think about kids who are gay and are thinking about coming out, or about kids who aren't gay and are picked on, and what this says," he said. "We've had a lot of fun people on the show and a lot of great, funny characters. ... Coby changed people. Coby changed himself and, in doing so, will change a lot of other lives."

Afterward, Mr. Archa said, he'll come home to East Texas, to do hair and raise Janu. For now, he has no romantic prospects.

"I don't date well. Maybe I'm just not meant to have a partner. My life is full," he said. "I've realized in the past few days that I've actually formed my own new tribe. Maybe we don't have a mom and a dad and two kids and a dog. This is a new face of a family, and that's OK.

"We all have such a loving relationship and want to take care of each other, so why can't we?" he said. "This is what I've wanted all my life