Looking for prince charming

Single women in Salt Lake compete for a chance to woo 'The Bachelor'

Megan didn't intend to audition for ABC's reality show "The Bachelor." She didn't even know about the open casting call. But when she got to her office, the application was waiting for her on her desk.

"The girls at work said, 'You're going,' and I said, 'Why not?' "

The 23-year-old Salt Lake pharmacy manager is known for "terrible, horrible blind dates and set-ups," so she figured "The Bachelor" couldn't be any worse than those.

"At least he has a background check," Megan joked.

Megan — who is only using her first name, along with everyone else on the show, due to privacy issues — isn't alone in her often-frustrating quest for love. Salt Lake City is full of women searching for Mr. Right, which could be why more than 130 of them showed up for "The Bachelor" casting call two weeks ago.

Robyn Kass, "The Bachelor's" casting director, said her crew came here partly because few reality shows have held casting calls in Salt Lake City. But the main reason was the women.

"We had a staff meeting to decide which cities to go to," Kass said, "and half my staff insisted on coming to Salt Lake. They told me, hands down, Salt Lake City has the most beautiful women in the country."

But the women who make it on "The Bachelor" will need to be more than beautiful, she said. They also need culture, energy, determination, education and, most important, commitment.

"We need women who are at the point in their life to be looking for love, ready to get married and wanting to find their soul mate," Kass said.

Michelle, a 30-year-old native of Clinton, said she's definitely come to the point in her life when she wants to settle down, but she hasn't found the right man yet. "The Bachelor" is a long shot, but she figured it was worth a try.

"It's like winning the lottery," she said. "The chances of winning are slim to none, but you scratch anyway."

Reality television's major drawback is that it attracts attention-seekers who "just want to get on TV," Kass said. To avoid choosing those women, each casting call includes a personal interview with an associate casting director.

The interview includes questions about each woman's dating life and past relationships. Women who are aggressively searching for the right man make the cut; those who like to bar-hop and avoid commitment aren't right for the show.

Kass said she wanted to find a variety of women, from 21 to 35, from various cultural backgrounds and education levels, with one common trait — they're looking for Prince Charming.

Lucky for them, this season's bachelor really is a prince.

Lorenzo Borghese, a 33-year-old native of Rome who's spent the past several years living in New York City, agreed to play out his quest for the perfect woman on national television. He's also descended from Italian royalty (the monarchy in Italy fell apart hundreds of years ago, but the title stuck).

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