Utahn's star rising as he sings, dances on hot reality show

OREM — Last summer, Saratoga Springs resident Zack Wilson was touring China with the Young Ambassadors performing group from Brigham Young University.

Now the hunky 25-year-old is the steamiest item on ABC message boards as a top contestant on the network's reality show "Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann," a spin-off of the smash hit "Dancing With the Stars."

Why is Wilson so hot? For one, he's been engaged not once but twice to Julianne Hough, who has won "Dancing With the Stars" not once but twice, first with Olympic gold-medal speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno and then again with Indianapolis 500 champion driver Helio Castroneves.

Some fans eat up Wilson's tie to Hough, which threads right back to the Center Stage Performing Arts Studio in Orem, where Wilson and Hough both trained and where Wilson and Hough's brother, Derek, were buddies.

Others complained the link gives Wilson an unfair advantage with Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba, the judges on "Dancing With the Stars" who picked the "Dance War" contestants and are the team captains on the new show.

Wilson clearly is a favorite of both judges for his combination of singing and dancing skills. The show could have been titled "Song-and-Dance War" because it requires the performers to do both, a combination of "American Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars."

Wilson called the show his final chance to make it in show biz before moving on to dental school.

"This is kinda like my last shot," Wilson said before his audition in Los Angeles, part of the show's first episode. "I just heard about this audition and wanted to give it one last shot."

A few bars into "Feelin' Good," Wilson forgot the words, but the judges didn't care.

"He's got a different feeling, like a gentleman," said Tonioli, who later called Wilson "so strong, a real leading man" who could be the show's version of Justin Timberlake.

Inaba praised Wilson's "All-American appeal" and said his acrobatic dancing is done so effortlessly that "he's like a ballerina on his feet, he's so light."

Wilson's friends and family back home in Utah Valley are watching with pride.

Young Ambassadors director Randy Booth started working with Wilson when he was 3 and sang "The Little Drummer Boy" in "The Gift of Christmas" at the Promised Valley Playhouse. He had a very different role on the BYU group's tour last year.