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BY LINDA MOSS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Five months ago, The Gatsby Salon was a local beauty parlor known mainly just to its clientele in central New Jersey. The mother-and-daughter team that owns and runs it didn't have fans Down Under. And the nasty feud between a big-haired blonde hairstylist and deeply tanned brunette makeup artist was a private matter.
But that all changed when a TV program called "Jerseylicious," set in The Gatsby, became The Style Network's most-watched new series. "Jerseylicious" was the latest in a string of Garden State-based reality TV hits, following in the footsteps of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" and MTV's "Jersey Shore."
The second season of "Jerseylicious" debuts tonight at a new time, 8 p.m., versus its former 10 p.m. slot. This 20-episode season will have a new young cast member, Daniella, who wasn't on board when the show's first season premiered March 21. In fact, she wasn't even born then.
Part of the plot line in Season 2 is the Aug. 14 birth of Daniella, the daughter of Gatsby manager Christy Pereira and her husband Danny. Now Peirera's mother, Gatsby owner Gayle Giacomo, has a grandchild.
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Flame-haired Giacomo viewed doing the "Jerseylicious" show as an opportunity to promote her salon, which had moved from one location on a strip mall on Route 22 in Green Brook, N.J, to a space a few doors down, and undergone a costly renovation.
Giacomo's gamble paid off.
"My life is totally changed: All for the good," she said.
"Jerseylicious" — which chronicles the business side of The Gatsby's relaunch as well as the lives and loves of its owners and its oft-times irascible, feuding employees — has succeeded in boosting business at the newly relocated salon, according to both Giacomo and Pereira.
"We've gotten a lot of new clientele, a lot of really nice clients, and a lot of them have become repeat clientele," Pereira said. "Our regular repeat clientele loves the show. It really ended up to be a fun, good experience. And I'm really happy that it got picked up for a second season and we got to enjoy the ride for a little bit longer."
"Jerseylicious" has also brought worldwide fame to Gatsby, its mother-and-daughter team, and ever-battling makeup artist Olivia Blois Sharpe and her nemesis, hairdresser Tracy DiMarco. DiMarco is dating Sharpe's ex-boyfriend, which caused quite a few shouting matches and angry blow-ups in Season One. And cast members, including DiMarco, said the tension won't ease off.
"There's more drama in this season than in any other show!" DiMarco said via e-mail. "I will finally be justified for why I'm always mad at Olivia! She is not a good person. She is manipulative, vindictive, sneaky and a compulsive liar! Don't let the dimples fool you!
Sharpe couldn't be reached for comment.
If you watched "Jerseylicious," you'd believe that every Jersey girl: shows off lots of cleavage; loves spandex and 8-inch heels; can't live without animal prints; believes the tighter and the shorter the better; and spends a fortune on eyeliner and acrylic nails each year.
That's a big element of the "docu-soap," a show that appeals to more than just Americans. "Jerseylicious" has a fan base that not only reaches across the United States but worldwide, attracting a big following in Australia, Pereira and Giacomo said.
"I get e-mails from people from Australia," Giacomo said. "I had a guy from Italy e-mail me in Italian, which I don't understand....I even met a girl yesterday who lives in New Jersey, but her friend in Scotland bought her a gift certificate (for The Gatsby)."
And the Gatsby women have achieved some celebrity status.
"I get recognized when I'm in the mall with my mom," Pereira said. "My mom has that bright red hair. She stands out. When we're together, we definitely get recognized a lot. We were at a Bon Jovi concert on Memorial Day weekend — no better place for a Jersey girl to be — and people were recognizing us together. People were recognizing us separately. It's not overwhelming, but it's been a lot of fun."
DiMarco lamented the fact that when people recognize her, they see her as the evil villainess of the show.
"Everyday people run up to me and scream ‘Jerseylicious,' like it's my name!" she said. "Some people just stare at me and whisper because they are scared to say ‘Hi' to ‘the bitch!' But I am really the nicest person and people who have met me know that. So come and say ‘Hi' to me!"
Giacomo said she isn't recognized as often as the show's younger women, DiMarco and Sharpe, who are often asked to make appearances at local clubs. But she does get noticed, while walking through the local mall and out of state.
"I was in Miami on a little vaca and I was in an elevator and somebody says, ‘Hi Gayle,' and I said, ‘Hi,' Giacomo recalled. "And I looked at my girlfriend and I said, ‘Oh my god, she comes to my salon and I don't know who she is.' And she says, ‘Gayle, it's not from your salon. It's from the show.' I forget."
"Jerseylicious" proved to be a wise move for not only The Gatsby but also for The Style Network, where it was a ratings magnet. "Jerseylicious" has reached more than 9.4 million viewers since its March premiere, making the series Style's most-watched freshman season ever among women 18-34 and women 18-49.
"Jerseylicious" outperformed Style's primetime household average by more than 80 percent, and attracted more than twice as many women 18-to- 49 than the norm. The show's success was mainly driven by younger women 18-to-34, nearly tripling Style's primetime average series in that demographic.
In the first season Giacomo and Pereira brought into their salon not only DiMarco and Sharpe but also Anthony Lombardi, whose own Anthony Robert Salon in Verona was undergoing a renovation; hairstylist Gigi Liscio; and outspoken buxom blonde Alexa Prisco, the "Glam Fairy," a makeup artist who has her own business in addition to partnering with The Gatsby.
Prisco took Sharpe on as an apprentice, and laid down the law to her, after the leopard-skin-print-wearing club hopper would show up late and didn't even own the tools of the trade for a makeup artist.
Via e-mail Prisco said she is impressed with how much Sharpe has improved.
"I have definitely gained respect for Olivia," Prisco said. "She has matured as both an artist and a business person. I am very proud of her."
Viewers will not only get to see a radiant, pregnant Pereira but also a brunette, straight-haired DiMarco. In fact, she resembles Sharpe. DiMarco's new hair color and hair style are a dramatic change from Season 1, when she was a blonde who bragged about her big hair.
"I was dark all my life, I went blonde because I'm a hairdresser," DiMarco said. "Everyone told me I couldn't pull it off so I wanted to try it! But after a while of bleach retouch every day, my hair became so damaged. I had to go dark again! I missed it! I love my long dark hair! I still love volume but all that teasing really damaged it so I needed to take a break!"
This season of "Jerseylicious," which has 20 episodes versus Season 1's eight, is still shooting. Pereira said that Daniella's birth — two weeks early at seven pounds, 13 ounces, two weeks — will definitely play a part in the show. But she wouldn't say if the cameras were rolling in the delivery room when she was having her caesarian section.
"That has to do with one of the episodes, so I don't know how much and I can or cannot let you know at this point," Pereira said. "Put it this way: The show has definitely watched me during the last couple of hours of my pregnancy, and there will definitely be an episode that has something to do with Daniella's arrival. I just don't know how much is going to be used."
Giacomo is thrilled to be a grandmother, and she leaves The Gatsby early some days now to see Daniella.
"I'm a person that never leaves the salon," she said, "I'm very dedicated to my business. But some days I just split out of here a little earlier and I don't care. That's not like me."
The new season, like the old one, will have its conflicts, according to its cast members.
"Olivia and Tracy, of course, will always have their drama," Pereira said. "Obviously, they do not get along. As far as them working together, we always try to make them be professional at work. Of course, they have their drama with themselves and you're definitely going to see in the first episodes of the show what's going on with them."
Added newly brunette DiMarco, "This season we don't hold back on letting our feelings out! Last year you had to wait until episode 4 to see some drama. This season it goes down in the first five minutes! We don't mess around. We're all so comfortable with cameras now that we let loose and don't even notice them!"
And there will also be tension between Prisco and Giacomo, as the Glam Fairy's own business cuts into her work for The Gatsby.
"It's very hard when you take on people, and they have their own business, to try to combine two businesses together," Giacomo said. "And her thoughts on running a business and mine are definitely different, very different. So we have a lot of confrontation about that."
Says Prisco, "Running my own business alone is extremely difficult, so balancing the satellite space at The Gatsby with my own clientele in the northern part of New Jersey is something that is difficult but manageable."
The Glam Fairy Prisco sounded a bit bruised by the notoriety "Jerseylicious" has given her.
"My life has changed drastically because with recognition comes opinions and, unfortunately, those opinions can be very dehumanizing," Prisco said. "People stop seeing you as a person with feelings. That being said, I love all of the wonderful exposure that ‘Jerseylicious' has given to my business. However, I have trained myself to have horse blinders on when it comes to ‘opinions.'"
Season 2 of "Jerseylicious" will include speed dating, "a boob job, a pizza-tossing contest, a strip show, romances taken to new levels and even a Jersey invasion of Texas," according to The Style Network.
"The salon's been really busy," Pereira said. "I think you're going to see that in Season 2. As far as the salon goes, you're going to see some tension between us and the Glam Fairy. Me getting ready to go out on maternity leave, that was a really big thing, because I had to get people to cover my position, so it was very stressful. You're just going to see a lot of these adjustments happening."
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