The Strong Survive

Image credit: Weakest Link: Daniel Smith

BOOT CAMP Cowed contestants bristle with fear as host / drill instructor Robinson knocks them down a peg

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Weakest Link

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Married twice, with a daughter who's a TV and radio producer in Washington, D.C., Robinson has been frank in the British press about her years as an alcoholic, but now says, ''I find it a bit tedious hearing about people's near death experiences'' -- meaning her own. ''I used to have a radio show, and I would nearly slide under the table from boredom as all the American stars would come in to tell me about their 'recovery.''' Nevertheless, she's writing an autobiography that's due to be published in England in October (a U.S. deal is being negotiated). ''It's quite a shocking book: it's called Memoirs of an Unfit Mother,'' she says. ''It covers all my drinking phase.''

Between tapings of the London ''Link'' edition, Robinson is holding forth; she's out of the trademark black dress and in a peach colored bathrobe, shoes off, lying on a sofa in her office with her feet up, a lunch of chicken breast and salad nearby. Meanwhile, the next crop of contestants is a few doors down, in a green room where they're nervously nibbling at cold bacon and egg sandwiches. Twenty five year old Brian Wright says he got this far by passing a 20 question test and an audition. '''Weakest Link' is not for the fainthearted,'' he says.

Versions of ''Link'' have been exported to eight countries, all of them led by different yet red haired and female hosts. Only America is being graced, if that's the word, with the original. Phil Gurin and Stuart Krasnow, executive producers of the American version, love Robinson's ratings reign of terror. ''This is not a show about encouragement,'' says Krasnow. ''Anne is so direct, so savvy,'' says Gurin from Los Angeles, where Robinson will fly once a month to tape eight shows per visit. The producers explain that the U.S. version features a studio audience instructed to ''wear dark colors, and told, 'Don't applaud.''' Says Krasnow, ''We're going for a somber mood -- a little menacing, edge of your seat mood.''

Zucker admits there'll be some ''tweaking'' in importing the show: ''The questions needed to be Americanized,'' he notes. Americanized, hell: Given that the questions Robinson asks her English contestants tend toward high culture (''What was the nationality of the artist Gustav Klimt?''), won't the entire enterprise have to be dumbed down for Joe Six Pack over here? ''That's what I said to you when I said we're going to have to Americanize the questions,'' says Zucker.

A few months ago, NBC execs filmed a pilot in England, recruiting local Americans. ''I did the pilot with what appeared to be a lot of vice presidents from [American] banks who didn't know what currency you had in Vietnam and that sort of thing,'' Robinson laughs. She makes no excuse for her impertinence, on or off camera: ''I think the [tone] of 'Weakest Link' is nothing that any journalist doesn't find in any newsroom -- it's a kind of irreverence, a sense of the absurd, of not taking things too seriously, and a good degree of irony.''

Speaking of which, NBC also taped a pilot with ''Survivor'' winner Richard Hatch as host. (If the prime time version does well, there's a chance the network will put a Hatch helmed daytime version into syndication.) So did Robinson meet the gabby nudist? ''Yes, and he was kind enough to give me a copy of his book, '101 Survival Secrets,' which was to teach me how to conduct myself better'' -- and here she rolls her eyes with elaborate sarcasm.

Although Robinson's spunk is not in doubt, her success Stateside is: Will the rough-and-tumble ''Weakest Link'' prove to be NBC's ''Survivor,'' or just the XFL in drag? Either way, it's been a pretty good adventure for a self described ''aging, redheaded, ex- drunk, Irish Catholic Liverpudlian with bad ankles and a crooked face.'' She's her own show's strongest link. Goodbye.