( 4UMF NEWS ) Dancing With The Stars Cast Revealed:
Dancing with the Stars unveiled its first all-star cast Friday, a list of familiar faces from the hit show’s 14 seasons in its seven-year run.
The list includes Pamela Anderson, Kelly Monaco, Emmitt Smith, Melissa Rycroft, Joey Fatone, Helio Castroneves, Drew Lachey, Bristol Palin, Kirstie Alley, Apolo Anton Ohno, Shawn Johnson and Gilles Marini.
And for the first time, viewers will vote for a 13th cast member, either Kyle Massey, Carson Kressley or Sabrina Bryan, who are being encouraged to campaign to win votes. (Viewers have four weeks to choose on abc.com).
The new season begins Sept. 24.
Producer Conrad Green says the stars “represent many different seasons,” and allows the show to “get back some of the best personalities” from its run. “”We want the whole season to be a celebration of the people who have taken part.”
The stars won’t all have their original dancing partners (the pairings will be announced Aug. 13). But “the level of competition is going to be quite intense,” Green says. “And we’ll probably have to recalibrate the judging because otherwise it will be all 9s and 10s right out of the box.”
Some of the stars appeared before TV critics: Palin reasons that “the press is going to talk about me no matter what, so I might as well have fun.” (She also has a Lifetime reality series, and her dad Todd is on NBC’s new Stars Earn Stripes series.) What are they not looking forward to? “Not getting a lot of surgery after the competition,” Marini says. And not getting eliminated, adds Lachey.
Host Tom Bergeron says the show’s first all-star cast provides a “target-rich” opportunity: In previous seasons, “I had to be a bit more tentative with the stars; they were nervous, learning it, finding their way. But all these guys have done it, so I don’t have to be as nice.”
